LEGUMIN0S2E-CJSSALPINIE2E. 85 



consists of a thick dry coriaceous layer. Inside it contains a 

 pretty large number of one-seeded chambers, each lined by a thin 

 membrane which is also dry. But between these and the hard outer 

 coat is a thick layer of cellular pulp which completely isolates the 

 separate chambers. 1 The ovoidal seeds are attached by slender 

 filiform funicles of variable length and more or less bent on them- 

 selves. Under the coriaceous seed-coats is a thick transparent horny 

 albumen, in the centre of which is an embryo with large flattened 

 oval cotyledons and a conical radicle. The five or six species of this 

 genus are trees from North America 2 and temperate Asia and Africa. 3 

 The branches and axes of the inflorescence are often transformed into 

 strong simple or ramified spines/ The leaves may be some pinnate 

 and some bipinnate on one and the same tree. 5 The flowers form simple 

 or ramified racemes in the axils of the leaves or on the wood of the 

 branches. 



III. SCLEROLOBIUM SERIES. 



Sclerolobium 6 (figs. 56-59) has regular hermaphrodite flowers. The 

 receptacle forms an obconical or hemispherical cup of variable depth, 



Sclerolobiwm (Cosymbe) aureum. 



v ' m 



Fig. 56. Fig. 57. 



Flower (^). Longitudinal section of flower. 



lined by glandular tissue, which is sometimes covered with hairs. 



1 This represents the wesocarp; the fruit is 5 Macattce, Siir /<> St iatur. des Feuilles 



hence a drupaceous pod. du Gleditzia triacanthos (in Sibl. svii. 



- Dtjham., Arbr., ii. 1. 10; iii. t. 10. — Waxp., 1 12). Gleditschia has often been remarked as 



Sep., i. 856. possessing in the axils of its single leaves several 



3 Benth., in Trans. Linn. Soc, xxv. 304. — superposed buds, some being flower-bads, others 

 Out., Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 265. leaf-buds. In G. triacanthos we may often find 



4 We have cited an example of this transfer- in one axil, first an inflorescence, below this a 

 mation of the axes of inflorescence into branched' young branch, and still lower a your >«d. 

 spines in Q. ferox (see Bull. Soc. Bot. de Fr., v. '' VoG., in Linnaa, xi. 395.- Endl., 6 

 316). n. 6755.— B. 11., Gen., 562, n. 296. 



