38 NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 
XXIV.—CELASTRINES. 
This family, though including only about 250 species, has a very wide range, every 
quarter of the globe claiming some of them as itsown. From the equator they extend 
on either side far into the temperate zone, and, though frequent within the tropics, are still 
more abundant beyond them. Though, to this extent, an extra-tropical family, I feel yet 
disposed to view it as pretty equally divided, or probably even the tropical forms predomi- 
nate as a tropical climate prevails many degrees beyond the tropic. The extra-tropical ten- 
dency, however, of so large a portion of the order may perhaps account for their frequency 
on the Neilgherries. Here we find Turpinia, three or four species of Euonymus, 4 or 8 of 
Microtropis several of Celastrus and high on the slopes Pleurostylia and Eloeodendron. Since 
the publication of DeCandolle’s Prodromus the number of described species has been doubled. 
He divided the order into three tribes or sub-orders, Staphyliacee, Celastrinee and Aguifolia- 
cee or Ilicinew. More recent writers have elevated each of these to the rank of distinct 
orders. This arrangement I only partly adopt here. 
The distinction between Staphyliaceoe and Celastrineae rests principally on habit, 
the former having compound, the latter simple, leaves. Beyond that I can discover no essen- 
tial difference, and that, judging from analogy, seems scarcely deserving of having so higha 
value assigned to it. As a sectional character it is good, but scarcely amounts to an ordinal 
distinction, I have therefore preserved DeCandolle’s section in preference to adopting 
Lindley and Bartling’s order, though the latter has been taken up by Endlicher and others. 
Aquifoliaceae, on the other hand, have been removed from this to the following sub-class, 
on account of a difference in the position of the petals and stamens relatively to the ovary. 
In all the preceding orders these parts are said to be Hypogynous, that is, attached 
close under, or, as it were,’round the neck of the ovary, and not into the calyx. In this and the 
following they are attached to the calyx, distinct from the ovary, and hence are said to be Peri- 
gynous, that is placed round about (not under) the pistil. In the former, the sepals may, and 
sometimes do, drop leaving the corolla and stamens, in the latter that cannot happen: here , 
they may, and generally do, fall leaving the calyx, but the calyx cannot fall, leaving them. 
In the perigynous orders the calyx is moreover generally more or less tubular at the base, 
and lined with what is called a disk or torus to which the petals and stamens are attached. 
DeCandolle, availing himself of these structural differences, has grouped together all the 
orders in which they are found to form his sub-class of Calyciflorae, in contradistinction to the 
Hypogynous orders, of which he forms another sub-class under the designation of Thalami- 
florae. 
His third tribe Aguifoliaceae differs from the rest of the order in having a mono- 
petalous hypogynous corolla bearing the stamens: it has therefore been removed, and form- 
ed into a new order, under the name of Iicineae,and placed in the next sub-class distinguished 
by having their petals cohering, forming a Monopetalous Corolla, with an inferior attach- 
ment, which he has distingushed by the name of Corollifloreae. 
These explanations of this part of DeCandolle’s system I have deemed necessary, to 
show the grounds on which more recent observers have departed from the arrangement 
reg eat Botanist, in remoying one of his sections to forma distinct order in a different 
sub-class, 
