Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 1.djvu/299

ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY.

149 this country by the cabinet-maker, while the Chloroxylon Side tenia affords the beautiful and fragrant Satin wood, and lastly, the Toon tree (Cedrella toona) inferior to none of the others fur- nishes 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 beau- tiful red colour. Endowed with so many useful properties it seems desirable that the cultiva- tion 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, but I have not seen them in cultivation.

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.

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.

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.

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 it 3-valved, with loculicidal dehiscence.

8. Cut transversely.

9. A valve of the capsule, showing the seed imbri- cated.

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.

 

This small, but from including the Grape-vine, very important order, for the most par£ 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 ten- drils (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 an- thers not ocillating.

Calyx small, nearly entire. Petals 4-5, inserted on the outside of a disk surrounding the ovary, inflexed 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, some- times 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 mar- gins. 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. 