MVRTACE^. 149 



being pushed off by the very numerous, long, slender, 

 many-seriate stamens, with small versatile anthers. 

 Ovary immersed in the calyx-tube, three or four-celled, 

 with slender style and small stigma : ovules many. Fruit, 

 a hard conical capsule, opening by valves at the top. 

 Seeds small, linear-cuneate : embryo straight, cotyledons 

 longer than the radicle. 



Species 150, almost all Australian, but introduced now in 

 many parts of the world. The one planted so much at Ootaca- 

 mund is E. globulus Lab. 



The change in the position and shape of the leaves appears to be an 

 adaptation to a dry climate, for vertically hanging leaves do not get so 

 much sun in the middle of the day, its hottest time, as the horizontal ones 

 proper to this family would. The leaf-stalk, which is then formed, net 

 only is necessary if the leaves are to hang free of the branch, but enables 

 the blades to give to the wind and not suffer as they would if attached 

 stiffly like the young leaves. The stripping of the bark is unusual, and it 

 seems to have at any rate this advantage that parasitic I.oranthuses do not 

 get a foothold as they do on the Melanoxylon, Tea, and other trees. 



SYNCARPIA. 59 II.* 



Turpentine tree. 



Trees with the flowers coalescing in globular heads, 

 the inferior ovaries joined in fruit into an irregular mass 

 with hardly more than the round crater-like mouths of 

 each flower showing. 



Species 2 or 3 only, x\ustralian. 



Named from syn with, and carpon fruit in allusion to thisi 



Syncarpia glomulifcra Sm. (= S. laurifolia Ten) ; 

 m* I. Leaves elliptic, about 3J^ inches by I inch, faintly 

 and closely reticulate below, evergreen. Peduncles of the 

 flower masses l% inches, in the leaf-axils or at the end of 

 short branches. Sepals four, persistent as hard triangular 

 teeth round the crater-mouths of the fruit. Petals four, 

 spreading. Stamens many, in one or two series, inter- 

 rupted occasionally between the petals : filaments very 

 slender : anthers versatile, opening by longitudinal slits. 



