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SAPINDACEE. (SOAPBERRY FAMILY.) 
Trees, shrubs, or even herbs, mostly with compound or lobed leaves, 
usually with unsymmetrical or irregular flowers, and ovules few but 
seldom solitary.—An order with such diverse characters as to be al- 
most impossible to define as a whole. The essential characters are 
given under the suborders. 
I. SAPINDEX. Flowers polygamous, irregular or unsymmetrical (regular in Sa- 
pindus): stamens more numerous than the petals, seldom twice as many: leaves 
alternate (opposite in Avsculus). 
* Flowers irregular. 
4 Shrubby or herbaceous climbers, with 4 petals and solitary ovules. 
1. Urvillea. Fruit consisting of 3 indehiscent samaras (winged fruits) seed-bear- 
ing in the middle: leaves stipulate, 3-foliolate, 
2, Serjania. Fruit consisting of 3 indehiscent samaras seed-bearing at apex: 
leaves without stipules, 3-foliolate or pinnate. 
3. Cardiospermum. Fruit 3-lobed and inflated, membranaceous, dehiscent: leaves 
without stipules, twice ternate. 
._ + Trees or erect shrubs, with 4 or 5 petals, and 2 ovules in each cell. 
4. ZEsculus. Calyx 5-lobed: petals not appendaged : ovary sessile: leaves oppo- 
site and digitate. 
5, Ungnadia. Calyx 5-parted: petals fimbriate-crested: ovary stipitate: leaves 
alternate and pinnate, 
* * Flowers regular. 
6. Sapindus. Calyx 5-parted : petals 5: ovary 3-lobed, but ripening into a berry 
formed of a single globose carpel : leaves abruptly pinnate. 
Il. ACERINES. Flowers polygamous or dicecious, regular, often without petals 
leaves opposite, without stipules : fruit consisting of a double samara, divaricately 
9-winged above: mostly trees. 
7. Acer. Leaves palmately lobed or rarely divided: flowers polygamous. 
8. Negundo. Leaves pinnate: flowers diwcious, apetalous. 
Ill. SraPHYLE. Flowers perfect and regular: fruit a pod, mostly several- 
seeded.—Here has been placed the following anomalous genus: 
9, Glossopetalon. Lobes of the calyx and slender spreading petals 5: stamens 
10: fruit a cartilaginous 1 or 9-seeded follicle: leaves alternate, simple and entire, 
with small adnate stipules. 
1. URVILLEA HBK. 
Shrubby climbers, with alternate stipulate 3-foliolate leaves, entire 
or coarsely toothed leaflets, axillary racemes of small whitish flowers 
on more or less elongated peduncles which bear 2 coiled tendrils (cirrhi) 
at apex, and fruit consisting of 3 broadly winged membranaceous sa- 
maras which are seed-bearing in the middle. 
1. U. Mexicana Gray. Somewhat tomentose : leaflets ovate, acute or acuminate, 
doubly serrate, somewhat incised, softly tomentose beneath, on margined petiolules: 
racemes elongated: scales of the petals very long barbate-ciliate at apex and 
hooded,—In Cameron and Hidalgo Counties and adjacent Mexico. 
