MELIACE2E. 477 



Manilla and Borneo, has tlie perianth, of the true Guarea^ with a 

 longer and narrower bud, petals valvate or nearly so, and an ovary 

 whose obconical foot is also slightly thickened into a glandular layer, 

 representing the disk. The anthers are five in number, hidden in 

 the tube of the androceum, whose upper part is, at their level, split 

 into ten obtuse tongues. It consists of trees with pinnate leaves and 

 very numerous flowers arranged in large clusters much ramified and 

 compound. Turrceanthus^ formed of shrubs from tropical Africa, has 

 the perianth of Dasycoleum, 4 or 5-merous, but with a diplostemo- 

 nous androceum ; parietal placentas and ovules nearly orthotropous. 

 Synoum^ an Australian tree, with imparipinnate leaves, has shorter 

 tetramerous flowers, with imbricate contorted petals and a diplo- 

 stemonous androceum; The disk, but little developed, is also only a 

 thickening of the base of the ovary, and the ovules and seeds are 

 attached by a large hilum below a cellular projection of the placenta. 

 The species of Aglaia likewise have short, small, numerous flowers, 

 usually pentamerous. But they are polygamo-dioecious and isoste- 

 monous. The petals are contorted or imbricate, and inside them is 

 seen, as it were, a second corolla, urceolate or nearly globular ; this 

 is only the petaloid tube of the androceum, entire or lobate, with 

 the sessUe or enclosed anthers inserted at the top of its internal 

 surface. It surrounds the gynseceum, rudimentary in the male 

 flowers, destitute of disk, and, in the female, possessing an ovary with 

 one, two or three uni- or biovulate cells. The fruit is a sort of iude- 

 hiscent coriaceous berry, whose seed or seeds are coated by a pulpy 

 arillate layer. These plants, glabrous or covered with scaly or starry 

 hairs, inhabit the warm regions of Asia and Oceania ; they have im- 

 paripinnate or trifoliolate leaves. The Lansiums ought not perhaps 

 to be distinguished generically. They have larger flowers, dicecious, 

 but with diplostemonous androceum. The ovary contains two to five 

 cells and the arillate seeds are surrounded by a coriaceous and in- 

 dehiscent pericarp. They are trees from tropical Asia and the Indian 

 Archipelago, with imparipinnate leaves, the female flowers in axillary 

 clusters, much ramified on the male stems. It is not easy to dis- 

 tinguish, by precise characters, Amoora, consisting of trees from 

 Asia and tropical Oceania, whose flowers are polygamo-dioecious, 

 3-5-merous, with sepals free or united in a cupula, petals thick, 

 imbricate and an androceum whose filaments form a campanulate 



