SANTALACE.E 467 



SANTALACEJS. 



Benth. et Hook. Gen. PL iii. 217. 



Fruit and Seed. The ovary is inferior from the first, or 

 becomes so during the flowering period, or in the tribe Antho- 

 bolese the disc only surrounds it at the base ; in all cases it 

 is one-celled. The ovules vary from two to three, and are 

 pendulous from or near the apex of a central, filiform or 

 thickened placenta ; or in the Anthobolese the ovule is solitary, 

 central, basal and erect. 



The fruit is nut-like or often drupaceous, and is indehiscent. 

 The exocarj) is slender and dry, sometimes fleshy or succulent, 

 sometimes thickened ; while the endocarp is crustaceous, 

 hardened or bony. The seed is globose or obovoid, and smooth, 

 rugose, or deeply many-furrowed. The testa is very thin and 

 not easily distinguishable, or is absent or apparently so. 

 Endosperm is copious and fleshy, often white. The embryo is 

 often oblique, not strictly central, short or linear, very often 

 terete, and straight or scarcely incurved. The cotyledons are 

 seniiterete or rarely slightly dilated and longer or shorter than 

 the superior radicle. Sometimes the embryo is minute and 

 scarcely discernible. 



Exceptional cases occur in Cervantesia and Santaluni where 

 the ovary is superior or rarely immersed in the disc. The 

 endocarp is plicate, and in Henslowia is intruded into furrows 

 of the seed. Santalum ellipticum may be regarded as typical 

 of the Order. The fruit is obovoid-elliptic or subglobular and 

 crowned by a rim, the persistent portion of the calyx. The exo- 

 carp is comparatively thin when dry, and the endocarp is thick 

 and woody. The seed is ovoid, conforms to the interior of 

 the cavity, and is apparently without a testa. The greater 

 part of it consists of a mass of fleshy endosperm. The coty- 

 ledons are ovate-oblong, and in the specimen observed several 

 times shorter than the radicle. The latter is very much 

 thicker than the cotyledons at its base, and tapers to a slender 

 point. 



Seedlings. The cotyledons of all the seedlings coming 



