TREES AND SHRUBS. 



ERYTHRINA, L. 



(Leguminosae.) 



Erythrina, Linnaeus, Gen. 216 (1737). — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 356. — Meissner, Gen. 93 — 



Endlicher, Gen. 1295. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 531. — Baillon, Hist Pi ii 946 — 



Engler & Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iii. pt. 3, 363. 

 Xyphanthus, Rafinesque, Fl. Ludovic. 103 (1817). 

 Chirocalyx, Meissner, Hooker, London Jour. Bot. ii. 97 (1843). — Walpers, Rep. v 535- 



Ann. i. 251. ' 



Micropteryx, Walpers, Linncea, xxiii. 739 (1850) ; Ann. ii. 425. 

 Duchassaingia, Walpers, Linncea, xxiii. 741 (1850) ; Ann. ii. 424. 

 Stenotropis, Hasskarl, fietzia, i. 183 (1855). — Walpers, Ann. iv. 558. 

 Hypaphorus, Hasskarl, Hort. Bogor. 197 (1858). 



Trees or shrubs with erect terete stems and branches often armed with recurved prickles, or 

 rarely herbaceous. Leaves alternate, pinnately three-foliate, stipules small, the stipels glandlike. 

 Flowers papilionaceous, showy, in pairs or fascicled on the rachis of axillary leafless racemes, or 

 in terminal racemes furnished at the base with leaflike bracts; calyx oblique, truncate or five- 

 dentate; corolla usually scarlet; petals free, standard broad or elongated, erect or spreading 

 nearly sessile or raised on a long claw; wing-petals small or wanting, longer or shorter than the 

 keel-petals; stamens ten, united into a tube split on the upper side, the tenth and upper stamen 

 separate or all ten united; anthers uniform; ovary stipitate, one-celled; stvle subulate incurved, 

 naked; stigmas small, terminal; ovules numerous, amphitropous, the micropyle superior. Fruit a 

 stipitate linear-falcate pod narrowed at the ends, compressed or subterete, constricted or undulate 

 between the seeds, two-valved ; seeds reniform, attached by an oblong basal hilum, exalbuminous. 



* rom twenty-five to thirty species of Erythrina are recognized, all inhabitants of tropical and 

 semitropical regions. In the gardens of warm countries several of the species are cultivated for 

 the beauty of their large and brilliant flowers. 



The name is from epvSpos, in allusion to the color of the flowers. 



