734 _ Apocynaceae, 
agglutinated to the anthers or adnate to the projections of the 
foot of the connective. Ovules anatropous, usually pendulous, few 
or many in each carpel. Fruit entire, baccate, drupaceous, samaroid 
or consisting of 2 (rarely 3—5) baccate or follicular mericarps, 
rarely breaking up into 2 or 4 valves. Seeds various, frequently 
compressed, very often with a tuft of hairs (coma) at one or both 
ends, or winged, rarely with a plumose apical or basal awn; testa 
coriaceous, crustaceous or membranous. Endosperm, if present, 
cartilaginous or fleshy. Embryo straight; cotyledons usually flat, 
rarely convolute or contortuplicate; radicle superior. — Trees, erect 
or scandent shrubs or perennial (very rarely annual) herbs, more 
or less laticiferous. Leaves simple, generally opposite, sometimes 
whorled, rarely spirally arranged, entire, pinnatinerved. Stipules, if 
present, short, intrapetiolar, and often joining around the stem in 
a transverse ridge, very rarely one on each side of the petiole, or 
represented by spines. Inflorescences made up of (often much 
reduced) cymes, terminal or pseudolateral or truly axillary; cymes 
solitary or clustered or gathered in loose or congested, often 2—3- 
tomous, panicles, corymbs or pseudo-umbels; bracts usually small 
and deciduous. Flowers small to large and then often very showy. 
The Order is abundantly represented in the tropical and subtropical 
regions of the New and the Old World, with a very few species in the more 
temperate districts of the nothern and southern hemispheres, but does not 
extend to arctic or high alpine regions. Genera about 120; species nearly 
1000. The family includes many poisonous plants, some (as the ordeal-tree 
of Madagascar, Tanghinia venenifera) being exceedingly virulent-others are 
employed medicinally as drastic purgatives or febrifuges. A few species yield 
indiarubber, but on the whole the family is not of much economic importance. 
The flowers are often of considerable beauty, and many genera are cultivated 
in gardens or greenhouses. The Order is closely allied to Asclepiadeae, 
differing chiefly in the indefinite free pollen-granules. 
A. Tribe 1: Plumerioideae. — Corolla salver-shaped, rarely 
funnel-shaped; lobes overlapping to the left, rarely to 
the right. Anthers linear, oblong or elliptic, shortly 
and obtusely 2-lobed (rarely sub-sagittate) at the base; 
anther-cells polliniferous and dehiscing to the base or 
nearly so, not diverging below. Ovary synearpous, 
1—2-celled, or apocarpous with 2 (rarely 83—4) free or 
partly connate carpels; stigma various, usually distinctly 
apiculate, rarely hairy or with frill-like appendages, 
often exuding more or less glutinous matter and then 
sometimes sticking to the anthers in the dry state, 
otherwise free. Fruit baceate, drupaceous or dry and 
