CELASTRACE&. 



15 



Their flowers 1 are united in axillary, simple, or more or less 

 ramified, and sometimes umbelliform cymes, with pedicels accom- 

 panied by two lateral bracteoles. More than fifty species 2 are 

 known ; they have sometimes two or even four or five stamens, 

 two or three of which are. sterile and antherless. 



The Salaccco (fig. 26, 27), plants from the same tropical regions as 

 the Hijopocratece, often have the same habit and foliage; and their 

 flowers present the same organisation. But their fruit, one or many- 

 seeded, is destitute of wings, globular, or pear-shaped, often coriaceous 

 or ligneous on the surface, pulpy within, with one or several seeds, 

 ordinarily ascending, nude, or partially enveloped in an aril springing 



Salacia viridijlora. 



Fig. 27. Long. sect, of flower (~). 



Fig. 26. Floriferous branch. 



from the umbilicum, and containing an embryo similar to that of the 

 ffippocrateie, or thinner, with cotyledons nearly foliaceous, and, in 

 this case, surrounded by a fleshy albumen of very variable thickness. 

 The plants of this series are therefore very analogous in organisation 

 to those of the Euonymus Series. So far they are scarcely distinct 

 except in the fertile stamens being fewer in number than the petals. 



1 White, yellow, or greenish. 



2 R. et Pav. Fl. Per. t. 47.— Roxb. PI. Com- 

 mand, t. 130, 205.— Rudg. Guian, t. 8, 9.— Bl. 

 Bijdr. 218.— A. S. H. Fl. Bras. Mer. ii. 102.— 

 Wight and Arn. Prodr. i. 103. — Wight, 111. 

 t. 46, 47; Icon. t. 380, 963. — Guillem et 



Peek. Fl. Strug. Tent. i. Ill, t. 25, 26.— Oliv. 

 Fl. Trop. Afr. i. 366.— Tul. Ann. So. Nat. ser. 

 4, viii. 91.— Griseb. Fl. Brit. W.-Ind. 148.— 

 Walp. Sep. i. 400; ii. 812; v. 146; Ann. ii. 

 193; vii. 5S3. 



