LIBRARY 

 NEW YORK 

 SOTANtCAL 



Family 15. MELIACEAE 



By Percy Wilson 



Mostly tropical trees or shrubs, often with a hard, colored, odorous wood, 

 rarely shrubby herbs. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, pinnately or digi- 

 tately compound, or sometimes unifoliolate or simple, without stipules. 

 Leaflets or leaf-blades entire or cut, rarely serrate, usually without pellucid 

 dots or lines. Inflorescence axillary or terminal, paniculate, racemose, spicate, 

 corymbose, or sometimes umbel-like. Flowers regular, perfect, rarely polv- 

 gamo-dioecious. Calyx with 4 or 5 lobes or sepals, rarely more or fewer. Petals 

 4 or 5, rarely 3 or 7, imbricate or valvate, free, or occasionally adnate to the 

 lower part of the staminal tube, sometimes keeled below the middle on the 

 inner face, the keel adherent to the disk through the grooves. Androecium 

 of 8-10 stamens, or rarely fewer or more; filaments united into an entire or 

 lobed tube, rarely free; anthers either sessile or stipitate, inserted within the 

 mouth of the tube, or above on the edge of the disk, 2-celled, dehiscing longi- 

 tudinally. Disk annular or columnar, free or adnate to the staminal tube 

 or ovary. Gynoecium usually of 2-5 united carpels; ovary 2-5-celled, rarely 

 with 1, 7 or 10 cells; style elongate; stigma disc-like or capitate, simple or 

 grooved. Ovules 2 or more in each cell, collateral or superposed, rarely 

 solitary. Fruit a capsule, septicidally or loculicidally dehiscing, or a drupe 

 or berry. Seeds solitary or many in each cavity, sometimes samaroid and 

 imbricate downward in 2 rows in each cavity. Endosperm fleshy or wanting. 

 Embryo straight or transverse. Cotyledons fleshy or foliaceous. Radicle 

 superior or lateral. 



Filaments more or less united into a tube; petals not keeled on the midrib of the 

 inner face nor adherent to the disk. 

 Ovules 1 or 2 in each cavity of the ovary, not biseriate. 



Leaves twice or thrice pinnately compound; fruit a drupe. 1. Melia. 



Leaves once pinnate, digitately several-foliolate, or unifoliolate; fruit a 2-5- 

 celled. 2-5-valved capsule. 

 Disk tube-like or subcampanulate. 2. Cabralea. 



Disk s*tipe-Iike or annular. 



Anthers included or barely exserted; radicle lateral. 3. Guarea. 



Anthers exserted; radicle superior. 4. Trichilia. 



Ovules several in each cavity of the ovary, biseriate. 



Capsule loculicidally dehiscent from the base; seeds large, angled. 5. Carapa. 



Capsule septicidally dehiscent from the base; seeds samaroid. 6. Swietenia. 



Filaments free; petals keeled to the middle or below on the midrib of the inner 



face, the keel adherent to the disk through the groove. 7. Cedrela. 



1. MELIA L. Sp. PI. 384. 1753. 



Azedarach Mill. Gard. Diet. Abr. ed. 4. 1754. 

 Azedara Raf. Fl. Ludov. 135. 1817. 



Trees, with alternate pinnately compound leaves. Leaflets often numerous, entire or 

 toothed. Flowers perfect, in axillary panicles. Sepals 5 or 6. Petals 5 or 6, distinct, con- 

 torted, spreading, imbricate in the bud. Staminal tube cylindric, dilated at the mouth, 

 10- or 12-toothed, each tooth cleft. Anthers 10 or 12, inserted within near the apex of the 

 tube. Disk annular. Ovary 3-6-celled; style slender, columnar, nearly as long as the tube; 

 stigma more or less 5- or 6-lobed. Ovules 2 in each cavity, superposed. Fruit a drupe, with 

 Volume 25, Part 4, 1924] 263 



