TILIACE^E. 201 



shorter than the petiole, twice or thrice dichotomous ; the forks sub- 

 tended by a pair of oblong bracts. Pedicels articulated, not longer 

 than the calyx. Calyx calycidate with an involucel of 3 bractlets, glo- 

 bose in the bud ; the sepals very thick and coriaceous, triangular-ovate, 

 valvate in aestivation, deciduous. Petals 5, not appendiculate, hypo 

 gynotw, broadly obovate, minutely veiny (only seen in the buds), im- 

 bricated in cestivation. Stamens very numerous, crowded in a globular 

 mass, inserted on the flat summit of a depressed receptacle, which 

 is not at all elevated, but its margin is slightly produced into an 

 obscurely five-crenulate border or hypogynous disk : filaments distinct, 

 not longer than the ovary : anthers two-celled, linear-oblong ; the cells 

 opening longitudinally. Ovary sterile, oblong, sessile, glabrous, some- 

 what compressed, surrounded by some long hirsute hairs, which are 

 more or less intermixed with the inner stamens (nearly as in Mun- 

 tingia), and are almost as long as their filaments, tivo-celled, destitute 

 of ovules : style none : stigma sessile, refuse or two-lobed. Fertile 

 flowers scarcely known : a single apparently hermaphrodite flower 

 exhibited a nearly similar calyx, corolla, &c, fewer stamens, and a 

 broader ovary, with the cells containing many minute ovules. The 

 truly fertile, pistillate flowers probably unknown. Inflorescence of 

 the fruiting specimen nearly as in the sterile, but with longer pedun- 

 cles. Capsule dilated-rhomboidal and emarginate, or somewhat obcor- 

 date, twocelled, compressed contrary to the partition, puberulent, between 

 ligneous and coriaceous in texture ; the rather turgid body of the fruit 

 extended all round, except at the base, into a firm wing of 3 or 4 lines 

 in width : it is locidicidally dehiscent at maturity through the wing 

 from the apex downwards, thus opening like a bivalve shell. The 

 length of the pod is about an inch ; the width about one-fourth larger. 

 Seeds very numerous in each cell, horizontal, lenticular-globose, a line 

 broad, on a short funiculus, which separates by a clean scar from the 

 placenta, and remains attached to the excised or subcordate hilum : 

 the testa thin and fragile, cellular, in the dried specimens loose, and 

 as it were inflated and detached from the smooth and ovoid crusta- 

 ceous tegmen, except on the dorsal face of the seed, where it is 

 reduced to an adnate pellicle, or apparently disappears abruptly, 

 leaving a broadly oval depression on that side (fig. 18, 20) : it is 

 naked on both sides, but the rounded edges are throughout beset with 

 a continuous tuft of very long and soft hairs. Embryo axile, straight, 

 nearly as long as the fleshy albumen; the cotyledons flat, nearly orbi- 



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