VMBELLIFEBM. 161 



Heptapleunm (fig. 201) belongs to the same genus as Scheffleva. 

 When their flowers are pentamerous, as is very frequently the case, 

 it is distinct (as a section) by only a single character : the shortness 

 of the stylary lobes. The common por- 

 tion of the style is very variable in length, ' ^'''''^''-^[fZT"''"'"^ 

 sometimes very depressed or almost nil, 

 sometimes extended in a very prominent 

 cone. Such it appears, among others, in 

 Agalma, whose inflorescence is racemiform, 

 and in some species of Astropanax, whose 

 flowers, like those, of the true Heptapleurum, 

 may be in small capitules on the axes of 

 the inflorescence. In both the number of 

 stylary lobes, as also of ovarian cells, may 

 be equal to that of the petals, to which 

 they are superposed, or rarely inferior. '^^°'inflorero°encT °* 



There are even Scheffleras of the Heptapleu- 

 rum series whose flower has six, seven or more parts in each verticil. 



There are, on the other hand, species of Astropanax whose stylary 

 branches are deeply separate. Nothing characteristic then distin- 

 guishes them from the true Schejieras. When their flowers are in 

 capitules, scarcely anything separates them from the American plants 

 named Sciadophyllum, whose flowers may be pentamerous or may 

 have a greater number (6-10) of parts, and whose petals are 

 often more closely attached at the margins ; or from Brassaia, 

 trees from the tropical regions of Oceania, whose leaves are also 

 digitate, whose stylary lobes are very short and 'whose flowers have 

 as many as ten or twelve parts. Like those of Sciadophyllum conicum. 

 The only trait that permits their being made a section is the large 

 development of the bracts, two to four, which accompany the flowers 

 and form a sort of involucel. On the other hand there are species of 

 Heptapleuron with unifoliolate leaves, which no important character 

 permits being put in any other genus than Dendropanax, trees and 

 shrubs from eastern Asia and America, whose leaves are simple, 

 entire or 3-5-fid, and whose pentamerous flowers have stylary divi- 

 sions in great part independent or united in a cone scarcely crenelate 

 at the summit, with all intermediate degrees. It would violate natural 

 affinity not to make the genus Heptapleurum,, or rather Sehefflera, 

 such as we have defined it, a large group by concatenation the 



VOL. VII. 'M 



