Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 1.djvu/292

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 * 1. Walsura piscidia, natural size.
 * 2. A detached flower.
 * 3. The same, the petals removed to show the deeply cleft staminal tube.
 * 4. Detached stamens, back and front views.
 * 5. Stamens removed, showing the annular disk with immersed ovary, the short style and large 2-cleft stigma.
 * 6. The ovary cut vertically.
 * 7. The same cut transversely, 2-celled, with two collateral ovules in each.
 * 8. A fruit full grown—natural size.
 * 9. The same cut transversely.
 * 10. The same opened, showing the arillus with its enclosed seed.
 * 11. A seed detached—natural size.
 * 12. Cut transversely—natural size.
 * 13. A seed lobe, the radicle next the hilum —with the exceptions mentioned, all more or less magnified.


 * For Walsura friscidea on the plate read piscidia.

 

This small order, long united with the preceding, and even now considered by some eminent Botanists as at most a sub-order, ranks among its species some of the most magnificent trees of the forest, not less famed for their size, than for the beauty of their timber; not the least remarkable of which, in both these respects, is the Mahogany of America, and in the latter, the Satin wood of this country. It is principally distinguished from the preceding by its flattened, winged, exalbuminous seed. Adr. de Jussieu gives the following character of the order.

Calyx 4-5. cleft. Petals 4-5, longer. Stamens 8-10, either united into a tube (Swietenieae) or distinct (Cedreleae) and inserted into an hypogynous disk. Style and stigma simple, cells of the ovary equal to the number of petals or fewer (3) with 4, or often more, ovules, imbricated in two rows, fruit capsular, with the valves separable from the dissepiments with which they alternate, (or, in Chloroxylon, adherent, with loculicidal dehiscence). Seeds flat winged, albumen thin or none.

Trees, usually with hard fragrant, and beautifully coloured wood, alternate, exstipulate, pinnated leaves. Panicles terminal or subterminal, large, rarely axillary. Flower imperfectly bisexual, that is, the ovaries of some becoming depauperated and sterile with polleniferous stamens, while in others the pollen is wanting and the ovary is perfect and fertile.

These are the same as Meliaceae, from which they are chiefly distinguished by their winged and indefinite seeds. The pellucid dots in the leaves of Chloroxylon establish another link of affinity between these orders and Aurantiaceae.

Like Meliaceae these are natives of the tropics, or the warm countries bordering on them, but have as yet principally been found in America and Asia, only one has been met with in Africa or the adjoining islands. When Jussieu published his memoir in 1830, 14 species only were known to him, and I am not aware of the list having since then been augmented by the publication of additional species. I have however recently received from Mr. Nimmo, of Bombay, specimens of a Chickrassia, which he thinks new, and which so far as I am enabled to determine from a somewhat imperfect specimen is distinct from C. tubularis. Mr. Graham of that place has named this species C. Nimmmonii. It is described as a very large tree, and differs from my specimens of C. tubularis in having thick coriaceous leaves, softly villous on the under surface, in place of membranous and perfectly glabrous on both sides. The specimen not being in flower I am unable to carry the comparison further, but I think it will prove a good species. I am not at present aware of any other addition to the order.

Nearly all the species of this order are remarkable for some useful property. The Swietenia Mahogoni affords the beautiful and highly prized Mahogany wood. The bark of the Soymida (Swietenia) febrifuga of Roxburgh is said to possess antiseptic and febrifugal properties, but little inferior to the Cinchona bark ; it is also employed by the natives for dying, while the timber is but little inferior in hardness and durability to teak, and acquires a very large size. The Chickrassia tubularis supplies the well known Chittagong wood so much used in