CCI. SALTCINE^E. 685 



2, collateral, fixed above the base of the cell, semi-anatropous. FRUIT a strobilus of 

 woody bracts and bracteoles, each pair of bracts opening like a capsule into 2 spread- 

 ing valves, and containing a samaroid caryopsis membranous at the top, crustaceous 

 at the base, and filled with spiral vessels. SEEDS solitary, erect, funicle attached to 

 the middle of the testa and backed by the arrested ovule ; testa membranous, nearly 

 transparent. EMBRYO exalbuminous ; cotyledons large, oblong, compressed ; radicle 



minute, superior. 



ONLY GENUS. 



* Casuarina. 



Casuarinefe are distinguishable at the first glance, having scarcely any affinity except with Myriceee, 

 which differ, besides their characteristic habit, in the nature of their drupaceous fruit. 



Dr. Bornet, who has examined fresh flowers of Casuarina, cultivated by M. Thuret at Antibes, 

 informs us that * in C. quadrivalvis each stamen is surrounded by a 3-valved perianth (?) ; two valves are 

 lateral, the third faces the axis ; in very rare instances a fourth valve has been found pressed against the 

 anterior face of the stamen. The posterior valve is linear and does not adhere to the lateral valves ; the 

 latter are much larger, plicate, enlarged at the top, recurved into a hood, and adhere by the interlacing of 

 marginal hooked hairs. The fourth valve, when present, is narrow and linear. The flower of C. 

 torulosa is the most complicated of all, and the only one which constantly presented a 4-nary perianth, 

 composed of 2 lateral, a posterior and an anterior segment. This arrangement is easily seen in the young 

 flowers, in which the filaments are still very short. As the filament lengthens, the valves are torn 

 across a little above their bases, which persist as small brown truncate scales, surrounding the base of 

 the filament, the upper part remaining pressed against the anther, capping its top until the anther is 

 ready to open, when this latter becomes oval, greatly enlarged, and drives off, like a wedge, the lateral 

 valves.' 



As far as Bornet could judge of the $ flowers, the funicle in C. quadricahis is not normally free, and 

 the placental vessels are curiously arranged ; a section of the ovary shows the cavity of the pericarp to be 

 divided by a cellular mass of the placenta, one of the cavities containing the collateral ovules, the other 

 being empty. This empty chamber is not accidental, for it is seen in very young ovaries, and is perhaps 

 itself divided in two by a further prolongation of the placenta. 



Castiarinets are chiefly natives of Australia, where they have been found in a fossil state ; they are 

 also met with in India, the Indian Archipelago and Madagascar, where they are called Filao. 



Casuarineee are of little use to man ; their hard and heavy wood may be used in ship-building, and is 

 made into war-clubs by the Australians [and Pacific Islanders]. The bark of C. cquisctifolia is astringent; 

 it is used in powder in dressing wounds, and in a decoction to stop chronic and choleraic diarrhoea; it 

 may also prove useful as a colouring matter, or mordant. That of C. muricata furnishes the Indians 

 with a nerve-tonic medicine. 



CCI. SALICINE^ L.-C. Richard.' 



FLOWERS dioecious. PERIANTH 0. STAMENS 2-oo . OVARY l-celled ; STYLES 2 ; 

 PLACENTAS parietal, 2, oo -ovuled ; OVULES anatropous. CAPSULE with 2 semi-placen- 

 tiferous valves. SEEDS erect, bearded at the base, exalbuminous. EADICLE inferior. 

 STEM woody. LEAVES alternate, stipulate. 



TREES or SHRUBS, or dwarf creeping TTNDERSHRUBS ; branches cylindric, alternate. 

 LEAVES alternate, simple, penninerved, entire or angular-toothed, petioled ; stipules 

 scaly and deciduous, or foliaceous and persistent. FLOWERS dio3cious, in terminal 

 sessile or pedicelled catkins, each furnished with a membranous entire or lob 



