ME LI ACE ^. 



glandular hairs. With them alternate five much longer petals, im- 

 bricate or coutorted in prtefloration. The androceum is formed of 

 ten stamens, superposed, five to the sepals, and five to the petals 

 All are monadelphous, and the filaments are united in a long cylin- 

 drical tube (fig. 464) whose upper opening is laciniate in a score 



Melia Azedcrach. 



Fiy. 4G3. Portion of inlloresccuce. Fig. 46 i. Longitudinal section of flower (f). 



of unequal coloured tongues. More inwardly are inserted, at the 

 top of the tube, the bilocular introrse anthers, dehiscent by two 

 longitudinal clefts.^ The gynseceum is found inside the tube of the 

 anckoceum ; it is composed of a free ovary, surrounded at its base by 

 an hypogynous glandular disk, annular, and tapering at the top in a 

 style whose capitate stigmatiferous apex is divided into a number of 

 small lobes equal to those of the ovary cells. These are often five in 

 number, superposed to the petals, or else three to six. In the in- 

 ternal angle is seen a longitudinal placenta supporting two ovules, 

 superposed or nearly so, descendent, with the micropyle turned up- 

 wards and outwards.^ The fruit is a drupe with flesh of little thick- 

 ness, whose stone is uni- or pluri-locular, with, in each cell, a seed 

 whose coats enclose an embryo surrounded with albumen in small 

 quantity often membraniform. The cotyledons are foliaceous, and the 

 superior radicle but little developed. There are flowers oï Melia with 

 six parts and twelve stamens ; there are some, like those of the Asa- 

 dirachta^ whose ovary has three cells and the stone never more than 

 one. This genus contains only two or three species ; more than 



t. 2, n. 4. — Endl. Qen. n. 6620. — Payer 

 Organog. 118, t. 26.— B. H. Oen. 332, n. 7.— 

 H. Bn. Payer Fam. Nat. 404. — Azederach 11. 

 Inst. 616, t. 387. — Adans, Fam. des PL ii 

 342. 



' The pollen is ovoid, with three or four folds, 



and becomes spherical in water, with three 

 hands and papUIee. (H. Mohl, Ann. Se. Nat. 

 sér. 2, iii. 335.) 



'- A double coat. 



'A. Juss. Mtliac. 68, t 2, n. 6. — Space, op. 

 cit. 186. — Enpl. Om. n. 5021. 



