THALAMIFLOR^ 



195 



planted on roadsides, with racemose unisexual flowers 

 of dull orange colour. S. Roxburghii is a tree of East 

 Bengal, rendered conspicuous by its bright-red calyx 

 (Plate V, fig. b); sundri {Heritiera minor Roxb.), 

 the tree from which the Sunderban takes its name, 

 and which supplies the best firewood of Calcutta; 

 mooch-kunda or kanak-champa {Pterospermuin aceri- 

 folium), with its long white odorous hermaphrodite 

 flowers and long fleshy sepals, the smell of which 

 is supposed to kill bugs; ulat-kambal {Abroma 

 augnsta), the mucilage of the roots of which is said to 

 have curative properties in certain female diseases; 

 and Helicteres Isora (antmara), the follicles of which 

 on dehiscing twist spirally and thus expel the seeds. 

 Cocoa and chocolate are prepared from the seeds of 

 Theobroma Cacao, an American plant, which is now 

 largely cultivated in Ceylon. 



Nat. Order 26. Tiliacece. — Trees or shrubs, rarely 

 herbs, inner bark fibrous, juice often mucilaginous. 

 Leaves and stipules as in the two preceding Orders. 

 Flowers regular, cymose. Sepals 5, connate or free, 

 lobes valvate. Petals 5, imbricate. Stamens many, 

 usually inserted on a disk, filaments free or polyadel- 

 phous. Ovary of 2 to 5 carpels, connate, 2- to 10- 

 celled; ovules i or more in each cell. Fruit fleshy 

 or dry, dehiscent or indehiscent. Seeds with scanty 

 albumen. 



Tiliacese abound in the tropics. Common plants are 

 pat or koshta {Corchorus capsularis and C. olitorms), 

 the bark of which yields jute, the well-known fibre of 

 commerce; C. acutangulus (fig. 168), a weed of waste 

 places, the dried leaves of which are used as a sto- 

 machic under the name of nalte-pata; phalsa {Greivia 

 astatica) (fig. 169), a tree planted for its edible berries; 

 vnArai^sha. {Elceocarpus Ganitriis), the stones of which 



