CAMELLIA OR TEA FAMILY. 75 



23. STERCULIACE^I, STERCULIA FAMILY. 



Chiefly a tropical family, to which belongs the THEOBROMA or 

 CHOCOLATE-TREE ; in common cultivation known here only by a 

 single species of 



1. MAHERNIA. (Name an anagram of Hermannia, a genus very like 

 it. ) Calyx, corolla, &c. as in the Mallow Family ; but the stamens only 5, 

 one before each petal ; the filaments monadelphous only at the base and en- 

 larged about the middle, and the anthers with 2 parallel cells. The edges of 

 the base of the petals rolled inwards, making a hollow claw. Ovary 5-celled, 

 with several ovules in each cell : styles 5, united at the base. 



M. Verticillata. Cult, from Cape of Good Hope, in conservatories pro- 

 ducing a succession of honey-yellow sweet-scented small blossoms, on slender 

 peduncles, all winter and spring ; a sort of woody perennial, with slender and 

 spreading or hanging roughish branches and small green irregularly pinnatifid 

 leaves ; the specific name given because the leaves seem to be whorled ; but this 

 is because the stipules, which arc cut into several linear divisions, imitate leaves. 



24. TILIACE-2E, LINDEN FAMILY. 



Chiefly a tropical family, represented here only by an herbaceous 

 CORCHORUS on our southernmost borders, and by the genus of fine 

 trees which gives the name. 



1. TILIA, LINDEN, LIME-TREE, BASSWOOD. (The old Latin 

 name.) Sepals 5, valvate in the bud, as in the Mallow Family, but decidu- 

 ous. Petals 5, imbricated in the bud, spatulate-oblong. Stamens numerous; 

 their filaments cohering in 5 clusters, sometimes with a petal-like body in each 

 cluster ; anthers 2-cclled. Pistil with a 5-celled ovary, having 2 ovules in 

 each cell, in fruit becoming a rather woody globular I - 2-seeded little nut. 

 Style 1 : stigma 5-toothed. Embryo with a slender radicle and leaf-like lobed 

 cotyledons folded up in the albumen. Trees with mucilaginous shoots, fibrous 

 inner bark (l>ast), soft white wood, alternate ixmndish and serrate leaves more 

 or less heart-shaped and commonly oblique at the base, deciduous stipules, 

 and a cyme of small, dull cream-colored, honey -bearing flowers, borne in early 

 summer on a nodding axillary peduncle which is united to a long and narrow 

 leaf-like bract. 

 * A. petal-like scale before each petal, to the base of which the stamens are joined, 



T. Americana, AMERICAN LINDEN or COMMON BASSWOOD. A hand- 

 some and large forest-tree, with leaves of rather firm texture and smooth or 

 smoothish both sides, or in one variety thinner and more downy but not white 

 beneath. 



T. heteroph^lla, WHITE LINDEN. Along the Alleghany region from 

 Penn. and Kentucky S. ; has larger leaves silvery white with a fine down under- 

 neath. 



* * No scales with the stamens. Natives of Europe, 



T. Europaea, EUROPEAN L., embraces both the SMALL-LEAVED variety, 

 which is commonly planted about cities, and the LARGE-LEAVED or DUTCH L., 

 with leaves as large and firm as those of our wild Basswood. 



25. CAMELLIACE^, CAMELLIA or TEA FAMILY. 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate and simple feather-veined leaves, 

 and no stipules ; the flowers large and showy, mostly axillary, reg- 

 ular, with both sepals and petals imbricated in the bud ; the very 

 numerous stamens with filaments more or less united at the base 

 with each other and with the base of the corolla : anthers 2-celled : 

 ovary and thick or woody pod 5-celled, with one or more seeds in 



