

SOAPBERRY FAMILY. 89 



I. BLADDER-NUT FAMILY ; has perfect and regular 

 flowers, stamens as many as the petals, several bony seeds with 

 a straight embryo in scanty albumen, and opposite compound leaves 

 both stipulate and stipellate. 



1. STAPHYLEA. Erect sepals, petals, and stamens 5; the latter borne on the 



margin of a fleshy disk which lines the bottom of the calyx. Styles 3, slen- 

 der, separate or lightly cohering: ovary strongly 3-lobed, in fruit becoming 

 a bladdery 3-lobed 3-celled and several-seeded large pod. Shrubs, with pin- 

 nately compound leaves of 3 or 5 leaflets. 



II. SOAPBERRY FAMILY PROPER; has flowers often 

 polygamous or dioecious, and more or less irregular or unsymmetri- 

 cal. only 1 or 2 ovules, ripening but a single seed in each cell of 

 the ovary, the embryo coiled or curved, without albumen. No 

 stipules. 



* Leaves alternate. Pod bladdery-inflated, except in No. 4. 



2. CARDIOSPKRMUM. Herbs, with twice ternate and cut-toothed leaves, climb- 



ing by hook-like tendrils in the flower-clusters. Sepals 4, the inner pair 

 larger. Petals 4, each with an appendage on the inner face, that of the two 

 upper large and petal-like, of the two lower crest-like and with a deflexed 

 spur or process, raised on a claw. Disk irregular, enlarged into two glands, 

 one before each lower petal. Stamens 8, turned towards the upper side of 

 the flower away from the glands, the filaments next to them shorter. Styles 

 or stigmas 3, short: ovary triangular, 3-celled, with a. single ovule rising from 

 the middle of each cell. Fruit a large and thin bladdery 3-lobed pod: seeds 

 bony, globose, with a scale-like heart-shaped aril adherent to the base. 



3. KCELRKIJTKRIA. Small tree, with pinnate leaves. Sepals 5. Petals 3 or 4 



(the place of the others vacant), each with a small 2-parted scale-like appen- 

 dage attached to its claw. Disk enlarging into a lobe before each petal. 

 Stamens 5 - 8. declined: filaments hairy. Style single, slender: ovary trian- 

 gular, 3-celled, with a pair of ovules in each cell. Pod bladdery, 3-lobed, 

 3-celled. 



4. SAPIXDUS. Trees, with abruptly pinnate leaves. Sepals and petals each 5, 



or rarely 4; the latter commonly with a little scale or appendage adhering to 

 the short claw. Stamens mostly 8, equal. Style single: ovary 3-lobed, 

 3-celled, with a single ovule in each cell. Fruit mostly a globular and fleshy 

 1-celled berry (the other cells abortive), filled with a large globular seed, its 

 coat crustaceous : cotyledons thick and fleshy. 



# * Leases opfwsite, o/"5 - 9 digitate leaflets. Pod leathery, not inflated. 

 6. ^ESCULUS. Trees oj- shrubs. Calyx 5-lobed or 5-toothed. Petals 4 or 5, 

 more or less unequal, on claws enclosed in the calyx, not appendaged. Sta- 

 mens 7, rarely 6 or 8: filaments slender, often unequal. Style single, as 

 also the minute stigma: ovary 3-celled, with a pair of ovules in each cell. 

 Fruit a leathery pod, splitting' at maturity into 3 valves, ripening 1 -3 very 

 large, chestnut-like, hard-coated seeds : the kernel of these consists of the very 

 thick cotyledons firmly joined together, and a small incurved radicle. 



III. MAPLE FAMILY ; has flowers generally polygamous 

 or dioecious, and sometimes apetalous, a mostly 2-lobed and 2-celled 

 ovary, with a pair of ovules in each cell, ripening a single seed 

 in each cell of the winged fruit. Embryo with long and thin coty- 

 ledons, coiled or crumpled. (See Lessons, p. o, fig. 13, &c.) 

 Leaves opposite : no stipules. 



6. ACER. Trees, or a few only shrubs, with palmately-lobed or even parted leaves. 



Calyx mostly 5-cleft. Petals as many or none, and stamens 3 - 8 or rarely 

 more, borne 'on the edge of the disk." Styles or stigmas 2, slender. Fruit 

 a pair of samaras or key-fruits, united at the base or inner face and winged 

 from the back. Occasionally the ovary is 3-celled and the fruit 3-winged. 



7. NEGUNDO. Trees, with pinnate leaves of 3 - 7 leaflets, and dio3cious very 



small flowers, without petals or disk; the calyx minute: ijtamens 4 or 5- 

 Fruit, &c. of Acer. CT ie 



