Combles
a town in the department of the Somme, France, 7 miles N. W. of Peronne, and 20 miles S. E. of Arras.
The Germans took it during the second battle of the Somme in March, 1918, inflicting heavy losses on the British, mostly South Africans, under General Dawson, who was captured. Attempts at counter-attack were unavailing, till the arrival of American forces and the general retreat of the Germans.
COMBRETACEÆ, in botany, Myrobalans, an order of exogens, alliance Myrtales. It consists of trees or shrubs with alternate or opposite entire dotless leaves, destitute of stipules. The flowers are on axillary or terminal spikes. The calyx is adherent, with a 4-5 lobed deciduous limb. The petals, where they exist, rise from the orifice of the calyx.
COMBUSTION The stamens are generally twice as many as the segments of the calyx; the ovary one-celled, 2-4 pendulous ovules, style 1, stigma simple. The order is divided into three tribes: terminaleæ, combreteæ, and gyrocarpeæ. The myrobalans are found within the tropics of Asia, Africa, and America.