166 ’ MONADELPHIA DODECANDRIA. Bombazx. 
Bark smooth, and thinly armed with conic-based prickles, 
while young, green, then ash-coloured ; branches sub-verti- 
celled, and spreading horizontally like the stages of the com- 
pound table called a dumb waiter ; they are generally in 
threes, and at all times destitute of prickles, and like the 
trunk, covered with smooth, ash-coloured bark, Leaves al- 
ternate, petiolate, digitate. Leaflets short-petioled, generally 
seven in number, though sometimes varying from four to ten, 
lanceolate, entire, and smooth on both sides, the interior by 
far the smallest, being from one to two inches long, while the 
exterior are two or three times. longer, Petioles round, about 
the length of the longest leaflets. Stipules small, caducous. 
Flowers numerous, in fascicles, about the end of the branch- 
lets, pretty large, of a dull white colour, peduncled, droop- 
ing. Peduncles clavate, three, tour, five, or more from the 
axillary germ of the fallen leaf; one-flowered, round and 
smooth. Ca/ya one-leaved, four or five-toothed ; on the out- 
side a little rugose, on the inside somewhat villous, Petals 
five, oblong, spreading, villous on the outside, smooth within, 
Filaments five, ad smooth, rather shorter than the corol, 
united at the base into a thick fleshy envelope for the germ. _ 
Anthers large, consisting of two or three variously convolut- 
ed lobes, with a double line of bright yellow pollen on the 
exterior margin. Germ conical, Style as long as the sta- 
mens, much contracted near the base by the fleshy envelope, 
formed by the united bases of the filaments, immediately 
above it is much swelled, and considerably bent to one side. 
Stigma headed, obscurely five-lobed. Capsule (in our Ln- 
dian plant) oblong, in size and shape like a smooth skinned 
cucumber, when ripe somewhat ligneous, and not readily 
opening spontaneously, five-celled, five-valved, partitions 
membranaceous, Seeds numerous, somew hat pear-shaped, 
smooth, black, each re in its own peepee portion of 
carpium of the same plant, which he calli Ceiba pentandrasis so 
much too thick at the apex for our Indian tree. tangs 
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