350 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Efip/ioria Longana. 



berries each containing a seed enveloped by a tliick aril, fleshy or p^ilpy, 

 and whose exalbumiuous embryo has thick plano-convex cotyledons. 

 It consists of trees with imparipinuate leaves, natives of tropical 

 Asia and Oceania. Nephelhmi (fig. 356- 

 360), growing in the same regions, has the 

 same general organisation, but the leaves 

 are usually paripinnate, and the calyx, 

 instead of being formed of free sepals, 

 becomes gamosepalous, in the form of a 

 shallow Clip dentate on the edges. The 

 petals are variable in num- 

 ber, destitute of appen- 

 dages, or completely want- 

 m." and the stamens are 

 generally exserted in the 

 male flowers. The fruit 

 in the Nephelium proper 

 or Scytalia (flg. 356, 357) is like that of EiqyJioria, and does not 

 open, or dehisces tardily and in an irregular manner, to liberate 

 a seed completely surrounded by a large fleshy sacciform aril 

 (fig. 357, 358), whose cotyledons are plano-convex, or more or less 



Fig. 3.54. Inflorescence. Fig. 3.Ô5. Male flower (3). 



Ncpheliiim [Scijlalia) Litchi. 



Fig. 356. Fruit. 



Fig. 358. Seed with .-iiil. 



357. Longitudinal section 

 of fruit. 



folded back upon themselves. In a Nephelium of Mauritius, from 

 which the genus Htudmanla has been made, the fruit opens a little 

 more regularly, usually following its length and in two nearly equal 

 valves. The seed is totally enveloped by an aril, and the embryonic 

 radicle is folded back on the cotyledons. In the Cuhilias, species 

 from the Indian Ai'chipelago, which there seems no reason for 



