ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY. 173 
equal in number to the placentas. Fruit baccate, or capsular, and loculicide; cells polysperm- 
ous, usually incomplete. Seeds covered with a glutinous or resinous pulp, or arillate. Embryo 
minute, contained ina fleshy albumen near the hilum: radicle long: cotyledons very short,— 
Leaves simple, alternate, exstipulate. Flowers sometimes polygamous.” 
nearly correct than any of those which have gone before, and seems strongly supported by the 
fact of Dr. Roxburgh having referred one species of Pittosporum to the genus Celastrus, his 
C. verticellatus being in truth a Pittosporum. The variable character of the fruit in both, the 
loculicidal dehiscence of the capsular forms, and the usually albuminous seed of both, are all in 
favour of this station for the order, add to which, Bartling places it between Rhamneae and 
Celastrineae in his class Trricoceae. 
~ Geocrapuicat Distrisution. New Holland is unquestionably the head quarters of this 
order, all the genera, except Pittosporum and Senaceae, being confined to that country ; species 
of Pittosporum are however very extensively distributed over the globe, being found not only 
widely diffused in Austr@lia, but also in the Moluccas, China, Japan, and India, from the southern 
provinces of Ceylon up to the foot of the Himalaya mountains, and even in Madeira, 
Prorertizs anD Usgs. Nothing of any importance is known on this head. The wood 
of a species of Senacia, a native of the Mauritius, is handsomely veined, and the berries of a 
species of Bellardiera are eatable. The seeds of the Indian species are covered with a fragrant 
resinous fluid, which however soon dries on exposure to the air and loses its smell. 
Pittasporum Ceylanicum, (R.W.) Shrubby, diffuse, ra- form, each division corymbose, petals 5, linear, about 
i hree times the length of the sepals: young fruit 
tire, glabrous, congested near the summits of the densely clothed with greyish tomentum, an termina- 
nehes: panicles axillary and terminal; several to- ted by the persistent style and stigma: fruit glabrous, 
gether on the apex of bel Mees Fr pag, bd from the 2-celled, coe 
axils of a whorl of 4 leaves: peduncles longish, fili- Ceylon on the banks of streams among thick jungle. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE 70. 
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1. Pittosporum Neel gherrense—natural size. : if 
2. A flower partially dissected, showing the insertion __ — 
of the stamens, the ovary, style and sti «Sie 8. magni, : 
,» 3. Anthers back and front views. = 9 + —— ent transversely, all albuminous—the cen- 
4. Ovary cut transversely, imperfectly 2-celled, tral circle a mere flourish of the draughtsman—with the 
5. ———— vertically, ovules superposed, exceptions mentioned, all more or less magny 
6. A mature capsule after dehiscence. 
7. A seed—natural size. 
ee 
