KOELREUTERIA 



Koelreuteria, Laxmann, in Not). Comm. Acad. Petrop. xvi. 561, t. 18 (1772); Bentham et Hooker, 

 Gen. PI. i. 396 (1862). 



Deciduous trees and shrubs belonging to the order Sapindaceae. Branchlets, 

 with numerous lenticels, showing in winter elevated leaf- scars, marked in the 

 centre with numerous dots, and girt with a projecting rim-like margin. Buds all 

 axillary, no true terminal bud being developed, each covered externally by two 

 opposite scales, which are united at first by their apices, but ultimately gape apart, 

 exposing the villous interior of the bud. Leaves alternate, without stipules, either 

 unequally and simply pinnate or equally bipinnate ; leaflets opposite, sub-opposite, 

 or alternate, with lobed, toothed, or serrate margins. 



Flowers polygamous, irregular, in large terminal panicles. Calyx deeply 

 divided into five unequal lobes. Petals five, yellow, unequal, each with a bifid 

 gland on the base of the lamina, above the woolly claw. Disc oblique, with three 

 to five lobes alternating with the petals. Stamens five to eight, inserted within 

 the disc, exserted, declinate ; filaments woolly. Ovary three - angled, pubescent, 

 with an elongated style and a trifid stigma, three-celled, each cell containing two 

 ovules. Fruit, an inflated capsule, membranous, three-winged, splitting loculicidally 

 into three valves. Seeds, two or three in each capsule, usually only one develop- 

 ing on the centre of the septum in the middle of each valve, subglobose, blackish, 

 without an aril ; embryo spirally convolute. 



Four species are known, natives of China and Formosa, distinguishable as 

 follows : 



I. Leaves simply pinnate with an odd number of leaflets. 



1. Koelreuteria minor, Hemsley, in Hooker, Icon. Plant, t. 2642 (1900). 



Leaflets, fifteen to twenty-five, small, not exceeding \\ in. long and \ in. 

 broad, crenate. Capsule, with orbicular valves, f in. in breadth ; seed \ in. in 

 diameter. 



This is a rare shrub, which was discovered on the Lienchow river in 

 Kwangtung, China, by Ford in 1887. It has not been introduced, and 

 probably would not be hardy in England. 



1930 



