212 



NATUnAL niSTOIiY OF PLANTS. 



a laro-c fleshy embryo, the contortuplicate cotyledons of which 

 arc very irregularly lobed, ruminated, and very unequal 



among themselves, the 

 smaller, 1 around which it 

 and conical, longer or 



Dipterocarpus trinervis. 



larger one completely enveloping the 

 is convoluted. The radicle is superior 

 shorter according to the age of the 

 seed. Only one species of this genus 

 is known at present, D. aromatica,- 

 better known nnder the name of 

 Camphor tree of Sumatra or Borneo. It 

 is a fine tree, with resinous juice, its 

 alternate leaves being simple, entire, 

 coriaceous, penninerved, with numerous 

 secondary nerves, oblique, parallel, with 

 short petiole, accompanied at its base 

 by two small \erj caducous stipules. 

 Its flowers are disposed at the summit of 

 the branches or in the axils of the superior 

 leaves in ramified clusters, upon whose 

 axes they are alternately inserted, 

 articulated upon a little prominent 

 cushion, below which is found the trans- 

 versal cicatrice of a bract. 



In the Dipterocarpcce (fig. 215), the 

 general organization of the flower is the 

 same, especially as to the corolla and sexual organs ; but the gamo- 

 sepalous tubular calyx is cut above into five very unequal teeth, at 

 first slightly imbricated, then valvate, or even ceasing to touch each 

 other by their edges. Two of them develop much more than the 

 other three, and form above the fruit, which is closely enveloped by 

 the general part of the calyx, two long erect rigid wings almost 

 coriaceous and reticulate. The woody indehiscent pericarp encloses 



Fig. 215. 

 Fruif' (i). 



1 The latter being not only much narrower 

 but much shorter than the other. A frlse verti- 

 cal partition, incomplete in its upper part, and 

 terminating at this point in an oblique, irregular 

 edge, separates the largest of the eotjLdons in 

 its lower part into two almost symmetrical 

 halves. 



2 G.EUTN. F., loc. cit. — El., Mies. Lugd.-Bal., 



ii. 38. — D. Camphora Colebh., loc. cit., c. ic. 



Jack, Mai. Misc., in Hook. Comp. to Bot. Mag., 



1, 261.— Miq., Fl. Tnd.-Bot., 1, p. ii. 500; 

 Prodr. Ft. Sum. 191. — Hook.f. in Trans. Linn. 

 Soc, xxiii. 160. — Sliorea camphorifera Koxb., 

 Ft. Ind., ii. 616. — Pterygium teres Corr., loc. 

 cit. — Dipterocarpus Dryobalanops Steud. — 

 D. tei-es Stettd. — Camphora sumatren&is W. T. 

 PiiiYNE, in Breyn. Prodr., Si. — RuiiPU., Herb. 

 Amboin., Auvt., 67. 



3 Fig. reduced from Fl. Jar. of Blume (Bipte- 

 rocarp., t. 1). 





