206 SAPINDACE^. 



elliptical, glandular-apiculate, fixed near the base, introrse, 

 two-celled, the cells opening longitudinally. Oyary in the 

 sterile flowers an abortive rudiment ; in the fertile sessile, 

 ovoid, three-celled: style slender, more or less curved: 

 STIGMA terminal, undivided, commonly acute. Ovules two 

 in each cell, borne on the middle of its inner angle, amphit- 

 ropous, superposed ; the upper ascending with the micropyle 

 inferior, the lower pendulous with the micropyle superior. 

 (Their direction is at first vague or various in diff"erent cells, 

 but they assume these positions by the time the flower-bud 

 is full-grown.) 



Fruit a large leathery capsule, either echinate, or rough- 

 ened, or smooth and unarmed, three-celled, with the cells (by 

 the abortion of one ovule in each) one-seeded, or by suppres- 

 sion oftener one -two-celled and one -two-seeded (the ves- 

 tiges of the abortive seeds and cells usually discernible at 

 maturity), loculicidally two - three-valved. Seeds very 

 large, globular when solitary, or when more than one flat- 

 tened by mutual pressure, with a very smooth and shining 

 coriaceous testa and a broad opaque hilum, not arillate. Al- 

 bumen none. Embryo filling the seed : cotyledons very 

 thick and fleshy, a little corrugate-complicate and more or 

 less coherent by their contiguous faces (conferruminate), 

 unequal, hypogoeous in germination, incumbent on the 

 short conical radicle, which points to the hilum ; plumule 

 conspicuous, two-leaved. 



Trees, or sometimes shrubs, with large scaly buds, and 

 opposite palmately compound deciduous leaves, destitute of 

 stipules ; the leaflets five to nine, lanceolate or ovate, serrate, 

 pinnately veined, the primary veins straight and simple. 

 Flowers showy, in an ample terminal thyrsus or panicle, 

 appearing rather later than the leaves, racemose and near- 

 ly unilateral on the branches of the panicle, polygamous ; 

 those near the base of the branches of the inflorescence 

 only perfect and fertile ; the others sterile by the abortion 

 of the ovary, but otherwise similar ; the pedicels articulated. 

 Bracts and bractlets minute, caducous. Corolla white, red, 

 or yellow. 



