SAPINDACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. ol 
ASCULUS. 
FLowERS polygamo-monecious; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in estivation, 
unequal; petals 4 or 5, imbricated in estivation, unequal, hypogynous, inappendicu- 
late; ovary sessile, 3-celled; ovules 2, heterotropous. Fruit a coriaceous capsule, 
3-celled and loculicidally 3-valved, the cells by abortion 1-seeded. Leaves opposite, 
digitate, destitute of stipules. 
4Hsculus, Linneus, Gen. 109. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. Macrothyrsus, Spach, Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 2, ii. 61. 
251. — Endlicher, Gen. 1075. — Meisner, Gen. 51.— Calothyrsus, Spach, Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 2, ii. 62. 
Gray, Gen. Ill. ii. 205.— Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i.  Billia, Peyritsch, Bot. Zeit. xvi. 153. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. 
398. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. v. 424. vy. 424. 
Hippocastanum, Adanson, Fam. Pl. ii. 383. Putzeysia, Planchon & Linden, Cat. 1857. 
Pavia, Poiret, Lam. Dict. v. 93. 
Trees or shrubs, with stout terete branchlets conspicuously marked with triangular leaf-scars, 
fetid bark, thick fleshy roots, and large scaly winter-buds, the outer scales sometimes coated with resin, 
the inner bract-like, accrescent with the young shoots, and often brightly colored. Leaves opposite, 
digitately compound, deciduous ; leaflets five to nine, rarely three (Billia), lanceolate or ovate, serrate, 
pinnately veined. Flowers showy, white, red, or pale yellow, racemose or nearly unilateral on the 
branches of large terminal thyrsi or panicles appearing later than the leaves, only those near the base of 
the branches of the inflorescence perfect and fertile. Pedicels from the axils of minute caducous bracts, 
jointed. Calyx campanulate or tubular, mostly oblique or posteriorly gibbous at the base. Disk 
hypogynous, annular, depressed, lobed, more or less gibbous posteriorly. Petals alternate with the 
lobes of the calyx, deciduous, the anterior one often abortive, unguiculate, the margins of the claw com- 
monly involute. Stamens six to eight, rarely five, generally seven, inserted on the disk, free, unequal ; 
filaments filiform; anthers elliptical, glandular-apiculate, attached on the back below the middle, 
introrse, two-celled, the contiguous cells opening longitudinally. Ovary sessile, oblong or lanceolate, 
three-celled, echinate or glabrous; rudimentary in the sterile flower; style slender, elongated, generally 
more or less curved ; stigma terminal, entire, mostly acute ; ovules two in each cell, borne on the middle 
of its inner angle, amphitropous, the upper ascending, the micropyle inferior; the lower pendulous, the 
micropyle superior. Fruit echinate, roughened, or smooth, three-celled, the cells one-seeded by abortion, 
or often by suppression one or two-celled and then one or two-seeded, the remnants of the abortive cells 
and seeds commonly visible at its maturity. Seeds destitute of albumen, round when only one is devel- 
oped, or, when more than one, flattened by mutual pressure ; testa coriaceous, chestnut-brown, smooth 
and shining, with a broad opaque light-colored hilum. Embryo fillmg the seed ; cotyledons very thick 
and fleshy, often conferruminate, unequal, incurved on the short conical radicle, and remaining under- 
ground in germination ; plumule conspicuously two-leaved.' 
1 The genus .Esculus is divided into two sections : — veins of the leaflets straight and less remote than in Hippocasta- 
Hrppocasranum. Petals 5. Fruit echinate with thick valves. num. 
Primary veins of the leaflets slightly arcuate, remote. The North American sculus glabra has the flowers of Pavia 
Pavia. Petals 4. Fruit smooth with thin valves. Primary with rather thin-valved fruit which, at least when young, is echi- 
nate, and the venation of Hippocastanum. 
