OELASTRAGE^. 



I .. 



^Bind dry, with exalbuminous seeds. Rhacoma^ a bush of tropical 

 ^■Imerica, has leaves placed like those of Elceodendron^ and also the 

 ^iruit indehiscent, drupaceous, or dry ; but the ovarian cells have only 

 one ascending ovule. Ptelidium^ a Malagash bush, with opposite 

 leaves, has the 4-merous flowers and 2-ovulate cells of Elceoden- 

 dron ; but its fruit is an oval or subcordate samara, with a thick and 

 woody marginal wing. In Zinowiewia^ a Mexican shrub, we also observe 

 the opposite leaves, the inflorescence, the pentamerous flower and the 

 biovulate cells of Elceodendron ; but the fruit is a compressed linear, 

 oblong samara, surmounted by a membranous, dolabriform, vertical 

 wing a little lateral, and in particular terminal. 



In a small separate group {Pleurostyliem) are placed Pleurostylia^ 

 bushes of India and Madagascar, which have the opposite leaves 

 and the floral characters of the preceding genera, but in which the 

 ovary contains only one eccentric cell, with two ascending ovules, 

 and an equally eccentric style. We place near it Cathastrum, a 

 bush of the Cape, which has also opposite leaves and an eccentric 

 and unilocular ovary^ but whose parietal placenta supports two 

 vertical and parallel series of ascending ovules. 



Celastrus has also given its name to a sub-series (Celastrece) in 

 which the leaves are always alternate (a convenient character to 

 consult in practice, but whose slight value will be marked). They 

 have a convex plane or concave receptacle, two or more ascending 

 ovules in each cell, like Euonpnus, and like it, capsular fruit and 

 arillate seeds. They are bushes of the hot and temperate regions of 

 the whole world, often climbing or thorny, Gi/mnosjjoria cannot be 

 generically separated from it, as was thought, because of the union 

 to the cavity of the receptacle of the base of their ovary ; neither 

 can Putterlickia^ African plants, whose habit is exactly that of certain 

 Gymnosporia^ but whose ovarian cells are pluriovulate.^ The 

 capsule is voluminous, with a coriaceous partition. These plants 

 are to the other species of Celastrus^ by the number of their ovules, 

 what Euonymus angustifoUus^ americanus, etc., are to the species with 



^ Denhamia, Australian plants, with capsular are species such as D. pittosporoides, F. Muell., 

 osseous fruit, are also distinguished from Cclas- which certainly have only two ovules in certain 

 trus by pluiiovulate ovarian cells. But there cells. 



