382 



SAPINDACEiE. 



[Hypogynous Exogens. 



Order CXXXVI. SAPINDACE^.— Soapworts. 



Sapindi, Juts. Gen. 246. (1789).— Sapindaceae, Just. Ann. Mus. 18. 476. (1811) ; DC. Prodr. 1. 601. 

 (1824) ; Cambessedcs in Me'm. Mus. 18. 1. (1829) ; Endl. Gen. ccxxx. ; Wight Illtistr. 1. p. 141.— 

 jEsculaceae, Ed. pr. lxii.-Hippocastanese, DC. Thiorie, Ed. 2. 244. il819) ; Prodr. 1. 597. (1824) ; 

 Endl. Gen. p. 1075. — Castaneaceae, Link Enum. 1. 354. (1821). — Millingtonieae, Jack in Malay. 

 Misc. 2. 32; Hooker Journal, 377. — Millingtoniaceae, Wight and Arnott in Ed. Ph.Journ. 15. 

 177. (1833) ; Prodr. Penins. 115. (1834) ; Royle Illustr. p. 139. (1835) ; Wight Illustr. 1. t. 53.— 

 Meliosmeae, Endl. Gen. p. 1U74. 



Diagnosis. — Sapindal Exogens, with complete, unsymmetrical flowers, petals usually with 

 an appendage, antlters opening longitudinally, 3 carpels, and usually arillate, 

 wingless seeds. 



These are for the most part trees of considerable size, or twining shrubs bearing 

 tendrils, or, though seldom, climbing herbs. Their timber has frequently several 

 distinct axes of growth. Leaves alternate, compound, very rarely simple, with or 



without stipules, often marked with lines 

 or pellucid dots. Flowers in racemes, 

 or racemose panicles, small, white or 

 pink, seldom yellow, <$-£-%. Calyx 

 more or less deeply 4-5-parted, or 4-5- 

 leaved, with an imbricated aestivation. 

 Petals 4-5, or occasionally absent, alter- 

 nate with the sepals, hypogynous, some- 

 times naked, sometimes with a doubled 

 appendage in the inside ; aestivation 

 imbricated. Disk fleshy ; sometimes oc- 

 cupying the base of the calyx, regular, 

 nearly entire, expanded between the pe- 

 tals and stamens ; sometimes glandular, 

 incomplete, the glands stationed between 

 the petals and stamens. Stamens 8-10, 

 rarely 5-6-7, very seldom 20, sometimes 

 inserted into the disk, sometimes into the 

 receptacle between the glands and the 

 pistil ; filaments free or combined just 

 at the base ; anthers turned inwards, 

 bursting longitudinally. In the $ there 

 is a very small rudiment of a pistil, or 

 none. Ovary 3-celled, rarely 2-4-celled, 

 the cells containing 1, 2, 3, very seldom 

 more, ovules. Style undivided, or more 

 or less deeply 2- or 3-cleft. Ovules 

 anatropal, sessile when solitary, erect, 

 or ascending, rarely suspended ; when 

 double, the upper ascending, the lower 

 suspended. Fruit sometimes capsular, 

 2-3-valved, sometimes extended at the 

 back into a wing and becoming a key 

 (samara), sometimes fleshy and indehis- 

 cent. Seeds usually with an aril ; the 

 outer integument crustaceous or membra- 

 nous, the interior pellucid. Albumen 0. 

 Embryo seldom straight, usually curved, or spirally twisted. Radicle next the hilum. 

 Cotyledons incumbent, sometimes combined into a thick mass. 



This Order is composed of a great diversity of species, which assume appearances 

 widely different irom each other ; so that Botanists have not unnaturally supposed 

 that it really contains the elements of several distinct Natural Orders. Thus the Horse- 

 c-hesnuts have been separated because of their opposite leaves, and a singular peculiarity 

 of the ovules, which are both erect and suspended in the same cell ; and Meliosmeae 



CCLXVII. 



Fig. CCLXVII.- Sapindus senegalensis. 1. an expanded tiower ; 2. a petal; 3. the ovaries before 

 fertilisation ; 4. a vertical section of a ripe drupe, showing the embryo- 



