[FAMILY 101.] HAMAMELIDACEAE
Trees or shrubs. Leaves undivided, stipulate. Flowers in heads or head-like spikes, 4-5-merous. Petals narrow, sometimes wanting in the female flowers. Fertile stamens as many as and alternating with the petals, sometimes accompanied by staminodes. Filaments free. Anthers opening by lateral slits or by valves. Ovary 2-celled. Ovules 1 in each cell, pendulous, inverted. Styles 2, free. Fruit capsular. Seeds with a straight embryo and thin albumen.—Genera 3, species 20. Tropical and South Africa. (Plate 64.)
1. Flowers unisexual, rarely polygamous, 5-merous. Staminodes none.
Anthers ovoid., opening by valves. Shrubs. Stipules short and narrow.
Flowers in many-flowered heads.—Species 3. South and East Africa.
(Plate 64.) Trichocladus Pers.
Flowers hermaphrodite, usually 4-merous. Sepals short. Ovary inferior or almost so. 2
2. Staminodes none. Anthers opening by longitudinal slits. Trees. Flowers in many-flowered heads, 4-merous.—Species 1. Madagascar. Franchetia Baill.
Staminodes as many as and alternate with the stamens. Anthers oblong.
Shrubs. Stipules long and broad. Flowers in 3-8-flowered head-like spikes.—Species 15. Madagascar and Comoro Islands. Some species yield timber and medicaments. Dicoryphe Thouars
SUBORDER ROSINEAE
[FAMILY 102.] PLATANACEAE
Trees. Leaves alternate, palmately lobed; stipules connate. Flowers on a thickened receptacle in spicately arranged globose heads, monoecious. Sepals 3-8, free, hairy. Petals the same number, nearly hypogynous. Stamens as many as and alternating with the petals; connective peltate; anthers opening inwards or laterally by longitudinal slits. Carpels the same number, free. Ovules solitary, pendulous, straight. Fruit consisting of achenes densely crowded in a head. Seed with scanty albumen; cotyledons linear.
Genus 1, species 2. Cultivated in North Africa as avenue-trees. They also yield timber. “Plane.” Platanus L.
[FAMILY 103.] ROSACEAE
Leaves alternate, stipulate. Receptacle (floral axis) more or less concave, saucer-, cup-, urn-, or tube-shaped, in the male flowers sometimes very small. Stamens curved inwards in the bud, usually numerous. Anthers opening inwards by longitudinal slits. Carpels superior, solitary or free, or inferior and then more or less united. Ovules inverted.—Genera 32, species 230. (Including AMYGDALACEAE and POMACEAE.) (Plate 65.)