SterculiacecB .] 
THE COLONY OE VICTORIA. 
155 
varied. Seeds often ovate, without umhilical appendages.— Endl. Gen. 987 ; Lincll. 
Veg. Kingd. ed. iii. 360 ; Bombacese, Kunth, Dissert. Malv. p. 5. 
A comparison of the ordinal notes of Sterculiacese with those of Malvaceae, Buett- 
neriacese and Tiliaceas will evince how nearly all these orders are related to each 
other. 
Stercnliacese present several trees and shrubs in tropical and Eastern Australia, 
extending in one single species (Brachychiton Gregorii, E. M.) to the Murchison Biver 
and Sharks Bay in Western Australia. As a form of extreme interest in Australia 
we regard the Adansonia Gregorii, the Gouty-stem tree, alluded to by Allan Cunning¬ 
ham and Capt. Stokes, and of which an illustration, showing the remarkable features 
of this tree contypic to those of the Boahab of tropical Africa, may be compared in 
“Bennett’s Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australia,” pi. v. The order comprises in 
Continental Australia, as far as known, the Helicteres Ixora, two species of Methorium, 
Sterculia foetida, St. quadrifida, at least ten Avell marked species of Brachychiton, 
Argyrodendron trifoliolatum, the above-mentioned Adansonia, and, according to Boh. 
Brown and Jos. Hooker, Bheritiera litoralis. The allied family Coclileospermese 
numbers two endemic species in tropical* Australia. 
BRACHYCHITON. 
R. Br . in JHJorsf. Plant. Javan, rarior. 234. 
Flowers monoecious. Calyx monophyUous, bell-shaped , corollaceous, five-cleft, deciduous, with 
valvate rarely induplicate aestivation. Corolla wanting. Male flowers : Stamens connate into a 
slender column. Anthers rather numerous, crowded into five very short bundles, connivent into a 
globular Jiead, concealing a rudimentary ovary; cells distinct, ellipsoid, parallel, bursting externally 
with longitudinal slits. Female flowers : Styles 5, coherent, filiform, finally seceding. Stigmas short, 
simple. Ovaries 5, seated on an elevated torus, surrounded at the base by many anthers. Ovules 
numerous, biseriate along the ventral suture. Follicles hard , wingless, stalked, few- or many-seeded, 
bursting finally lengthwise. Seeds ovate , by their outer densely star-hairy brittle integument 
mutually coherent. Middle integument hard, separated from the exterior layer of the testa by a 
powdery pulp, terminated by a large orbicular chalaza. Cotyledons flat, straight, ovate, in the axis 
of the adnate albumen. Radicle small , egg-shaped , placed next to the hilum, centripetal. Plumule 
minute. 
Australian trees or rarely shrubs, dispersed over the northern and eastern tracts of the country, 
but of very rare occurrence on the west coast. Petioles long, cylindrical. Leaves alternate, evergreen 
or deciduous, herbaceous or coriaceous, undivided or lobed, rarely radiate- or digitate-compound. 
Stipules linear-subulate, as well as the bracteoles fugacious. Flowers paniculate, less frequently 
collected into clusters. Pedicels articulated at or below the apex. Calyx often red or variegated, 
rarely provided at the bottom with an indexed annular plate, seceding into scale-like lobules. Stami- 
nal column enclosed -within the calyx. Superior part of the outer cover of the seeds retained as an 
almost alveolar stratum within the follicle, by its transverse derupture liberating the seed.—Brachy¬ 
chiton, Pcecilodermis and Trichosiphon, Schott & Endl. Meletem. 33. 
U 2 
