296 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 



IV. Those in which, as in ERIODENDRON and BOM- 

 BAX, the sepals are thick or leathery, and the stamens 

 .are not in one tube as in the other groups, but in five 

 distinct bundles. They are all trees, and the fruit is 

 usually a capsule which opens irregularly. 



STERCULIACE^E 



Example : 



STERCULIA FCETIDA, L., a tall tree with bark that 

 comes off in patches, and whorls of thick branches, 

 their ends and buds covered with thick brown tomentum 

 of matted hairs. Leaves alternate and digitately com- 

 pound. 



Flowers in panicles of two-flowered cymes, in whorls 

 at the ends of the branches, just beneath the new leaves 

 of the year. Pedicels jointed, flowers of five thick 

 green sepals, concave ancf pubescent on the inner 

 -side, valvate. No petals. Stamens monodelphous in 

 a 'staminal column with an expanded cup-shaped top 

 on which are sessile twelve two-celled anthers. Ovary 

 surrounded by the anthers, sessile on the staminal 

 column, five lobed, with one stout central style. 

 Fruit a follicle developing from one cell (carpel) of 

 the ovary containing ten or more large black seeds, 

 without endosperm. 



Other species common enough are S. URENS in 

 which the bark also flakes off in patches, with palmately 

 lobed (not compound) leaves, and five follicles to 

 each flower (fig. 52), and s. BALANGHAS, L. with 

 :simple one-nerved leaves. 



