Chapter XIX. 



Order XIX.— SAPINDACE^E. The Soap Worts. 



Chaeacter of the Oeder. — Trees, rarely shrubs. 

 Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, simple or compound, ex- 

 stipulate. Flowers regular or irregular, uni- or bi-sexual. 

 Sepals, 3-5, imbricate or ralvate. Petals, none, or 3-5, gene- 

 rally small, often with a scale on their inner face. Disk, none, 

 or complete or incomplete. Stamens, 5-8, hypogynous, or 



inserted within the disk. Ovary, entire or lobed, usually 2-3- 

 eelled ; style, simple ; stigma, 2-3-lobed ; ovules, 1-2 in each 

 cell, fixed to its axis. Fruit, very various. Seeds usually 

 exalbuminous, with large, solid or spirally-twisted cotyledons 

 and incurved radicle. — Handbook of the New Zealand Flora, 

 p. 44. 



Description of the Order. — 



ERY large and complicated order of tropical and temperate region plants, 

 of which some genei'a present characters not noticed in the above 

 description. There are above seventy genera, chiefly tropical, which 

 are distributed into five tribes or sub-orders. The typical genus, 

 Sapindus, is found in both hemispheres, mostly within the limits of 

 the tropics, and consist of trees and shrubs, the fruits of which are 

 fleshy externally, and do not open when ripe. Those of several species are acrid, and 

 are called "soap-berries," from their being used in the tropics as a substitute for soaji, 

 their outer covering or shell containing a saponaceous principle (saponine) in suflicient 

 abundance to produce a lather in water. Among the species thus used are : — S. saponaria 

 and S. moequalis in the New World, and *S'. rarax and S. emarginatus in the Old. Their 

 excessively-hard, round, black seeds are used for making rosaries, necklaces, bracelets, 

 buttons, etc., and a medicinal oil is extracted in India from those of .S*. emargmatus. 

 The outer covering of the fruit of some species, such as S. esciilentns, and S. senegaleiisis, 

 is eatable, but their seeds are poisonovis. The order in New Zealand consist of two 

 genera, viz.: — (1). Dodon^a, leaves simple, disk none; and (2). Alectryon, leaves 

 pinnate, disk 8-lobed. 



