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re | Special M. orphology and Classification. 2 379 
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leaves, déciduous stipules, and moncecious flowers. Male flowers ar- 
ranged in catkins, with a 4- or 5-cleft perianth or none at all, and 
five to ten stamens attached to the perianth or bracts; female flowers — 
solitary, or in clusters or spikes, their perianth superior, with a toothed 
often almost obsolete margin ; ovary with from two to six stigmas, and 
the same number of loculi; in each loculus one or two pendulous ovules ° 
with two integuments. Fruit indehiscent, and, by abortion, usually 
unilocular and one-seeded, and surrounded at its base by a cup-shaped — 
envelope, the cule, as in the oak, or entirely enclosed within it, as — 
in the beech. This cupule proceeds from an inferior disc (Fig. 303, 
p- 147), and not from a leaf of the perianth, as in the Corylacez. The 
seed is without endosperm, and has a large embryo with thick fleshy 
cotyledons. The fruit of the Spanish or sweet chestnut, Castanea vesca, 
is edible. The two British oaks Quercus sessiliflora (Robur) and pedun- 
culata, and Q. Cerris and infectoria from Asia Minor and Turkey, are 
valuable for their wood, and the latter especially for its galls, from which 
tannin is obtained. Almost the whole of the cork of commerce is the 
produce of Q. suber from Spain, South Italy, and northern Africa. The © 
wood of Q. ¢emctoria of North America is used as a yellow dye. The — 
beech, Fagus sylvatica, is valuable for its wood and the oil of its seeds. | 
Order 2, CORYLACEH, (Figs. 484, 485.) This order is so closely — 
allied on the onehand to the Cupuliferze, on the other hand to the Betula- 
ceze, that we may trace a gradual transition 
between the three. From the Cupuliferze 
it is distinguisned by the presence of a 
spurious foliar cupule, and by the ovules 
having only a single integument ; from the 
Betulaceze by the cupule, the superior 
though usually rudimentary perianth of 
the female flowers, the absence of a peri- 
anth to the male flowers, and by each_ 
anther-lobe bearing a_ tuft ‘of hairs 
(see Fig. 268, p. 137). The best-known 
representatives of the order are the 
hornbeam, Carfinus Betulus,  valu- 
able for its timber, and the hazel or 
filbert, Corylus Avellana, for its fruit and Fic. 484,—Fruit ofthe hornbeam, - 
wood. Carpinus Betulus, with its 
1 three-lobed perianth (natural 
[To this cohort belongs also the order _ size). 
Fuslandee (Fuglans, Carya). : 
Cohort X, SANTALALES. Flowers hermaphrodite or diclinous ; peri- 
anth usually conspicuous, coloured, polymorphic, and valvyate ; ovary 
ot e “ %, 
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