314 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 



MANGIFERA INDICA, L., the Mango tree. The 

 branches contain a sticky resinous juice, formed in special 

 canals from which it exudes when they are broken. 

 The leaves of the tree are alternate and vary a little in 

 shape, they may be oblong, elliptic, or lanceolate, or even 

 obovate, and obtuse, acute or acuminate, or mixtures of 

 these, but are typically coriaceous and glabrous. 



Flowers small, polygamous (i. e. unisexual or her- 

 maphrodite) in large panicled, terminal on the branches. 

 Pedicel jointed just below the flower. Sepals five, 

 petals five, usually marked with reddish lines. Stamens 

 five on a thick disc, one larger than the others, and 

 with larger fertile anther. Ovary superior one-celled, 

 with one slender style attached laterally to it, and 

 thereby oblique. Fruit a drupe, lop-sided, containing 

 a stone with one embryo. 



The lateral position of the style, and the lop-sided 

 shape of the fruit point to the ovary being composed 

 of one carpel only (as in the Bean, etc.). 



ODIN A WODIER, Roxb. (Oothier-marum). Well- 

 known for the fact that it sheds its leaves at the 

 beginning of the year, and remains leafless all through 

 the hot months, affording no shade at a time when 

 shade would be most agreeable. It is thus a typical 

 example of a deciduous tree. 



The trunk is thick, the bark smooth, and marked 

 even on thick trunks, with large scars. Just above 

 many of the scars can be seen other smaller scars. 

 There are the scars of the leaf and its axillary bud, 

 which like the leaf scars are much larger than they 

 were originally, because they have stretched latterly 

 with the stretching of the bark (see p. 83). 



