Xiv GENERAL KEY TO THE POLYPETALOUS ORDERS. 



36. AXACARDIACEiE. Resiniferous trees or shrubs with alternate impunctate ex- 

 stipulate leaves and small regular chiefly 5-merous flowers. Our only indigenous 

 genus (Rhus) with unilocular ovary, a single ovule pendulous from the summit of 

 an erect basilar funiculus, and drupaceous fruit. 



++ ++ Filaments (in ours) completely united into a toothed cup or tube w hich 

 bears the sessile or nearly sessile anthers upon the inner surface. 



37. MELIACEiE. Trees with dense hard w^ood and alternate pinnate impunctate 

 leaves. Ours southern. 



■i- +- Olacales. Ovules 1 or 2 in each cell of the entire sometimes incom- 

 pletely septate 2-5 (or rarely oc)-ceIled ovary, pendulous but with rhaphe 

 dorsal, i. e. turned away from the axis of the ovary : flowers small : petals 

 often connate at the base : trees and shrubs with simple alternate or crowded 

 leaves : disk cup-shaped or annular (in the AquifoUacece wanting). 

 ++ Petals imbricated or contorted : ovary completely 2-5-celled. 



38. AQUIFOLIACEiE. Flowers through abortion dioecious, solitary or in few- 

 flowered axillary cymes. Disk none. Ovary 4-8-celled. 



39. CYRILLACE/E. Flowers perfect, borne in many-flowered racemes. Disk con- 

 fluent with the base of the 2-5-celled ovary. 



++ ++ Petals or lobes of a more or less gamopetalous corolla valvate : ovary 

 partially 3-5-locular, the septa not reaching the apex. 



40. 0LACINACE-a2. Flowers regular, dichlamydeous. Stamens (in ours) as many 

 or twice as many as the petals or lobes of the corolla, and when of the same 

 number opposite them. Ovary 1-5-celled, but fruit a 1-seeded drupe. 



H_ ^_ ^- Celastrales. Ovary superior, sessile on or more or less surrounded 

 by a somewhat fleshy pulvinary disk, 2-5-locular (in Glossopetulon unilocu- 

 lar), commonly entire ; ovules 1 or 2 in each cell, erect or nearly so and 

 with rhaphe ventral, i. e. turned toward the axis of the ovary : stamens as 

 many as the sepals (fewer in Hippocratea, twice as many in Glossopetalon). 

 ++ Stamens alternate with the petals, i. e. opposite the sepals. 



41. CELASTRACE^E. Trees, shrubs, or woody climbers with simple unlobed leaves. 

 Flowers small, regular, 4-5-merous, dichlamydeous. Petals spreading, imbricated 

 in aestivation, white or green. Fruit a loculicidal capsule, a drupe, or rarely dry 

 and indehiscent ; seeds usually arillate or carunculate. 



■H- ++ Stamens as many as and alternate with the sepals, i. e. opposite the 



petals when these are present. 

 = Calyx-lobes valvate : petals when present narrow but imbricated : fruit 



capsular or drupaceous : leaves simple, not lobed, impunctate, stipulate. 



42. RIIA^MXACE.E. Trees or shrubs, often thorny, rarely climbing. Flowers 

 small, regular, either perfect, polygamo-dioecious, or dioecious. Small often cucul- 

 late petals inserted on the throat of the calyx, sessile or unguiculate. Versatile 

 anthers dehiscent by longitudinal sometimes confluent slits. Ovary free or sur- 

 rounded by and adnate to the disk, 3 (2-4)-celled. Seeds solitary in the cells of 

 the fruit. 



