SAPINDAOE^. 369 



thick coriaceous and glabrous testa. The majority of the species of 

 jiEsculus have a tube-shaped calyx, petals very unlike each other, two 

 especially, with slender and long claw, being spathulate or cooh- 

 leate, and a fruit usually smooth ; the genus Pavia ^ has been made 

 of them, which we only preserve here as a section, the same as 

 Macrothyrsus^ and Calothyrsus^ genera proposed for the species of 

 j^sculus with tubular calyx, bilabiate or nearly so in the latter, 

 which has the claws of the petals flattened, while they are canali- 

 culate in the former, remarkable, moreover, by the arched staminal 

 filaments. So constituted, the genus jEsculus contains twelve to 

 fifteen species,* beautiful trees or shrubs from North America and 

 temperate Asia, having opposite, compound-digitate leaves, with 5-9 

 denticulate folioles, and flowers (white, pink, or yellow) arranged 

 in ramified terminal clusters, composed of cymes, usually uni- 

 parous. 



The species of BilUa^ shrubs from Mexico and Columbia, have 

 been sometimes joined to jEsculus^ having opposite digitate leaves gene- 

 rally with three folioles, but distinguished from it, it is said, by the 

 petals being provided with a bilobate appendage. This is the case 

 in one of the species of the genus inhabiting' Columbia ; but the 

 character is of little value, for it disappears in the other species, 

 otherwise very analogous, native of Mexico, and only exhibiting a 

 slight interior thickening of the claw of the petals. Nevertheless, 

 Billia might, strictly, be preserved as a distinct genus, because the 

 disk is excentric and unilateral, and the unequal distinctly imbricate 

 sepals are almost completely free. 



VI. MELIANTHUS SERIES. 



The honey-flowers^ (fig. 409-413) have hermaphrodite and irre- 

 gular flowers. The very unequal receptacle is prolonged backwards 



1 BoEEH. Hort. Lugd.-JBat. 260.— Poir. Diet. Fr. i. Z2Z.— Sot. Mag. t. 2118, 5017, 5117.— 

 y_ 93._Tt;rp. Diet. So. Nat. Atl. t. 165, 166.— Walp. Sep. i. 423 ; Ann. ii. 226 ; iv. 381 ; vii. 

 Spach, Ann. Se. Nat. ser. 2, ii. 52; Suit, d JBufon, 624. 



iii. 18. « Petr. Bot. Zeit. (1868), 153.— Tr. et Pi. 



2 Spach, Ann. Se. Nat. ser. 2, ii. 61. Ann. So. Nat. ser. 4, xviii. 366.' — Walp. Ann. 



3 Spach, loe. cit. 62. vii. ^U.—Putzeysia Pl. et Lind. Cat. (1857). 



< Keichb. le. Fl. Germ. v. 1. 161. — jAoauEM. « Melianthm T. Inst. 480, t. 245. — L. Gen. n. 



Voy. Bot. t. So.— A. GrRAY, Man. ed. 5, 117.— 795.— Adans. Fain. da. PI. ii. 388.— J. Gen. 

 Boiss. Fl. Or. i. 946. — Gren. et Godr. PI. de 795.^— Lamk. 111. t. 652. — Desrovss. Diet, iv, 



YQL. V, 3 B 



