XXVI. MALPIGI-IIACE^. 169 



slender claws. Disk scarcely prominent. Stamens usually 10, all perfect, or 

 some of them deformed or without anthers, or sometimes wanting, the filaments 

 usually united at the base ; anthers 2-celled. Ovary usually 3-oelled, or the 3 

 carpels distinct, with 1 ovule in each, ascending from a pendulous ventral funicle. 

 Styles distinct, or united, or one only developed, with small terminal stigmas. 

 Fruit-carpels 3 or fewer, either united in a berry, drupe, or hard capsule, or more 

 frequently forming separate indehiscent nuts or winged samarte. Seeds without 

 albumen, the testa usually membranous and double. Embryo straight or curved; 

 cotyledons thin or fleshy, often unequal ; radicle short, superior. — Trees, shrubs, 

 or rarely undershrubs, frequently chmbing. Hairs usually closely appressed and 

 fixed by the centre. Leaves mostly opposite, with glands at the top of the 

 petiole, and often on the margin underneath. Stipules usually small, deciduous, 

 or none. Flowers usually yellow, red, or white, in racemes either simple and 

 terminal or collected in corymbs or umbels, the pedicels articulate on the common 

 peduncle. 



A large tropical and subtropical Order, abundant in S. America, much less so in Africa and 

 Asia. The only two Australian species belong to small genera spread over the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago and S. Pacific Islands. Both genera are exceptional as being deprived of the oalyoine 

 glands so general in the Order. — Benth. 



Tkise I. Banisterles. 



Carpels with 1 vertical, large, oblong or incurved wing. Flowers in irregular 



corymbs. Styles 3 . . . 1. Etssoptebys. 



Tribe II. Kirefe. 



Carpels with several (7 or more) small linear, stellately spreading wings. 



Flowers in sample racemes. Styles 1 or 2, unequal 2. Tristellateu. 



1. RYSSOPTERYS, Blume. 



(From the tubercles which cover the wings of the fruit.) 



Calyx without glands. Petals scarcely clawed. Stamens all perfect, the 

 filaments thickened at the base ; anthers without appendages. Ovary 3-lobed, 

 8-celled, villous ; styles 3, slender, with capitate stigmas. Samaras 1 to 3, 

 expanded at the summit into a wing, of which the upper margin is thickened, 

 tuberculate on the sides below the wing. Seeds oblong, with a slightly curved 

 embryo. — Woody climbers. Leaves opposite. Inflorescence terminal or apparently 

 axillary from the reduction of the flowering branches, compound, irregularly 

 corymbose. Peduncles bracteate at the base, with 2 bracteoles at the articulation 

 of the pedicels. 



A small genus, dispersed over the Eastern Archipelago, one of the species extending into 

 Australia . — Benth. 



1. B» timorensis (also of Timor), Blume; A. Juss. ^lalpuih. 133; Benth. 

 Fl. Austr. i. 285. A tall climber, the young shoots hoary-pubescent. Leaves on 

 rather long petioles, broadly cordate-ovate or orbicular, obtuse or rather acute, 

 3 to Sin. long, somewhat coriaceous, glabrous above when full grown, hoary- 

 pubescent underneath, with 1 or 2 prominent glands at the top of the petiole, 

 those on the margin of the leaf very small. Flowers on pedicels of 2 or 3 lines, 

 in short racemes arranged in irregular corymbs. Bracts and bracteoles very 

 small. Fruit carpels or samaras pubescent, the lateral tubercles very prominent, 

 the wing broadly semicircular, about fin. long and 5 or 6 lines broad. — Deless. 

 Ic. Sel. iii. t. 35. 



Hab.: Cape Cleveland, A. Cunningham; Pitzroy Biver, Thozet. The specimens are in fruit 

 only, but agree perfectly with those we have in the same state from Timor. Some other species 

 from the Archipelago are closely allied, but differ chiefly in the longer and narrowei- wing of the 

 samaras. — Benth. 



