STERCULIA. Linn. (Nat. order Sterculiacese.) 



GEN. CHAR.: Flowers unisexual or polygamous. Calyx more or less deeply 5 cleft, rarely 4 cleft, usually colored. Petals none. Staminal 

 oolunin adnate to the gynophore, bearing at the summit 15 or rarely 10 stamens, irregularly clustered in a head. Carpels of the ovary 5, distinct or nearly 

 bo, with two or more ovules in each. Styles united under the peltate orlohate stigmi. Fruit carpels distinct, spreading, either firm or woody, and scarcely 

 opening along the inner edge, or thinuer, and opening as follicles, even long before they are ripe. Seeds 1 or more in each carpel, rarely winged ; albumen 

 adhering to the cotyledons, often splitting in two, assuming the aspect of fleshy cotyledons ; real cotyledons flat or nearly so, and thin, the radicle next the 

 hilnm or at the opposite end, or intermediate. Trees, leaves undivided or lobed, or digitately compound. Flowers in panicles or rarely racemes, mostly- 

 axillary, sometimes very short ; terminal flowers usually female, in these the staminal column is shorter and the anthers less perfect than in the males> 

 surrounding the base of the ovary ; in the males the ovary is often entirely abortive. — Brachychiton, Trichosiphon, and Pcecilodermis, Schott; Delabechea, 

 Zindl.; Cavallium, Schott. ; Southwellia, Salisb. ; Firmiana, Mars. ; Pterygota, Schott. ; Hildegardia, Schott. ; Carpophyllum, Mig. ; Scaphiam, Schott. ; 

 Pterocymbium, Br. ; Tripbaca, Lour. 



feTERCULIA GUTTATA. A large tree, with a tolerably straight trunk, bark cracked, leaves oblong to very broad ovate 

 slightly cordate at the base entire with a longish sudden acuinination, upper side smooth and shining, beneath very softly villous, about 

 7-9 inches long by 4-5 broad, petioles round downy 2-5 inches long, stipules ensiform early caducous, racemes terminal and from the 

 divisions of the branchlets simple densely villous, flowers in threes, very shortly pedicelled about f inch across, chiefly hermathrodite, 

 bractes lanceolate, a larger one below the middle flower and a very minute one below each of the others, calyx densely villous on the 

 outside, hairy within and beautifully freckled with purple, ovary long pedicelled globose 3-5 lobed downy 3-5 celled, fruit carpels 

 generally 5 coming to maturity serai-ovate, about 3 inches long by 2 broad, villous of a brilliant red color ; seeds oblong jet black. 

 Roxb. Fl. Ind. iii. 149. 



A very common tree in almost every forest in Southern India and in Ceylon ; it is a beautiful object when covered with its bright red cap- 

 sules ; the timber is not used thai I am aware of, but the bark yields a valuable cordage, and is also made into a kind of clothing in some parts of 

 the western coast : for this purpose it is taken off in strips, beaten, washed, and dried in the sun ; the tree j's called Eawillee by the Kaders on the 

 Anamallays, and KuJcar and Qoldar on the Bombay ghats. 



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