218 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



and caducous, leaving an annular cicatrice upon tlie branch. The 

 characters which serve to distinguish most of the genera from each 

 other are drawn from the greater or less depth of the receptacle, its 

 adherence with the base of the ovary, from the total independence of 

 the latter, and especially from the characters of the sepals, their pig- 

 noration a little before anthesis, and the number of those leaves which 

 grow into wings after anthesis. 1 As to the most important features of 

 organization, drawn from the mode of placentation and the number 

 and direction of the ovules in each cell, they have been used by us to 

 distinguish in the family the three following series : — 



I. Dryobalanopse^e. — Ovary plurilocular ; two ovules in each 

 cell, descending with exterior and superior micropyle. — (10 genera.) 



II. Ancistroclade/E. — Ovary unilocular; partly inferior with 

 single ovule subbasilar ascending with inferior micropyle. — (1 genus.) 



III. Lophire^. — Ovary unilocular, almost entirely superior, with 

 a basilar placenta and numerous ovules, ascending with inferior 

 micropyle. — (1 genus.) 



This group consists principally of fine trees, the wood of which 

 is hard, durable, and much esteemed for building purposes in 

 tropical Asia. All their organs, moreover, generally contain a 

 balsamic resinous juice which may appear under the form of an oily 

 liquid, or under that of solid concrete crystalline masses. In this 

 particular the most celebrated species is the Camphor tree of Borneo 

 and Sumatra, that- is to say, Dryobalanops aromatica GLertn. 2 (figs. 211— 

 214). When the trunk is very old it is cut down, and then split 

 longitudinally to obtain the camphor accumulated in the interior 

 fissures of the wood, under the form of small crystals of a yellowish 

 white. This is the solid camphor or Borneo camphor, known in 

 Sumatra under the name of Kassar Baras, and which in our country 



1 Bentham & Hooker (loc. cit., 190) phorce Wilh. ten Rhyne, in Breyn. Prodr. 

 have arranged two distinctive lists of genera (1683) ; Geimm, Obs., in Misc. Cur. Siv. Eph. 

 according to these characters. $fat. Cur. (1683), 371, t. fig. 33. — Abor cam- 



2 See p. 204, note 2. Endl., Enchirid., 526. phorifera Valent., Ltd. Litt., 488 (1716) ; Hist. 

 — M£a. & Del., Diet. Mat. Med., ii. 46, 690. — Simpl. Reform., lib. 2, sect. 6, 250.— Rtjmph., 

 Lindl., Veg. Kingd., 294 ; Fl. Med., 146.— Serb. Amboin., lxxxii. 67 (1775).— C. Mill., 

 (iviu., Drog. Simpl., cd. 6, iii. 635, fig. 471.— in Phil. Trans., lxviii., p. i. 161, 170, 188. 

 Pereiea, Elem. Mat. Med., ed. 4, ii. p. ii. 552. — Lauras foliis ovalibus acuminatis lineatis, 

 — Rosenth., Syn. PI. Diaphor., 735. — Hook, f., florib. magn. tulip. Houtt., Nat. Hist., ii. 

 in Trans. Linn. Soc, xxii. 160. — Abor Cam- 2, 318. 



