352 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



CnjJam'a {Matai/ha) f/ulaiwusis. 



Javanese and Malay trees or shrubs, tlae flowers, regular, 4-5 - 

 merous, are also very nearly those of Euphoria; they have from 

 six to nine stamens, an ovary with three or four cells, surmounted 

 by a style immediately branching out into three or four radiated 

 stigmatiferous lobes, and the fruit is sometimes divided into lobes, 

 sometimes entire and dehiscent in several berries. The arillate seeds 

 have a thick and fleshy embryo, with unequal and superposed 

 cotyledons. The leaves are pinnate with a stem often winged with 

 opposite folioles, sessile, often punctate and the inferior ones 

 remain small and stipuliform, like those of Pometla. 



The Cupania (fig. 361, 302) give theii- name to a sub-series in 

 which the fruit appears to be always capsular, dehiscing by a 



number of longitudinal clefts 

 equal to that of the carpels en- 

 tering into the constitution of the 

 gyuseceum. Around the cir- 

 cular disk is found a regular 

 calyx whose pieces are more or 

 less imbricate, and sometimes val- 

 vate or nearly so. The stamens 

 Fig. 301. Flower (A). Fig. .362. Longitudinal are short Or nearly enclosed, or 



section of flower. , , , rn, , , , 



long exserted. ihe latter occurs 

 in the 3Iataijha^ without however serving to separate them generically 

 from Cupania, on account of tlie numerous intermediate arrange- 

 ments met with. There are species of Cupania in all the tropical 

 regions of both worlds, principally in South America. Erlocoelmn 

 is closely allied, but in tliis five sepals are valvate or nearly so, and the 

 stamens, eight to ten in number, correspond to as many radiating 

 grooves, separating from one another the lobes of a large and double 

 disk surrounding their gyua3ceum. They are trees from western 

 tropical Africa. Crossoncpkcl/s, a small tree with paripinnate leaves, 

 has tetraraerous and apetalous flowers whose calyx is valvate, and 

 whose large disk is divided into five alternate lobes. Tliis disk is 

 I'eflexed, after the manner of a gamopetalous corolla, short and 

 thick, in the female flower, whose gynseceum is formed of two carpels. 

 The four oppositisepalous stamens which accompany it are sterile in the 

 female flower, and provided with an introrse. anther in the male flower. 

 The Tallsias are also closely allied to Cupania. They have 

 the imbricated corolla, but their five leaves are lined by a simple or 



