THALAMJFLOR^E. 225 



berries of some kinds of Corchorus and of Elaocarpm are eaten. The 

 seeds of Elceocarpm are used as be ids, and E. Hinau yields a dye. 

 Various species of Luliea (Brazil) and Grewia (East Indies) furnish valu- 

 able timber. The Lime-trees of Europe (Tilia europcea, grandifolia, and 

 par wf olio) are valued not only for their bast, but for their beauty, their 

 white even wood, and the fragrance of their blossoms. Many of the tro- 

 pical species, such as Sparmannia africana, Glyphoea c/rewioides, have been 

 introduced as stove-shrubs. HonckenyajicifoUa has large violet flowers. 



DIPTERACE^E are large trees abounding in resinous juice, with al- 

 ternate strongly feather-ribbed leaves and large convolute deciduous sti- 

 pules ; flowers perfect, the calyx 5-lobed, lobes imbricate, unequal, 

 persistent, afterwards often enlarged like wings ; petals 5, hypogynous ; 

 stamens hypogynous, indefinite, distinct, or slightly and irregularly polya- 

 delphous; anthers subulate, connective often produced above; ovary 

 superior, 3-celled ; fruit 1 -celled by suppression, 1-seeded, and 3-valved 

 or indehiscent, and surrounded by the enlarged calyx, forming a crown 

 above it ; seeds aperispermic. Illustrative Genera : Dipterocarpus, 

 Gaertn. ; Dryolalanops, Gsertn. ; Vateria, L. j Shorea, Eoxb. 



Affinities, &c. Tropical trees related to the preceding Orders in som e 

 respects, but in the imbricated calyx and in other particulars having more 

 affinity to the Clusiaceae, from which they differ in the aestivation of the 

 corolla and in the presence of stipules. Their large deciduous stipules 

 resemble those of Maijnolia ; but the most characteristic feature of the 

 Order is the enlarged persistent calyx, which forms long \vinged lobes 

 crowning the fruit, gome authors separate Lophira as the type of a 

 distinct Order, which is in some degree (as in its 1-celled ovary) different 

 both from the Dipteraceae and the Clusia^ese, but may probably remain 

 among the former. Ancistrocladus is a climber. 



Distribution. This Order consists of ten or twelve genera, comprising 

 upwards of a hundred species. These plants are large trees or rarely 

 climbing shrubs of the forests of tropical Asia. Lophira belongs to Sierra 

 Leone. 



Qualities and Uses. Fine timber-trees whose juices yield a balsamic 

 resin, of which various kinds are imported. Sumatran hard Camphor is 

 found in the form of concretions in fissures and cavities of the trunk of 

 Dn/obalanops Campliora ; the Camphor-oil of Borneo and Sumatra is said 

 to be the same substance in a fresher state. Shorea robust a yields the 

 Dhoona or Dammar pitch, used for incense in India. Vateria indica 

 affords the Piney resin or Piney Dammar of India, sometimes called 

 Indian Copal or gum Animi, largely used for making varnish. Diptero- 

 carpus trinervis and other species yield a balsam like Copaiba, sometimes 

 called Gurjun balsam or wood-oil. Lophira is called the Scrubby Oak in 

 Sierra Leone ; its dry corky bark contains no resinous juice. 



CHL^ENACEJE constitute a small and little-known Order, consisting at 

 present of a few shrubs, natives of Madagascar ; related to Malvaceae in 

 having monadelphous stamens and an epicalyx ; but the calyx is imbri- 

 cated in aestivation, like that of Camelliaceae &c. Placed by Lindley 

 near Oxalidacea3, Balsaminaceie, Linaceae, and Geraniaceae, by Bentham 

 and Hooker near Dipterocarps. 



Q 



