242 



STERCULIACEAE. 



50 genera and over 700 species, of wide distribution in tropical and warm 

 temperate regions. 



1. WAIiTHERIA L. 



Herbs, shrubs or trees, with stellate and simple pubescence. Leaves 

 toothed; stipules narrow. Flowers small, perfect, usually in axillary clusters or 

 small cymes. Involucel of 3 deciduous bractlets. Sepals 5, united at the base 

 into a turbinate lO-nerved tube. Petals 5, spatulate, convolute, withering- 

 persistent. Stamens 5; filaments united below, not accompanied by staminodia; 

 anthers with parallel sacs. Ovary 1-celled, sessile; style simple, not central; 

 stigma club-shaped or brush-like. Ovules 2 in a cavity. Follicles 1-celled, 2- 

 valved lengthwise. Seed solitary, ascending. Endosperm fleshy. Embryo 

 straight, axile. [Tn honor of A. F. Walther, professor in Leipzig.] About 

 35 American species, mostly tropical, the following typical. 



1. Waltheria americana L. Waltheria. 

 (Fig. '267.) Foliage tomentose. Stems 2°- 

 4° tall, stiff; leaves ovate to oblong, l'-3' 

 long, serrate, rounded or cordate at the base, 

 stout-petioled; flowers in dense sessile or 

 peduncled axillary clusters; sepals subulate, 

 about 2V' long, villous-hirsute, similar to the 

 bractlets; petals yellow, slightly longer 

 than the sepals; follicles about li" long, 

 j)ubescent at the top. 



Abundant on a hillside near Port Royal, 

 1905. Recorded by Lefroy as growing in 

 Pembroke Marsh and on the hillside prior to 

 1879. Native. Florida and tropical America. 

 Flowers in summer and autumn. Its seed pre- 

 sumably brought to Bermuda by a bird. 



Sterculla apetala (.Tacq.) Karst., Ster- 

 CULIA, a large widely spreading tree up to 

 50° high, with nearly orbicular, 5-lobed, 

 peltate, stout-petioled leaves often 1° broad, 

 the apetalous unisexual flowers in large ter- 

 minal panicles, with a yellowish, purple- 

 flecked, stellate-pubescent, campanulate, 5- 

 cleft calyx f ' broad, the stamens in a column 

 tipped by 10-20 anthers, the fruit 5 large 

 leathery follicles, has been planted for 

 shade and ornament. A fine specimen on 

 the Wood Estate, Spanish Point, was studied 

 in 1913. [Helicteres apetala Jacq.; Ster- 

 culia carthaginensis Cav.] 



Guazuma Guazuma (L.) Cockerell, Bastard Cedar, West Indian, was 

 represented by a healthy tree in the officer's garden, St. George's, about 1874, 

 recorded by Lefroy, and a large tree, said to flower but not to bear fruit, was 

 seen at The Stocks, St. David's Island, in 1914, when it had a trunk circum- 

 ference of five feet and one inch. In the West Indies it becomes 50° high; its 

 oblong to ovate, oblique, serrate leaves are about 3' long, its axillary flowers in 



