tHis country by the cabinet-maker, while the Chloroxylon Swietenia affords the beautiful and
fragrant Satin wood, and lastly, the Toon tree (Cedrella toona) inferior to none of the others furnishes
a beautiful timber, resembling Mahogany, while the bark has nearly all the medicinal
properties of the Soymida, and lastly, the flowers are used in Mysore in dying cotton, a beautiful
red colour. Endowed with so many useful properties it seems desirable that the cultivation
of almost every species should be attempted on a large scale. The Chittagong wood tree,
the Toon and the Satin wood, are all found in the neighbouring jungles, and I think also, the
Soymida, bu,t I have not seen them in cultivation.
R emarks on G enera and Species. The genera of this order, like those of Meliaceae,
naturally divide themselves into two sections, those namely, having the filaments free to near
the base, and exalbuminous seed, (Cedreleae) and those having their filaments united into a
tube and albuminous seed: to the first of these sections Cedrelae and Chloroxylon belong, to
the second Chickrassia and Soymida are referable, and with the exception of the new species
of Chickrassia no recent additions have been made. The accompanying plates exhibit a species
of each of these tribes.
EXPLANATION
1. Chickrassia tubularis, natural size.
2. A flower, fully expanded.
3. Stamen tube split open, showing the ovary, style,
and stigma.
4. Anthers back and front views.
EXPLANATION
1 Chloroxylon swietenia, natural size.
2. An expanded flower.
3. Stamens back and front views.
4. Ovary and cup-shaped torus.
5. Ovary cut vertically.
6. Cut transversely, 3-celled, with several ovules in
each cell.
7. A full grown capsule burst, showing it3-valved,
with loculicidal dehiscence.
OF PLATE 56.
5. 'Ovary cut transversely, 5-celled, with two rows of
ovules in each.
6. The same cut transversely.
7. A full grown fruit.
OF PLATE 57.
8. Cut transversely.
9. A valve of the capsule, showing the seed imbricated.
10. A seed, the apex winged.
11. The same, cut obliquely across the base.
12. A seed cut transversely, showing the wing.
13. A seed lobe, with the radicle superior—all more or
less magnified.
XLI.—AMPELIDEA3.
This small, but from including the Grape-vine, very important order, for the most part
consists of diffuse or scandent plants, climbing by means of tendrils, and is with few exceptions
confined to the tropics or the warm countries bordering on them, but within these limits its
species abound.
In most modern systems of Botany it is divided into two suborders, Viniferae and Leeaceae,
the former characterized by their sarmentose scandent habit, and by being furnished with tendrils
(sterile peduncles) opposite the leaves, by the petals and stamens being distinct to the base,
and by the ocillatory anthers : the latter by the plants not being scandent and without tendrils,
by the petals, usually, united at the base, by the stamens being monadelphous and by the anthers
not ocillating.
Calyx small, nearly entire. Petals 4-5, inserted on the outside of a disk surrounding the
ovary, indexed on the margin: aestivation valvate, often somewhat hooked in and cohering at
the point. Stamens equal in number, and opposite the petals, inserted upon the disk, sometimes
sterile by abortion; filaments distinct, or, in Leea, cohering at the base, and forming a
thick fleshy urceolus, anthers ovate, versatile, or in Leea fixed, by the cohesion of their margins.
Ovary superior, 2-3 celled, with the ovules erect in pairs, or 6-celled,with solitary ovules.
Berry round, often by abortion, 1-celled, pulpy : seeds 4-5 or fewer, erect, bony ; albumen hard.
Embryo erect, about half the length of the albumen, radicle tapering, cotyledons plano-convex,
or subfoliaceous. Shrubs with tumid separable joints. Leaves furnished with stipules at the
base, often very variable in form on the same plant being simple and entire, or variously lobed;
affording very unsatisfactory specific characters. Peduncles racemose, or cymose, sometimes
changing to tendrils opposite the leaves; flowers small, greenish or purple.