398 EXOGENOUS OR DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS. 



several-celled, with one or two ovules in each cell : styles and 

 stigmas united into one. Fruit a drupe, berry, or capsule ; the 

 cells one-seeded. Seeds without albumen, wingless. Ex. Melia 

 Azedarach (Pride of India), naturalized, as an ornamental tree, in 

 the Southern States. An acrid and bitter principle pervades this 

 tropical order. 



746. Ord, Cedrelaceae (the Mahogany Family). Trees (tropical 

 or Australian), with hard and durable, usually fragrant and beauti- 

 fully veined wood ; differing botanically from Meliacese chiefly by 

 their capsular fruit, with several winged seeds in each cell. Ex. 

 The Mahogany (Swietenia Mahagoni) of tropical America, reach- 

 ing to Southern Florida. The Red-wood of Corornandel is the 

 timber of Soymida febrifuga ; the Satin-wood, of Chloroxylon 

 Swietenia of India ; Yellow-wood, of the Australian Oxleya xan- 

 thoxyla, &c. All the species are bitter, astringent, tonic, often 

 aromatic and febrifugal. 



747. Ord. Linaceffi (the Flax Family). Herbs, with entire and 

 sessile leaves, either alternate, opposite, or verticillate, and no 

 stipules, except minute glands occasionally. Flowers regular and 

 symmetrical. Calyx of three or five persistent sepals, strongly 

 imbricated. Petals as many as the sepals, convolute in aestivation. 

 Stamens as many as the petals, and usually with as many inter- 

 mediate teeth representing an abortive series, all united at the 

 base into a ring, hypogynous. Ovary with as many styles and 

 cells as there are sepals, each cell with two suspended ovules ; the 

 cells in the capsule each more or less perfectly divided into two, 

 by a false partition which grows from the back (dorsal suture) ; 

 the spurious cells one-seeded. Embryo straight : cotyledons flat, 

 fleshy and oily, surrounded by a thin albumen. Ex. Linum, the 



630 



Flax (Fig. 628-631), is the principal representative of this small 



FIG. 628. Flower of Linum perenne. 629. Its stamens and pistils. 630. Cross-section of 

 its capsule, showing the incomplete false partition from the back of each cell. 631. Section of 

 the fruit of the common Flax, where the false partitions completely divide each proper cell into 



