Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 1.djvu/168

 Tribe VI — Dombeyaceœ. Calyx usually with an involucel, 5-partite or rarely 5-lobed. Petals 5, flat, rather large, unequal-sided, convolute in aestivation. Stamens some multiple of the number of petals, in a single row, monadelphous, sometimes all fertile, but. usually 5 of them sterile and filiform or strap shaped. Styles 2, 3, 5, or 10, distinct, or united together. Ovules 2, placed side by side, or several, in two rows in each cell of the ovarium. Embryo straight, usually in the axis of a fleshy albumen. Cotyledons leafy, often bifid, crumpled or flat.

To this tribe Pentapetes, Melhania, Pterospermum and Kydia belong. The two former genera are for the most part composed of small herbaceous or suffruticose plants, the latter of handsome flowering trees. They are all widely distributed over the Peninsula. Dombeya, which is a fine flowering shrub and a favourite in gardens, is a doubtful native of Southern India.

Tribe VII — ''Eriochlœneœ. Arn. Wallicheœ'' D.C. Calyx 4 5 partite or lobed, with a 3-3 leaved involucel. Petals 4-5 flat. Stamens numerous in a multiple series, the outer ones shorter, all united into one conical column as in Malvaceae: sterile filaments none, anthers 2-celled erect. — To this tribe one or perhaps two Indian genera belong. The one Microchlœna, which is abundant on the slopes of both the Pulney and on the Shevaroy hills, is a small stunted looking tree with rough cracked bark.

A slight examination of the peculiarities of the preceding tribes will show how difficult it must be to draw up any character suited to include the whole order without introducing so many contradictions as to render such a one almost useless in practice, and yet, it is generally easy to distinguish the members of the order. They are nearly allied to Malvaceœ and Tiliaceœ, from the former of which they are separated by their 2-celled anthers, and from the latter by their monadelphous stamens.

This as already observed is mainly a tropical order, being nearly confined to the tropics, but widely distributed over those regions of both the old and new world. Of the tribes above enumerated, it may be mentioned that Sterculieœ are principally of Indian and African origin ; a small proportion only being found in America. Roxburgh in his Flora Indica describes 12 species of Sterculia — Blume has seven from Java, Wallich in his list of Indian plants increases the number to twenty-two for all India, while Humboldt has not one from America, of the whole order, excluding Bombaceœ, Java has according to Blume 22, the Indian peninsula 33, and Equinoctial America from Hum- boldt's collections 27. The Dombeyaceœ are all either Asiatic or African, but I believe predominate in the former. Of Hermannieœ, a small proportion only are found in India, and a considerably greater number in Africa, especially about the Cape. Those found in Senegal are pronounced by the authors of the Flora Senegambiae to be identical with the Indian ones. Byttnerieœ are principally from South America and the West Indies, and there the most important plant of the order, the Cacoa tree, is indigenous. Eriochlineœ are few in number, and with one or two exceptions of Indian origin. Supposing Helictereœ and Bombaceœ to belong to this order, India can boast of but few of either tribe, while they are numerous in America.

The plants of this order, in common with those of the whole of the class Coiumniferœ, abound in mucilage, and possess in a pre-eminent degree emollient properties. One of the African species of Sterculia affords a gum, known as the gum Tragacanth of Sierra Leone, whence called S. tragacantha by Dr. Lindley. The seeds of another species S. acuminata, affords the kola of the Africans, which, when chewed, has the curious property of making bad and half putrid water, that may be afterwards drank, taste sweet and agreeable.

The pod of Sterculia fœtida, a common Indian tree, is, according to Horsfield, employed in Java as a remedy against gonorrhœa, and an American species of Waltheria is used in Brazil for similar purposes, for which it is fitted by its mucilaginous properties ; the Indian species, W. India, enjoying analogous properties might be rendered available here, for the same object, if prepared as a diet drink. In Martinique, the mucilaginous bark of Guazuma ulmifolia, a tree very common in India, is employed to clarify sugar. It might along with some others