TREE OF HEAVEN 299 



Flowers in erect panicles of cymes, at length more or 

 less pendent, opening with or soon after the leaves, pale 

 green, with hairy pedicels and perianths ; the lateral male, 

 others mixed in various degrees. Hermaphrodite flowers 

 with glabrous ovaries. Honey exposed, entomophilons. 

 Fruit glabrous or velvety with large, smooth, green, hori- 

 zontally spreading wings. Pollen sulphur-yellow, oblong- 

 truncate, with 3 longitudinal striated ridges, about 54 //, 

 long. 



** Ovary of 3 5 carpels. Fruit not a double 

 samara. 



t Ovary of 5 compressed carpels, separating as 

 they ripen ; styles 5, united ; stamens 10. 



Ailanthus glandulosa, Desf. Tree of Heaven (Fig. 117). 

 A tree with large pinnate leaves, allied to the Sumach 

 and the Maples, &c. ; with small flowers crowded in 

 terminal panicles, and polygamous. 



Calyx of 5 half-ovate small segments, united below. 

 Petals 5, much larger, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, with 

 inflexed margins, hairy at the base, valvate in bud, 

 hypogynous and free. Stamens 10, with long subulate 

 filaments, hairy below, and inserted beneath a hypogynous 

 10-lobed fleshy disc which surrounds the base of the 

 ovary. In some flowers the stamens are reduced in 

 number or are absent, so that polygamy results. Anthers 

 ovate or ovate-lanceolate. 



Ovary of 5 carpels, syncarpous by their inner margins, 

 flattened laterally, obovate to boat-shaped, each containing 

 one ovule. In the </ flowers the carpels are rudimentary 

 or even obsolete. Styles 5, united, with as many oblong 

 reflexed stigmas. As the fruit ripens, the carpels separate, 

 and each forms a thin, linear-lanceolate, compressed, veined 



