XXIX. MELIACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with hard wood and alternate pinnate leaves, without stipules. Flowers in panicles, perfect, regular; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes contorted (in Swietenia) in the bud, persistent; petals 5, convolute in the bud; stamens inserted at the base of the disk; filaments united into a tube; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 3—5-celled, free, surrounded at base by an annular or cup-shaped disk; styles united, dilated into a 5-lobed stigma; ovules numerous in each cell, suspended, semianatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a capsule (in Swietenia) or drupe. Seeds often winged; embryo with leafy cotyledons.
A family with about forty genera chiefly confined to the tropics, with a single representative, Swietenia, in southern Florida. Melia Azedarach L., of this family, the China-tree or Pride of India, with drupaceous fruits, has long been cultivated in the southern states, where it now often grows spontaneously.