38 
No. 6. 
Alpliitonia excelsa, Reissek. 
The Red Ash. 
(Natural Order RHAMNACE^E.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Alphitonia, Reissek. 
Calyx. —Five-lobed, spreading. 
Petals. — Involute. 
Stamens. —Five, included in the petals. 
Disk. —Thick, tilling the calyx-tube. 
Ovary. —Immersed in the disk, two or rarely three celled, tapering into a shortly lobed style. 
Drupe .—Globular or broadly ovoid, the epicarp of a dry, mealy or somewhat corky substance ; 
endocarp of two or three hard coriaceous nuts or cocci, opening inwards by a longitudinal slit- 
Seeds. —With a shining hard testa, completely enclosed in a membranous brown shining arillus, 
open at the top, but with the edges folded over ; albumen cartilaginous or horny; cotyledons 
flat. 
Tree .— Leaves alternate, penninerved. Cymes dichotomous, many-flowered. Seeds often persisting 
on the torus after the pericarp has fallen off. 
Botanical description. —Species, A. excelsa, Reissek, in Endl. Gen., 1098. 
A tall hard-wooded timber-tree, the young branches, petioles, and inflorescence hoary or rusty 
with a close tomentum. 
Leaves. —Petiolate, varying from broadly ovate or almost orbicular and very obtuse, to ovate or 
lanceolate and acute or acuminate, usually 3 to 6 inches long, entire, coriaceous, glabrous or 
slightly hoary above, white, or rarely rust-coloured underneath with a close tomentum, the 
parallel pinnate veins very prominent. 
Flowers. —Two to three lines diameter, in little umbel-like cymes, arranged in dichotomous cymes 
in the upper axils or in a terminal corymbose panicle. Calyx tomentose. 
Disk. —Broad and nearly flat. 
Fruit. —Three to four lines diameter, or sometimes rather larger. (B.F1., i. 414.) 
Botanical Name. — Alphitonia, from the Greek alphiton signifying “baked 
barlev-meal,” in allusion to the mealy nature of the epicarp ; excelsa, Latin, signifying 
“ high.” 
