84 
PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO 
[Scqnndacea. 
or compound, alternate, rarely opposite, sometimes marked witli pellucid lines or 
dots. Stipules usually wanting. Flowers hermaphrodite or oftener polygamous or 
dioecious; their disposition various. Petals frequently unguiculate, sometimes pro¬ 
vided with a basal appendage, generally white or pink. Disk sometimes glandulous. 
Fruit-cells predominantly ternary. Seeds not rarely arillate.— Hindi. Gen. 1066; Limit. 
Veg. Kingd. 382. 
In the systematical arrangement Sapindacese are touching onMalpighiacese; nor 
are the lines of demarkation easily drawn between both. Some resemble Meliacesc 
and Anacardiese in liahit. Of the numerous noble arborescent Sapindacese, which 
impart to the humid jungles of Eastern Australia quite an Indian aspect, and which 
comprise species of Erioglossum, Schmiedelia, Aryteria, Cupania, Harpulia, Atalaya 
and other genera, none seem to find in \ ictoria a climate sufiiciently genial for their 
development, unless the almost unexplored eastern tracts of Gipps Land should 
harbor yet some of these magnificent trees. 
D0D0NA3A. 
linnGen. Plant ♦ 855. 
Flowers polygamous or dioecious. Sepals 3-6, almost equal, free or somewhat coherent Petals 
none. Disk hardly developed. Stamens double the number of the sepals. Filaments generally short. 
Anthers two-celled, basifixed. Styles twisted into one, which is long, filiform and deciduous, separating 
into stigmatose lobes at the apex. Ovary central, sessile or short stipitate. Ovules tivo in each cell 
Capsule membranous or nearly crustaceous, 2-6-valved. Valves separating from the persistent 
column. Seeds oblique-sublenticular, exarillate, attached to the middle of the internal angle of the 
cell. Embryo circinate. 
Evergreen often viscid shrubs, rarely small trees, rather copiously to be found in all parts of 
the Australian continent, scattered in but few species over other tropical and subtropical countries, 
extending southward to New Zealand and Tasmania and northward to China and Florida. Leaves 
subcoriaceous or chartaceous, alternate, simple or pinnate, as well as the leaflets entire or toothed. 
Flowers small, axillary and terminal, solitary or racemose or corymbose or paniculate or sub- 
umbellate. Capsule generally scariously winged. Valves navicular. Column almost constantly 
winged by the persistent part of the dissepiment. Seeds small, often surrounded by a very tender 
brittle and perishable pellicle. — Endl. Gen. Plant. 1073 ; Gray & Sprague , Gen. Flor. Amer. Bor. 
Orient. 182. 
The genus Distichostemon (Dodonaea liispidula, Endl. Atackt. xxx.) of tropical Australia 
approaches in its relationship very closely to Dodonaea, from which, at least as a subgenus, the 
numerous stamens, disposed in two or more rows, distinguish it, although this number of stamens 
remains normally still double that of the sepals. Habitually it differs considerably in its almost 
herbaceous leaves and its foliaceous fruit-wings. In respect to the texture of the leaves, Diplopeltis, 
an allied exclusively Western Australian genus, comes nearer to Distichostemon than to Dodonaea, 
differing from both by producing petals and a conspicuous dimidiate disk, by long and decimate 
filaments and versatile anthers. The capsule of Diplopeltis Huegelii, which species seems to be the 
only one of the genus, is glandulous-hairy like that of Dodonaea liumilis. 
