444 DICOTYLEDONES. 



slightly united. Gjnoeceum simple ; ovary generally multilocular ; 

 style short or entirely wanting. A disc is nearly always developed 

 in the flower, but is found sometimes inside the staminal whorl, 

 sometimes outside it or between the stamens. The ovules are 

 apotropous (anatropous with dorsal or ventral raphe). 



Order 1. Celastraceae. Euonymus enropcea (Spindle-tree) may 

 be chosen as a type. It is a shrub with simple, opposite leaves 

 and small caducous stipules. The small, greenish-yellow flowers, 

 borne in regularly-branched dichasia, are regular, ^ , with 4 whorls, 

 4- (or 5-) merous in regular alternation. There is a thick disc 

 upon which the polypetalous corolla (imbricate in the bud) and 

 the stamens are borne, with a slightly perigynous insertion. The 

 style is short and thick ; the ovary has 2 erect ovules in each 

 loculus. The fruit is a red, 4-valvate capsule with loculicidal 

 dehiscence ; the seeds are few in number, and have a large, red- 

 yellow aril (developed from the micropyle). Embryo green, in a 

 large, fleshy, white endosperm. The dingy yellow flowers are generally 

 visited only by flies and ants for the sake of the honey secreted by the disc, and 

 while they run about on the flowers they touch the anthers and stigmas, now 

 with one part of the body, now with another. The flower is protandrons. The 

 stigmas are not developed till several days after the opening of the anthers. 

 Celastrus, Cassine, Catha, etc. 



38 genera ; 300 species. Distributed over the entire globe, with the exception 

 of the colder districts, and especially in the Tropics. Some are ornamental 

 bushes (Ruonijmm japoitica). The leaves of Catha edulis are used by the 

 Arabs and Abyssinians in the same way as those of Coca by the Peruvians. 



Order 2. Hippocrateaceae. 150 species; tropical; chiefly lianes. So, 

 P5, A3, G3. Anthers extrorse. 



Order 3. Aquifoliaceae (Hollies). The genus Ilex forms 

 almost the entire order. (1/5 species out of 180 ; especially from 



S. Am.) They are shrubs or trees 

 with scattered, leathery, simple 

 leaves (in Ilex aquifolium, spiny) 

 with very small stipules. The 

 flowers are small, white, and borne 

 in few-flowered inflorescences in the 

 axils of the foliage-leaves ; they are 

 most frequently unisexual and dioe- 

 cious. There are 4-5 sepals, petals, 

 stamens and carpels in regular al- 

 ternation ; the calyx and corolla 



FIG. 47". Ilex aquifolium : .. . , 



magnified flower. have their leaves slightly connate ; 



