HERITIERA PAPILIO. (Nat. order Sterculiaeese.) 



HERITIERA. Ait, — GEN. CHAR. Monsecious, calyx 4-6 toothed or cleft, petals 0. Male: staminal column slender bearing 4-6, 2-celled 

 anthers in a ring just below the apex of the column regularly arranged in a single series, cells parallel. Female; ovaries 56 distinct but connivent, 

 ovules 12 from the ventral suture near the base or at or above the middle, when 2 collateral or superposed, style short recurved a pair of very minute 

 staminodes on a single filament between each ovary at the base, or staminodes absent, ripe carpels woody or fibrous 1 seeded indehiscent keeled along the 

 back or extending into a long membranaceous and fibrous wiug. Seed exalhuminous, cotyledons thick, radicle next the hilum. 



TreeB with entire simple leaves, silvery lepidote underneath, venation penniveined or sub-3-nerved at the base, flowers small in axillary 

 dichotomous panicles. — Bolanopteris, Gcertn. Frnct. ii. 94. t. 98-99. 



■H-ERITIERA x APILIO. (Bedd.) A very lofty evergreen tree, monoecious, all the young parts, panicles, and inflores- 

 cence clothed with a golden soft stellate tomentura, trunk erect of great height, leaves 3 nerved at the base, veins pinnate above, 

 lanceolate rather acute at the apex, 4-5 inches long by 1^-2 broad, when young densely covered on the upper side with fugacious 

 close set scales, at length quite glabrous and shining above, beneath permanently silvery with close set scales (as in Cullenia), petioles 

 8-10 lines long, panicles axillary much shorter than the leaves, compound branches di-trichotomous densely covered with scaly 

 tomentum as is the calyx, flowers cream-colored, bractes smtU and very early c.iducous, calyx campanulate, in the male flower 4-5 

 cleft to nearly the middle about 2 lines long, staminal column slender glabrous, anthers 4-5, in the female, calyx 5-6 cleft, ovaries 

 5-6 distinct sparingly covered when young with stellate scales soon quite glabrous, 2-ovuled, a pair of minute sterile stamens on a 

 single filament not |- a line long are present between the base of each ovary, styles recurved, carpels 1 seeded, samaroid produced into 

 a large sub-deltoid membranaceous wing shaped like the outer wiug of some butterflies, very fibrous with numerous nerves, the lamina 

 soon separating and exposing the fibres. 



An immense tree common in the dense moist forests above Couriallum (Tinnevelly) at about 3000 feet elevation, also about Peermede 

 (Travancore) 3500 feet, influicer in August and September, it has only recently been discovered, and should be added to the Manual at page xxxiii ; 

 it yields a very valuable tough timber. 



Analysis. 



1-2. Pentamerou3 female flowers. 



3. The same open, showing the 5 ovaries with a pair of minute staminodes between each at the base. 



4. Staminodes. 



5. An ovary. 



6. The same cut vertically, showing 2 superposed ovules. 

 7-8-9. Youug fruit. 



10. 5-merous male flowers. 



11. The same oponed, showing the column of stamens. 



12. A 4-merous male flower, the st. column with 4 anthers. 



13. A column of stamens from a 5-merous flower, showing 5 anthers. 

 14-15. Anthers. 



] 6. Ripe fruit (life size.) 



17. A portion of the wing, showing the lamina separating and exposing the fibres. (Drawn from fresh specimens.) 



218 



