Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 1.djvu/199

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1. Flowering branch of Hopea Wightiana—natural size.

2. Ovary and sepals.

3. Corolla and stamens: the latter perhaps incorrectly represented — see remarks page 38.

4. A detached stamen.

5. Ovary cut transversely.

6. A fruit showing the wing-like enlargement of the sepals.

7. A seed cut transversely.

8 and 9. The testa removed, showing irregular forms of the cotyledons and superior radicle.

10, 11, 12. Sections of the fungus-like excrescence on the branch, which seem to indicate that it is an abortive panicle, perhaps rendered so, through insects forming their nidus in the bud.

 

This is a small order, and, but for containing the tea plant, one of very inferior importance. The possession of that one species however, raises it to the first rank in the estimation of mankind. Most of the species, are fine flowering trees or shrubs, with alternate, coriaceous, entire, or serrated, exstipulate leaves, occasionally furnished with pellucid dots : axillary, solitary, or fascicled, bisexual flowers, sometimes collected into terminal racemes.

Calyx persistent, often surrounded with bracteae, 3—5 sepaled; sepals unequal, coriaceous, obtuse, imbricated in aestivation, the innermost often the largest. Petals varying in number—5-6 9,—and not equal in number to the sepals, often combined at the base. Stamens hypogynous, numerous, often adhering at the base to the petals, or monadelphous, or polyadelphous. Ovary superior with several cells, and several, usually, pendulous ovules in each; styles 2—7, distinct, or more or less combined. Fruit 2—7 celled, coriaceous and indehiscent, or capsular, and opening by valves. Seeds few, often large, sometimes furnished with a membranous wing, exalbuminous : radicle turned towards the hilum : cotyledons often large, oblong, sometimes longitudinally plaited; when winged small and compressed; often containing oil.

These have only recently been sufficiently understood, through the labours of Cambessedes, who, in 1828, published a memoir on the order. To that work I have not the means of referring, and shall therefore avail myself of the abridgement, of the part bearing on this section, given in Dr. Lindley's excellent natural system of Botany, by quoting the whole of his paragraph on the subject of affinities.

"This order originated in 1813, with Mirbel, who separated some of its genera from Aurantiaceae, where they had been placed by Jussieu, and at the same time founded another closely allied order, under the name of Theaceae. These opinions were substantially adopted by Kunth and DeCandolle, the latter of whom, moreover, formed several sections among his Ternstromiaceae. It is, however, certain, that no solid difference exists between this last order and Theaceae or Camellieae, as they were called by DeCandolle; and Cambessedes, after a careful revision of the whole, has come to the conclusion, that even the sections proposed by DeCandolle among Ternstromiaceae are untenable. I shall profit by Cambessedes' observations in all I have to say upon the order. Ternstromiaceae may be compared, in the first place, with Guttiferae, with which they accord more closely than with any thing else, and in the affinities of which they entirely participate. They differ thus : in Ternstromiaceae the leaves are alternate, to which there are scarcely any exceptions; they are always opposite in Guttiferae. In the former the normal number of the parts of the flower appears to be 5 and its multiples; in Guttiferae it is evidently two. In the former the calyx is always perfectly distinct from the corolla; these two organs are usually confounded in the latler. Ternstromiaceae have the petals generally united at the base, and a twisted aestivation; in Guttiferae they are distinct, with a convolute aestivation. The seeds of the former are almost always either destitute of albumen, or furnished with a membranous wing ; the latter have neither the one nor the other. The first have the radicle always near the hilum ; the second have it either near the hilum or turned in an opposite direction. Finally, in Guttiferae, the cotyledons are very thick, and firmly glued together; and this character, which is not observed in Ternstromiaceae, is the more important, as it is not liable to any exception. Temstrdmiaceae are allied to Hypericaceae through the medium

