. The natural history of plants. Botany. VMBELLIFEBM. 161 Heptapleunm (fig. 201) belongs to the same genus as Scheffleva. When their flowers are pentamerous, as is very frequently the case, it is distinct (as a section) by only a single character : the shortness of the stylary lobes. The common por- tion of the style is very variable in length, ' ^'''''^''-^[fZT"''"'"^ sometimes very depressed or almost nil, sometimes extended in a very prominent cone. Such it appears, among others, in Agalma, whose inflorescence is racemiform, and in some species of Astropanax, whose flowers, l

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. The natural history of plants. Botany. VMBELLIFEBM. 161 Heptapleunm (fig. 201) belongs to the same genus as Scheffleva. When their flowers are pentamerous, as is very frequently the case, it is distinct (as a section) by only a single character : the shortness of the stylary lobes. The common por- tion of the style is very variable in length, ' ^'''''^''-^[fZT"''"'"^ sometimes very depressed or almost nil, sometimes extended in a very prominent cone. Such it appears, among others, in Agalma, whose inflorescence is racemiform, and in some species of Astropanax, whose flowers, like those, of the true Heptapleurum, may be in small capitules on the axes of the inflorescence. In both the number of stylary lobes, as also of ovarian cells, may be equal to that of the petals, to which they are superposed, or rarely inferior. '^^°'inflorero°encT °* There are even Scheffleras of the Heptapleu- rum series whose flower has six, seven or more parts in each verticil. There are, on the other hand, species of Astropanax whose stylary branches are deeply separate. Nothing characteristic then distin- guishes them from the true Schejieras. When their flowers are in capitules, scarcely anything separates them from the American plants named Sciadophyllum, whose flowers may be pentamerous or may have a greater number (6-10) of parts, and whose petals are often more closely attached at the margins; or from Brassaia, trees from the tropical regions of Oceania, whose leaves are also digitate, whose stylary lobes are very short and'whose flowers have as many as ten or twelve parts. Like those of Sciadophyllum conicum. The only trait that permits their being made a section is the large development of the bracts, two to four, which accompany the flowers and form a sort of involucel. On the other hand there are species of Heptapleuron with unifoliolate leaves, which no important character permits being put in any other genus than Dendropanax, trees and shrubs from eastern Asi