Ord. CELASTRACE^. 



Frutices vel arbusculce simplicifoliae, stipulis minimis ca- 

 ducis: dicotyledoneas, perigyiiEe, regulares, 4-5-mer8e, 4-5- 

 andrsB, aestivatione calycis corollseque imbricativa ; stamini- 

 bus petalis alternis disco insertis ; ovario libero 2 — 5-loculari, 

 stylis in unum coalitis, loculis mii-pluriovulatis ; seminibus 

 anatropis in capsularibus arillatis ; embryone in axi albumi- 

 nis recto magno, cotyledonibus foliaceis planis. 



Celastrine^:, R. Br. in Flind. Voy. 2. p. 554. Brongn. in Ann. Sci. 



Nat. 10. p. 328. Baitl. Ord. Nat. p. 378. Endi. Gen. p. 1085. 

 Celastrace^, Lindl. Introd. Nat. Syst. ed. 2. & Veg. Kingd. p. 58G. 

 Celastrinearum Trih. Euonyme^:, DC. Prodr. 2. p. 3. 

 Rhamnorcm Sect. 2, Juss. Gen. p. 377, excl. gen. 



The Staff-tree or Spindle-tree Family is at once distinguished from 

 the Buckthorn Family (from which Mr. Brown long since separated it), by 

 the imbricative ffistivation of the calyx and corolla, and by the stamens being 

 alternate with the petals. The fleshy disk, moreover, is less perigynous, 

 and the petals, large in proportion, are inserted by a broad base under its 

 more or less free edge. The ovary, although often immersed in the disk, is 

 free, or becomes so in fruit : its cells usually contain a pair of ovules, rarely 

 a single, sometimes several. These are normally erect or ascending ; but 

 they occasionally become resupinate-suspended (as in one section of Euony- 

 mus, plate 171), the raphe thus becoming dorsal in the manner long ago 

 shown by Mr. Brown,* and recently more fully explained by Mr. Bcnnett.f 

 The Celastraceaj are likewise distinguished, at least the capsular genera, 

 by their arillate seeds ; the arillus usually forming a fleshy or pulpy sac 

 which incloses the seed, or sometimes a cup or ring around its base. In 

 Euonymus Dr. Planchon has shown that this fleshy covering is developed 

 from the cxostome of the ovule, and not from the funiculus, and he therefore 

 names it a false arillus or arillodium.\ But in Celastrus, if our analyses 



* In tlie Appendix to King's JVarr alive, 2. p. 54!). — The same resupinatlon is 



scon in Sida (IMato 123), and in many other genera. 

 t In Ilorseficld's Plunlcc Javaiiictc Rariores, p. 131. 

 t In Jlnnalcs dcs Sciences KalurcUcs, 3'"'^ scr. 3. p. 281. t. 1 1. 



