4 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



edults, a shrub of Eastern Africa and Arabia, also has its leaves oppo- 

 site, the inflorescence, the flower of Euoni/mus ; but its ovary, more 

 elongate, and of three biovulate cells, becomes a capsulary fruit, 

 elongate, trigonous, obtuse, its seeds inferiorly dilated into a very 

 thin wing. Microtropis is analogous to Catha by the elongate form 

 of its capsular fruit. The seed is enclosed in a fleshy and colored 

 envelope which resembles an aril. But the flower is easily distin- 

 guished by its concave receptacle, the absence of the disk, the 

 coriaceous sepals and petals ; these last united at their base into a 

 hollow gamopetalous corolla. The ovary, inferior at the base, has 

 two or three incomplete cells, in which are two nearly basilar ovules. 

 Microtropis is Indian ; the leaves opposite and coriaceous very much 

 resembling those of Clusiaeese, and the corolla, that of the Holly. 

 Kokoona, which grows in Borneo and Ceylon, has very nearly the 

 same organs ; the hermaphrodite flowers have five thick petals, im- 

 bricate or twisted, and a large pentagonal disk having five depressions 

 in which are inserted the same number of stamens. The three cells 

 of their ovary contain each two series of oblique ovules, an indefinite 

 number in each row, and the fruit is a large polyspermous capsule, 

 with imbricate winged seeds destitute of albumen. ^ 



Elceodendron forms the chief of a sub-series {Elceodendrece) in 

 which the fruit is indehiscent, instead of capsular. The flowers, 

 moreover, 4-5-merous, are constructed like those of Euonymus, and 

 the ovarian cells enclose two ascending ovules. The pericarp is 

 drupaceous, with a uni- or pluri-loeular stone, and the seed is 

 exarUlate. The Elceodendrons are trees and shrubs which grow 

 in all the warm countries of the globe, particularly in the old world. 

 The leaves are often opposite, like those of the Euonymus ; but 

 they may also be alternate (which proves the little value of this 

 character). In Cassine, a Cape bush, the leaves are opposite and 

 the fruit is a berry. The exarillate seeds are, like the two ovules 

 in each cell, descending instead of ascending. Eartogia^ a Cape 

 bush, has also opposite leaves, and in each cell two ovules ; but they 



1 The genus Almtea E. et Pav. placed near oboordate ovary, followed by a loctilicidal oap- 



the preceding, but without any certainty, be- sule of the same form, with numerous superposed 



cause no one since Pavon has been able to' study winged seeds. It is a Peruvian shrub with 



it, is distinguished by its oampanulate calyx, opposite entire leaves and flowers in tenninal 



its apetalous 5-androus flowers, and a bilocular corymbiform cymes. 



