RHAMNAOE^. 



87 



Ventilago leiocarpa. 



is festooned ; but the fruit is drupaceous, with two or three indehisoent 



stones, and the small flowers are disposed (often in glomerules) on 



the opposite and divaricate branches of a large compound termiual 



cluster. Scutia, glabrous shrubs, often armed 



with hooked spines, growing in Asia, Africa, and 



South America, has nearly the same flowers, 



slightly fleshy, as Sarcomphahs, a disk free above 



but thicker and shorter, often undulated at the 



margin, and the fruit encloses two or three crus- 



taceous nuts ; but the flowers occupy the axils 



of the thick and coriaceous leaves, and are in um- 



belliform cymes. 



Ceanoihus also, has nearly the flower of Scutia ; 

 but the floral receptacle, in form a shallow cupule, 

 is filled with the short and thick disk, and the 

 long-clawed petals rise in the intervals of the 

 connivent sepals. To the semi-inferior ovary suc- 

 ceeds a drupaceous fruit, but the exocarp of which 

 separates from the inwardly dehiscent cocci. 

 Ceanothus abounds especially in the southern and 

 western regions of North America and in Chili. 

 They are shrubs with alternate and penninerved 

 or triplinerved leaves. The inflorescence is ter- 

 minal in dense and ramifled cymiferous clusters. 



In Ventilago (fig. 46-48), of which a distinct tribe has some- 

 times been made, the receptacle is also a 

 hollow shallow, cup, filled with the thick flattened 

 and depressed disk; but the semi-inferior and 

 biloeular ovary is succeeded by a dry indehisceut 

 fruit, accompanied at the base by a receptacular 

 cupule, and the persistent style is dilated to a 

 flattened, rigid, membranous and veined wing. 

 They are climbing shmbs from all tropical regions of the old world. 

 The leaves are alternate, and the flowers collected in simple or com- 

 pound cymes. Smythea^ having the same foliage and flowers, and 

 inhabiting Polynesia and the Indian Archipelago, is distinguished by 

 its oval, flattened, ligneous fruit, dehiscing in two valves following 

 the middle of the two faces. In these two genera the seeds are 

 destitute of albumen. 



Fig. 48. Fruit. 



Paliurus austraUs. 



Fig. 49. Fruit. 



