TILIACE^E 275 



TILLAGES. 



Benth. et Hook. Gen. PL i. 228. 



Fruit and Seed The ovary in the Tiliacese is superior, syn- 

 carpous, two- to ten-celled. The ovules are solitary or geminate 

 in each cell, inserted at the inner angle, and pendulous from the 

 top, or ascending from the base ; sometimes the ovules are 

 few, attached to the middle of the placenta and ascending or 

 pendulous, or in other genera they are numerous and arranged 

 in two to many ranks, anatropous or subanatropous with the 

 raphe ventral or lateral. An abnormal form occurs in Spar- 

 mannia, where the ovary is half inferior, and almost one- 

 celled by the abortion or suppression of the septa. The 

 carpels are nearly free in Christiana and Brownlowia. The 

 fruit varies in different species from two- to ten-celled, or may 

 be one-celled by abortion ; sometimes the loculi are spuriously 

 divided by longitudinal or transverse divisions developed 

 between the seeds. AYhen mature it is a nut as in Tilia, a 

 drupe as in Grewia and Elseocarpus, or a berry as in Aristotelia 

 and Muntingia. In all these cases it is indehiscent ; but in 

 Columbia it divides or splits into cocci, or it is capsular and 

 dehisces loculicidally, more rarely septicidally as in Dubouzetia. 



The seeds vary from one to many in each cell and are 

 ascending, pendulous, or transverse. The testa is leathery, 

 crustaceous, and smooth or densely hairy or pilose as in Berrya, 

 Carpodiptera, and at the margin only in Belotia : in certain 

 genera it is thickened and hardened at the chalaza as in 

 Tilia, Berrya, and others. The endosperm is fleshy and 

 copious or thin, very rarely entirely absent as in Brownlowia. 

 The embryo varies, but is generally straight, with ovate or 

 roundly-cordate foliaceous rarely fleshy and almond-like coty- 

 ledons ; and a short radicle, rarely longer than the cotyledons, 

 close to the hilum. 



The seeds may be roughly divided into four groups accord- 

 ing to the form and other characters of the embryo. The 

 first group has fleshy or almond-like cotyledons as in Brown- 

 lowia, in which endosperm is absent. Others in this cate- 

 gory are Sloanea and Prockia. The radi le in Prockia is 



