TREE OF HEAVEN 299 



Flowers in erect panicles of cymes, at length more or 

 less pendent, opening with or soon after the leaves, pale 

 green, with hairy pedicels and perianths ; the lateral male, 

 others mixed in various degrees. Hermaphrodite flowers 

 with glabrous ovaries. Honey exposed, entomophilous. 

 Fruit glabrous or velvety with large, smooth, green, hori- 

 zontally spreading wings. Pollen sulphur-yellow, oblong- 

 truncate, with 3 longitudinal striated ridges, about 54 /i 

 long. 



. ** Ovary of 3 5 carpels. Fruit not a double 

 samara. 



t Ovary of 5 compressed carpels, separating as 

 they ripen ; styles 5, united ; stamens 10. 



Ailanthus glandulosa, Desf. Tree of Heaven (Fig. 117). 

 A tree with large pinnate leaves, allied to the Sumach 

 and the Maples, &c. ; with small flowers crowded in 

 terminal panicles, and polygamous. 



Calyx of 5 half-ovate small segments, united below. 

 Petals 5, much larger, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, with 

 inflexed margins, hairy at the base, valvate in bud, 

 hypogynous and free. Stamens 10, with long subulate 

 filaments, hairy below, and inserted beneath a hypogynous 

 10-lobed fleshy disc which surrounds the base of the 

 ovary. In some flowers the stamens are reduced in 

 number or are absent, so that polygamy results. Anthers 

 ovate or ovate-lanceolate. 



Ovary of 5 carpels, syncarpous by their inner margins, 

 flattened laterally, obovate to boat-shaped, each containing 

 one ovule. In the cT flowers the carpels are rudimentary 

 or even obsolete. Styles 5, united, with as many oblong 

 reflexed stigmas. As the fruit ripens, the carpels separate, 

 and each forms a thin, linear-lanceolate, compressed, veined 



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