102 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
digitate, with a number of folioles varying from three to nine. The 
flowers, solitary or united in few-flowered cymes, are axillary or 
terminal. 
Beside Bombax are placed some very analogous genera. Lrio- 
dendron (fig. 168) has the same leaves, the same perianth, and the 
Adansonia digitata. 

Fra. 169. 
Flower (+). 
same fruit, but the floral receptacle is much more concave, and the 
stamens are the same in number as the petals, with which they 
alternate; or they unite into bundles of two or three pieces only. 
Seven or eight species are known, inhabiting equally Asia, Africa, 
and tropical America.  Chorisia has also the perianth and the fruit of 
Bombax, with an androceum of five bundles, but these only separate 
from each other at a great height, and below they form by their 
union along tube round the almost entirely superior ovary. This 
tube is furnished on the exterior of its lower portion with five 
projections, which have been considered as antherless stamens ; 
and each of the branches at its apex bears two anthers similar to 
those of Hriodendron and Bombax. The three known Chorisias are 
fine trees of tropical America, with the same foliage as the preceding 
genera. 
