238 ILI. RHAliNACE.f:. 



stipules small or 0, sometimes transformed into prickles. Flowers 

 hermaphrodite or polygamous, small, greenish, usually axillary, solitary 

 or variously fascicled. Calyx 4-5-fid ; lobes shortly triangular, erect 

 or recurved, usually keeled within, valvate. Petals 4-5 (rarely 0), in- 

 serted on the throat of the calyx-tube, usually less than its lobes, cucul- 

 late or involute, sessile or clawed. Stamens 4-5, opposite to and inserted 

 with the petals, often enclosed within their folds ; anthers versatile, 

 2-celled, sometimes ovoid and dehiscing longitudinally, sometimes reni- 

 form and 1-celled, by the confluence of the cells at top, aud opening 

 into 2 valves by an arched slit. Disk fleshy and filling the calyx-tube, 

 or thin and lining it, entire or lobed. Ovary sessile, free or immersed 

 in the disk, wholly free from, or more or less adnate to the calyx-tube, 

 3- (rarely 2-4-) celled ; ovule 1 (rarely 2) in each cell, erect, anatropous ; 

 raphe dorsal ; style erect, short, usually 2-4-fid. Pruit superior or 

 inferior, 3- (more rarely 1-4-) celled, capsular and often winged, or 

 drupaceous. Seeds with fleshy albumen (rarely exalbuminous) ; embryo 

 large, straight ; cotyledons fl;it, fleshy. — Distrib. Warm regions and 

 tropics of both hemispheres ; genera 37 ; species about 420. 



Fruit dry, indehiscent, 1 -celled ; ovary ^-inferior 1. Ventilaqo. 



Fruit drupaceous ; stone l—i-celled ; ovary |- inferior 2. Zizyphus. 



Fruit baccate ; pyrenes 2-4 ; ovary superior. 



Disk Ihin, lining the calyx-tube 3. Ruamnus. 



Disk fleshy, filling the calyx-tube. 



Flowers pedicelled, in axillnry umbels ■ 4. Scdti.\. 



Flowers sessile, in long spicate panicles... 5. Saqeretia. 



Fruit capsular. 



Fruit globose ; ovary ^-inferior 6. Colubrina. 



Fruit boldly angled ; ovary quite inferior 7. Gouaxia. 



1. VENTILA.GO, Gisrtn. 



Scandent shrubs. Leaves subdistichous, alternate, petioled ; stipules 

 very minute, caducous. Flowers small, in terminal and axillary panicles 

 (rarely fascicles). Calyx 5-fid ; tube obconic ; lobes spreading, acute, 

 keeled within. Petals 5, deltoid or obcordate, cucullate, involute. 

 Stamens 5, adnate to the base of the petals and a little longer than 

 them. Disk 5-gonous, naked or pubescent, its margin free. Ovary 

 immersed in the dis!<, subglobose, 2-celled ; style very short, compressed ; 

 .stigmas 2, short. Kipe fruit subglobose, 1-celled, l-seeded, surrounded 

 at its base or middle by the adherent calyx-tube, the fruit prolonged 

 into a linear or linear-oblong coriac;^ous apical w'wg. Seed subglobose, 

 exalbuminous. — Distkiu. Tropics ; species about 16. 



Flowers in terminal panicles. 



N ut girt at the base by t bo persistent calyx 1 . T^ madrastpaiana. 



Nut girt round tiie nn'ddle by the persistent calyx 2. V. rnlyculatu. 



Flowers in axillary fascicles .' 3. V. hniihaieiisis. 



1. Ventilago madraspatana, Go'rtn. Fmct. v. 1 (1788) p. 223, 

 t. 49, fig. 2. A large much-branched woody climber; young branches 

 and panicles pubescent. I>eaves 2-4 by 1-1^ in., oblong-lanceolate or 

 elli|)tic-ovate, subacute, entire or more or less crenate, glabrous above, 

 glabrous or puberulous beneath, base routided or acute ; main nerves 

 4-H pairs, alternate, ascending; petioles |-j| in. long ; stipules small, 

 subulate. Flowers greenish, witli an offensive odor, ^ in. in diani., 



