Cheirodendron.| ARALIACEAE. 147 
5 or 4, rarely more, valvate or rarely imbricate in the bud, inserted 
generally with a broad base round an epigynous annular disk, Stamens 
as many, alternating with the petals, or once or seve 
with 1 pendulous anatropous ovule in each cell. Styles as many as cells, 
usually short and often united into ve or reduced t mall cone 
stigmatose at the top or along the inner face. Fruit not madly sinkiele 
ing into carpels, indehiscent and allele succulent. Embryo minute, next 
the hilum in a fleshy albumen. — Trees, shrubs or eter rarely 
herbs, with simple or compound, mostly alternate leave Flowers 
usually small, in heads or umbels or racemes, which are nr solitary 
or arranged in compound umbels or panicles. 
A considerable Order, chiefly tropical, with a very Fd species extending into more 
a, Nothopanax, Heptapleurum, 
lengthwise. Ovary entirely or in part inferior, 5- or 2- to many-celled, 
it 
+ 
Schefflera, Plerandra, Meryta, besides those pert 
Leaves Say e, Ss eae pedicels articulat 1. Cheirodendron. 
Leaves pinnate, altern fe ie cels not re with the. calyx: 
Leafs entire "petals rs 
Leaflets 13 bel 
stamens as many as petals; cells of ovary as many or fewer 
drupe ovoid, with conical vertex, and partly naked detrpaclart) 2. Pterotropia. 
Leaflets 5—13; the entire drupe connate with the calyx (inferior) : 
Inflor. umbellate; stamens as many as petals or twice or three 
' times as many; cells of ovary Se een! as petals or fewer ; : 
drupe cylindrical or ovoid, an 3. Triplasandra. 
Infior. umbellate or racemoso Epes and _panie cula te; 
so sea 4 to c times as many as petals; cells of ovary more 
n the petals; drupe globose, able e, ribbed 4. Tetraplasandra. 
Rg conan ears petals 8—10 . 5. Reynoldsia. 
1. CHEIRODENDRON, Nuttall, Seem. 
alyx-border short, 5-toothed. Petals 5, triangular, valvate. Stamens 5, 
he 
on a thick and short style. Fruit globose, subtruncate, ribbed when dry, 
the exocarp somewhat fleshy. Pyrenae nie compressed, coriaceous. 
Albumen even, not wrinkled, fleshy to horn armed, glabrous trees 
with opposite digitate leaves, the leaflets siseee toothed. ase none, 
Flowers umbellate on the ultimate divisions of a terminal or lateral panicle 
with opposite horizontal branches which are articulate at all nodes and 
below the c calyx. Bracts minute, opposite, subconnate, forming a con- 
tinuous involucel round the umbel and a 4—5-toothed calyculus at the 
base of the calyx, their teeth soon deciduous. 
A Hawaiian genus, nearest related to Prectaesars. Koch, W which is represented in 
4 
