SAPINDACE.E 711 



Distribution. California, borders of streams, valley of the south fork of the Salmon 

 River, Siskiyou County, south along the coast ranges to San Luis Obispo County and on 

 the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, usually at altitudes between 2000 and 2500, occa- 

 sionally to 5000, to the northern slopes of Tejon Pass, Kern County, and to Antelope Valley, 

 Los Angeles County. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the Pacific states, and in western and 

 southern Europe. 



XXXVH. SAPINDACE^:. 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate pinnate petiolate persistent or deciduous leaves, without 

 stipules. Flowers regular or irregular, polygamo-dioecious, polygamo-moncecious or polyg- 

 amous; calyx of 4 or 5 sepals or lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 4 or 5 imbricated in 

 the bud; disk annular, fleshy, 5-lobed, or unilateral and oblique; stamens usually 7-10, in- 

 serted on the disk; filaments free; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; 

 ovary 2-4 or 3-celled; styles terminal; stigmas capitate or lobed; ovule solitary or 2 in each 

 cell, anatropous or amphitropous. Fruit a drupe or capsule. Seed usually solitary, with- 

 out albumen; seed-coat bony, coriaceous or crustaceous. 



Of the one hundred and twenty-six genera of this family, which is chiefly confined to the 

 tropics and is more abundant in the Old than in the New 7 World, four have arborescent 

 representatives in the United States. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Fruit baccate. 



Fruit dark orange-color or yellow, with thin semitranslucent coriaceous flesh; ovules 1 in 

 each cell of the ovary; leaflets subcoriaceous to coriaceous. 1. Sapindus. 



Fruit purple, with thick juicy flesh; ovules 2 in each cell of the ovary; leaflets thin, per- 

 sistent. 2. Exothea. 

 Fruit a drupe; leaves 3-foliolate, persistent. 3. Hypelate. 

 Fruit a 3-valved capsule; leaves 4 or 5, rarely 3-foliolate, deciduous. 4. Ungnadia. 



1. SAPINDUS L. Soapberry. 



Trees or shrubs, with terete branches, without a terminal bud, marked by large obcordate 

 leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 equidistant fibro-vascular bundles, small globose axillary 

 buds often superposed in pairs, the upper bud the larger, and thick fleshy roots. Leaves 

 equally or rarely unequally pinnate. Flowers regular, minute, polygamo-dioecious, on short 

 pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, in ample axillary or terminal panicles; 

 sepals 4 or 5, unequal, slightly united at base; petals 4 or 5, equal, alternate with the 

 sepals, inserted under the thick edge of the annular fleshy entire crenately lobed disk, un- 

 guiculate, naked or furnisheo>at the summit of the claw on the inside with a 2-cleft scale, 

 deciduous; stamens usually 8 or 10, inserted on the disk immediately under the ovary, 

 equal; filaments subulate or filiform, often pilose, exserted in the staminate, much shorter 

 in the pistillate flower; anthers oblong, attached near the base; pistils 2 or 3, united; ovary 

 sessile, entire or 2-4-lobed, 2-4-celled, narrowed into a short columnar style, rudimentary 

 in the staminate flower; stigma 2-4-lobed, the lobes spreading; ovule solitary in each cell, 

 ascending from below the inner angle of the cell; raphe ventral; micropyle inferior. Fruit 

 baccate, coriaceous, 1-3-seeded, usually formed of 1 globose coriaceous carpel, with the 

 rudiments of the others remaining at its base, or of 2 or sometimes 3 carpels more or less 

 connate by their base and then 2-3-lobed. Seed solitary in each carpel, obovoid or globose ; 

 seed-coat bony, smooth, black or dark brown; tegmen membranaceous or fleshy; hilum ob- 

 long, surrounded by an ariloid tuft of long pale silky hairs; embryo incurved or straight; 

 cotyledons thick and fleshy, incumbent; radicle very short, inferior, near the hilum. 



