361 



djc ErcaSurg of 33ntano. 



[CUPE 



capsular or indehiscent. They are natives 

 chiefly of tropical regions or of the south- 

 ern hemisphere, and especially of Australia. 

 There are above a hundred species, dis- 

 tributed into about twenty genera, among 

 ■which may be cited as the most generally 

 known, Wei7imannia, GaUicoma, Acrophyl- 

 h/m, Ceratopetalum, Cunonia, Caldcluvia, 

 Belangera, &c. 



CUPANIA. Alarge genus of trees or shrubs 

 belonging to the Sapindacece, numbering 

 upwards of fifty species, more or less fre- 

 quent in all tropical countries, but found in 

 greatest numbers in South America. They 

 are distinguished from their near allies by 

 having a dry capsular fruit, which bursts 

 when ripe : those genera more immediately 

 related to them having more or less fleshy 

 fruits which do not burst when ripe. In 

 all cases the leaves are pinnate, varying in 

 length from six inches to two feet, and 

 composed of few or many leaflets. The 

 flowers are small, generally green or white, 

 and arranged in terminal or axillary ra- 

 cemes or panicles ; some of them contain 

 stamens only, others both stamens and 

 pistil. The calyx is five-parted ; the petals 

 five.with or without a little scale-like appen- 

 dage ; and surrounding the ovary is a fleshy 

 ring, inside of which the stamens (eight to 

 ten in number) are inserted. The ovary is 

 crowned with a simple style, generally trifid 

 at the top, and becomes when ripe a two 

 or three-lobed capsule, woody or thin in 

 texture, with two or three cells, each con- 

 taining one seed ; the latter in all the spe- 

 cies are furnished with a large or small 

 fleshy cup-shaped aril, which is frequently 

 of a bright yellow colour, while the outer 

 coating of the seed is generally black 

 and polished. C. edulis, the Akee Tree, 

 is sometimes called Blighia sapida : which 

 see. The Tulip "Wood of eastern tropical 

 Australia is furnished by the Cupania or 

 HoTpulia pendula, a tree of lofty growth, 

 with a stem varying from eighteen to 

 twenty inches in diameter. The light 

 coloured wood is interspersed with darker 

 mahogany-coloured patches, and is sus- 

 ceptible of a high polish ; it bears much 

 resemblance to that of the Tamarind 

 tree. A very curious circumstance has 

 been noticed by Mr. Spruce in connection 

 with the seeds of C. cinerea, a Peruvian 

 tree with pmnate leaves, and wedge-shaped 

 leaflets covered underneath with a white 

 down. He says, 'The embryos fall out of 

 the seeds, while the outer coating or husk 

 of the seeds with their aril contained in 

 the burst capsules still remain on the tree.' 

 Loblolly-wood is the name given in Jamaica 

 to the wood of a number of trees of this 

 genus. [A. A. B.] 



CUP FLOWER.. Scyphanthus elegans. 



CUP GOLDILOCKS. Trichomanes radi- 

 cans. 



CUPHEA. A genus of Lythrarece, con- 

 sisting of herbs or undershrubs, often 

 viscid, natives of Tropical America, one 

 species extending northwards as far as 

 New York. The leaves are opposite, rarely 



verticillate, entire ; flowers solitary, on 

 short often-curved stalks, and not unfre- 

 quently arranged in a racemose manner, 

 purple, red or white ; calyx tubular, in- 

 flated below, and gibbous or spurred at the 

 base on the upper side, strongly nerved, 

 the limb plaited and six-toothed, often with 

 six smaller intermediate teeth, the whole 

 coloured and often forming the most con- 

 spicuous part of the flower; petals six, 

 rarely absent, unequal, the two uppermost 

 generally much larger than the others : 

 stamens about twelve, unequal, in two 

 sets ; ovary free, one or two-celled, few 

 | ovuled, with a slender style and two-lobed 

 stigma. Capsule oblong, usually ruptured 

 before the seeds are ripe, in which case the 

 placentas with the seeds attached, pro- 

 trude. [J. T. S.] 



CUPIDONE. (Fr.) Catananche ccerulea. 



CUP-PLANT. An American name for 

 Silphium perfoliatum. 



CUPE.ESSUS. A genus of evergreen 

 trees and shrubs, giving its name to the 

 tribe Cupressinece, of the family of conifers. 

 Their foliage is not often to be distin- 

 guished from that of some species of juni- 

 per, consisting, as in that genus, of either 

 small scale-like closely-appressed leaves, 

 or of longer linear spreading ones, acute 

 or acuminate, always opposite, and both 

 forms occurring sometimes in different 

 parts of the same tree or shrab. The fruit or 

 cone is, however, very different from that 

 of Juniperus, being much larger, with 

 peltate woody scales opening to let out the 

 seeds when ripe, and not at all succulent; 

 and the seeds are winged. There are about 

 ten species natives of the northern hemi- 

 sphere, all extratropical or penetrating 

 into the tropics only in mountain regions. 

 They may be readily distributed into 

 two sections, considered sometimes as dis- 

 tinct genera : Cupressus proper, with seve- 

 ral seeds under each scale of the cone ; and 

 Chamcecilparis, with two seeds only to each 

 scale. But the species themselves are very 

 difficult to mark out, being distinguished 

 rather by general habit than by any very 

 positive botanical character. 



C. sempervirens of Linnams, the common 

 Cypress, is a native of Persia and the 

 Levant, but so generally planted in the 

 East that the precise limits of its indige- 

 nous area have not been well ascertained. 

 It has two very remarkable forms. One, 

 C. fastigiata, with erect closely-appressed ! 

 branches, is the well-known tall Cypress, 

 celebrated by Oriental poets for its elegant 

 slender pyramidal form, and extensively 

 planted in Southern Europe and Western 

 Asia, especially in Mahommedan and Ar- 

 menian burial grounds. It will there reach 

 a height of above sixty feet, densely clothed 

 with leafy compact branches to within four 

 or five feet of its base, the trunk below the 

 branches attaining twelve to fifteen feet 

 in circumference. In our country, how- 

 ever, it is only in a few favoured spots that 

 it will rise much above a bush of ten to 

 fifteen feet, for it is of very slow growth, 



