190 
No. 32. 
Veil til a go vim in alis, Hook. 
The Supple Jack. 
(Natural Order RHAMNACE^E.) 
Botanical description.— Genus, Ventilago, Gaertn. 
Calyx. —Five-lobed, spreading. 
Petals. —Hood-shaped, or none. 
Stamens. —Five, scarcely exceeding the petals when present. 
Disc. —Flat or concave, filling the short calyx-tube. 
Ovary .—More or less immersed in the disc; 2-celled; style short, with 2 short, erect stigmatic 
lobes.* 
Nut. —Globular at the base, produced into an oblong or linear coriaceous wing ; 1-celled and 
1-seeded, indehiscent. 
Seed. —Globular ; testa membranous ; albumen none; cotyledons thick and Meshy. 
Climbing shrubs or trees. 
Leaves. —Alternate, penninerved. 
Flowers. —Small, clustered along the branches of axillary or terminal panicles. 
The genus is dispersed over the tropical regions of the Old World. The Australian species is 
endemic, differing from the others in habit and foliage, as well as in the absence of petals. 
Botanical description. —Species, V. viminalis, Hook., in Mitch. Trop. Austr. 3G9. 
A small glabrous tree. 
Leaves. —Narrow, lanceolate, 2 to 4, or even 5 inches long, entire, narrowed into a petiole, 
coriaceous, the pinnate veins very oblique, and sometimes almost parallel with the midrib, 
without the elegant transverse venation of the rest of the genus. 
Panicles .—Not much branched, or almost reduced to simple racemes, shorter than the leaves, 
solitary or clustered in the axils. 
Calyx .—About 1 line long. 
Petals .—N one. 
Disc .-—Entirely adnate to the short, broad calyx-tube. 
Ovary .—Slightly immersed in the disk. 
Fruit. —Glabrous, about 1 inch long, including the wing, the turbinate adnate base of the calyx 
not attaining above a quarter of the length of the globular nut. (B.F1. i, 411.) 
