SAPINDACE^. ^9 



no petals, large anthers, a dry fruit breaking septi- 

 cidally into two to six valves, winged on the back, 

 and seeds without aril containing a spirally coiled 

 embryo. 



Species 40 to 45 all with two exceptions, Australian. 



Najned by Linncnus in honour of Remhert Dodoons a hotamst and 

 physician. 



Dodonaea viscosa Linn. ; F.B.I, i 697, XX i. A 

 bush or small tree with thin ascending branches, the 

 youngest angular or compressed, the older round, not 

 lenticelled. Leaves alternate, erect, simple, 2 to 4 inches 

 by /^, M inch elliptic or oblanceolate, acute at both ends 

 and narrowed to the hardly distinct petiole, dotted above 

 and below with small surface glands and shining with 

 the secretion poured from them, quite glabrous : midrib 

 prominent, lateral nerves straight, close (1/16 inch apart) ; 

 margin entire revolute. Flowers in terminal cymose 

 bunches, some unisexual. Sepals five, oblong, ciliate. No 

 petals. Stamens eight with large (^ to 3/16 inch) anthers 

 and very short filaments, set in the normal flowers outside 

 the small disc which surrounds the ovary, in the purely 

 staminate flowers without disc. Ovary three to four- 

 celled, with short angular style and lobed stigma. Fruit 

 a reddish or pinkish-brown capsule with very thin walls 

 and three or four broad wings, breaking through the 

 partitions into its constituent, winged, cells. Seeds black 

 with only a very short thick stalk, but no aril. t. 68. 

 Wight 111. i. t. 52. (D. burmanniana.) 



In open places and on the edges of sholas, very abundant in 

 the drier parts round Kotagiri and the Katee valley on the 

 Nilgiris, less so near Ootacamund, but there is a grove of the 

 plant in a sheltered valley on the slope of Gyapakkum above 

 Pykara, 7,300 feet. Fyson 547, 1002. 



Gen. Dist. One of the commonest plants in India, extending from the 

 Indus to Ceylon and distributed in all warm countries. 



