Sapindus.| SAPINDACEAE. 85 
the lower petals. Stamens 8, oblique, unequal. Ovary excentrical, 3-celled, 
with 1 ovule in each cell ascending from the axis. Stigmas 3, nearly 
sessile. Capsule membranous, vesicular, more or ieee 3-cornered , loculi- 
cidal. Seed in the center of each cell, oe with a thick fanis or 
small aril. — Herbs or undershrubs, mostly climbing. Leaves dissected. 
lowers Pag small, on long acilaxy. apPdar ok usually bearing a tendril 
under the panicle. 
A small American genus, of which 2 species are also widely spread over the Old World 
iin the tropics 
1. C. Halicacabum, L. — DC. Prod. I, 601. — A straggling or climbing 
annual or biennial, several feet in length, glabrous or slightly pubescent. 
Leaves usually twice ternate, with ovate or ovate-lanceolate segments, 
coarsely toothed or ike : the upper Waves smaller, narrower and less 
divided. Peduncles 2—3‘ long, bearing a double or treble short recurved 
tendril under the small panicle, which is often reduced to an umbel o 
ew small white flowers. Capsule flat on the top, usually pubescent, 
about 6“ in diameter. — Benth. Fl. Hongk. p. 46. — C. microcarpum, Kth. 
On all islands, but not common, in open glades or on the outskirts of woods, trailing 
over shrubs or crawling among the herbage. A native probably of America, ioe now 
scattered over most tropical countries. 
2. SAPINDUS, L. 
Sepals 5, imbricate in 2 series. Petals 5 or rarely 4, each with a scale 
erally hairy; a 
Style Seca stig 2—4-lobed. Ovule 1 in each cell, ascending from 
the base of the axis. Fruit of 3—1 indehiscent roundish cocci, the 
epicarp coriaceous, the mesocarp fleshy, containing saponine, the endocarp 
chartaceous. Ai globose, not arillate, with a crustaceous or coriaceous 
te tmbryo curv ith thick cotyledons and a short radicle. — 
ae Leaves reais without stipules , abruptly pinnate or, in our 
species cue g simple. Flowers in terminal and axillary panicles. 
f 9 species, 4 of which belong to Malaysia, China and Japan, 3 to the warmer ' 
parts of phcalet with 1 species extending to Easter Island, 1 peculiar to the Viti 
and 1 to the Hawaiian Islands. All contain saponine in the large cavities of the fruit- 
flesh, a substance _, ee with water, forms a frothy detergent lather, like soap, 
the e «soaptre 
1. S. Oahuensis, Hillebr. — Radikofer, in Ber. d. K. Bayer. Akad. 
d. Wiss. 1878, p. 401. — A tree, 20—30 ft. high, glabrous, with a whitish 
bark covered with lenticels, the wood pale. Leaves ovate, 4—8' >< 2—4"/2', 
on petioles of 1—3’, acuminate, rounded or truncate at the base, but 
slightly decurrent (inequilateral in the larger forms), quite entire, thick 
chartaceous, pale, glabrous. Panicles tomentose with a fulvous pubescence, 
either several in the axils of the uppermost leaves and then 2—4’ long, 
