No. 111 . 
Owenia cepiodora, F.v.M. 
The Onion Wood. 
(Family MELIACE^E.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Owenia , F.v.M., in Hooker’s “ Journal ol‘ 
Botany and Kew Gardens Miscellany,” ix, 304 (1857) ; also see Part XIV, 
p. 89, of this work. 
Botanical description. —Species, O. cepiodorct, F.x.M., Fragm. XI, 81 (1880). 
A tall tree with thick branch lets, the bark prominently cicatrized, neither glutinous nor with 
milky juice ; the wood with a strong smell of onion. 
Leaves crowded near the end of the branches, the petiole 1| to 3 inches long, thickened at the 
base. 
Leaflets pari-pinnate, mostly from 21 to 5 inches long and | to 11, inches broad, entire, often acutely 
acuminate, occasionally somewhat obtuse, very rarely retuse, deep green above, pale green 
beneath, narrowed into a petiole 2 to 3 lines long. 
Panicle 7 to 9 inches long, with spreading, often divaricate, branches, the pedicels about 1 b lines 
long. 
Bracts minute, from semi-lanceolate to linear-subulate, solitary at the base of the pedicels. 
Sepals 5, orbicular, persistent, about 1 line long, much imbricate, connate at the base. 
Petals deciduous, 1^ to 2 lines long, oblong-lanceolate, narrowed at the base, white, the margins 
slightly imbricate. 
Stamens 10, the tube free, about 1 line long, terminating in 10 very short truncate or bifid teeth 
Anthers hardly \ line long, almost terminal, oblong-linear, introrse, longitudinally dehiscent. 
Disc very short. 
Stiyma globose or conical-ovate, reddish, twice as long as the style, which hardly attains 1, line in 
length, 2-lobed, the lobes cohering. 
Ovarium 2-celled. 
Drupe globular, often § inch in diameter, the pericarp red outside, pulpy and white inside, the 
putamen bony. 
Seeds 2, rarely 1,* erect, ovate, basally attached, without arillus, the testa pale, with a yellow- 
brownish hilum. 
Albumen none. 
Embryo erect or a little oblique ; cotyledons ovate ; radicle very short, almost globular. 
Richmond River, in forest valleys, collected by Fawcett. 
* The description of the species is a free translation of Mueller’s Latin description, except in one instance. 
Bailey writes : “ Seeds 2, rarely 1.” Mueller seems to have seen only fruits with solitary seeds. He writes : “ Semen 
erectum, ovatum, &c.” Though he does not say the seed is solitary in the fruit, he writes of it in the singular. Bailey’s 
alteration is evidently a correction based on more ample material, and my experience so far boars it out. 
