chaf] 



Elje *toa£urg of SBotanp. 



260 



CHAFF-SEED. 



Schwalbea. 



An American name for CHAMARAS. 

 dium. 



CHAFF-WEED. Centunculus minimus. 



CHAGAS DA MINDA. A Portuguese 

 name for Chymocarpus. 



CHAILLETIA. A genus which gives its 

 name to the family of Chailletiacece. It 

 is found more or less in most tropical 

 countries, hut represented in greatest 

 numbers in Brazil. The species are small 

 erect trees or shrubs, but sometimes (as 

 in ft pedunculata, a Guiana species) ex- 

 tensive climbers, reaching the tops of the 

 highest trees. The leaves are shortly- 

 stalked, alternate, entire, and generally 

 oval in form. The flowers are small white, 

 often odoriferous and disposed in axillary- 

 cymes and racemes ; the calyx five-leaved ; 

 the corolla of five cleft petals ; the stamens 

 five ; and the ovary two or three-celled, 

 crowned with a like number of styles, and 

 becoming when ripe a somewhat dry drupe, 

 with one or two seeds. The only extra- 

 tropical species is ft cymosa, which is a 

 native of South Africa, and has oblong ob- 

 tuse leaves ; and the only species whose 

 uses are recorded is ft toxicaria, a native 

 of Sierra Leone, where the seeds of this 

 plant are said to be used by the colonists 

 for poisoning rats, and by them called 

 Ratsbane. Upwards of thirty species are 

 known. [A. A. B.J 



CHAILLETIACECE. A family of dico 

 tyledons, nearly allied to Celastracece, but 

 differing in their usually notched petals, 

 in the five distinct glands which take the 

 place of the perigynous disk of the latter 

 order, and generally in the want of albu- 

 men to the seeds. They are remarkable 

 also by the great tendency of the peduncles 

 to combine with the petioles, so that the 

 flowers, which are really axillary, appear 

 to spring from the leaf itself at the sum- 

 mit of the petiole. They are all trees or 

 shrubs, with alternate stipulate entire 

 leaves, often white underneath. The 

 flowers are small, in paniculate cymes 

 or compact clusters. There are usually 

 five sepals, petals, and stamens, regularly 

 alternating with each other; but these 

 numbers are, in one genus (Tapura), irre- 

 gularly reduced. The ovary is superior 

 with two or three cells, and two pendulous 

 ovules in each cell ; the style is simple ; 

 the fruit a rather dry drupe with one to 

 three seeds. There are nearly twenty spe- 

 cies, natives of tropical regions, and dis- 

 persed over both the New and the Old 

 "World. They have been distributed into 

 four or five genera, of which the prin- 

 cipal are Chailletia, Moacurra, and Tapura. 



CHALAZA (adj. CHALAZINUS). That 

 part of the seed where the nucleus joins 

 the integuments ; it represents the base of 

 the nucleus, and is invariably opposite the 

 end of the cotyledons. 



CHALEF. (Fr.J Elceagnus. 



CHALK WHITE. Dull white, with a 

 dash of grey. 



Teucrium Scor- 



CHAME'CERISIER DES HAIES. (Fr.) 

 Lonicera Xylosteum. — ROSE. Lonicera 

 tatarica. 



CHAM^EBATIA. ft foliolosa, the only 

 representative of this genus, which be- 

 longs to the rose family, is a beautiful 

 Californian shrub, about three feet high. 

 All the young parts of the plant are 

 covered with small glands, which secrete 

 a resinous fluid, having a pleasant bal- 

 samic odour. The leaves are unlike those 

 of any other plant in the family, and bear 

 great resemblance to those of the millfoil 

 (Achillea), but are of a much harsher 

 texture, and generally from two to three 

 inches long. The flowers are in terminal 

 cymes, and in size and colour very much 

 like those of the hawthorn. The plant is 

 in cultivation, having been introduced in 

 1859, and will prove a great acquisition to 

 our gardens. [A. A. B.J 



CH AMiEBUXUS. Poly gala Cliamcebuxus. 



CHAM.ECERASUS. Cerasus Cliamcece- 

 rasus; also Lonicera Ledebourii. 



CHAM.ECISTUS. Rhododendron Cha- 

 mmcistus. 



CHAM^CYPARIS. A little group of 

 Conifers forming a section of the genus 

 Cupressus, from which it is separated by 

 some botanists, and characterised by the 

 seeds being two only under each scale. It 

 is sometimes restricted to the American 

 species, sometimes extended to those Ja- 

 panese ones, which have been separated 

 under the name of Retinospora. 



CHAM.ECYPARISSUS. Saniolina Cha- 

 mwcyparissus. 



CHAM^EDOREA. A genus of Palms, 

 containing between thirty and forty spe- 

 cies. They have reed-like stems marked 

 by rings or scars, and seldom more than 

 fifteen or twenty feet high, and one or two 

 inches thick, and surmounted by tufts of 

 leaves, which are either pinnate or nearly 

 entire. All of them are natives of tropical 

 America, inhabiting forests and forming 

 dense masses of underwood. Their flowers 

 are of separate sexes, borne on distinct 

 plants, very small, and produced in great 

 quantities on long branching spikes : the 

 males having a cup-shaped three-lobed 

 calyx, a corolla of three roundish sepals, 

 and containing six stamens and a rudi- 

 mentary or barren ovary ; and the females, 

 a three-parted cup-shaped calyx, a corolla 

 like the males, and a three-celled ovary 

 crowned by three short stigmas, and with- 

 out any rudimentary stamens. The fruit 

 is a small roundish berry containing a 

 single bony seed. The stems of most of 

 the species serve for walking-sticks and 

 similar purposes-; and their young un- 

 expanded flower-spikes are used by the 

 Mexicans as a culinary vegetable, under 

 the name of Tepejilote. 



