the material for our illustration has been taken. This 
plant is now 5 ft. high and as much through, with stout, 
straight thorny branches and of sturdy rather than graceful 
habit. As a shrub for gardens it is, on the whole, more 
curious than beautiful; at the same time, the foliage is 
handsome and the globose heads of inky black fruits are 
striking. The leaflets are variable as regards shape and 
degree of pubescence. The flowers are not particularly 
attractive ; they do not appear, as a rule, until August and 
September. The fruits ripen in October and continue 
until Christmas. The plant succeeds well in ordinary 
loamy soil and may safely be deemed hardy. The bark 
of the root is employed in China as a drug. 
Desoriprion.—Shrub, 5 ft. or more in height, branches 
soon becoming glabrous, armed with flattened, abruptly 
conical often recurved thorns with longitudinally expanded 
bases. Leaves 5-, rarely 3-foliolate ; petiole 13-2 in. long, 
at first more or less puberulous, soon becoming glabrous 
except near the tip; leaflets oblanceolate or wide lanceolate- 
ovate, acute or shortly acuminate, often narrowed at the 
base into a petiolule 2-3 lin. long, entire or often from the 
middle onwards closely finely serrate, occasionally more 
conspicuously toothed, the central 14-5 in. long, I-14, 
rarely 13 in. wide, deep green and scaberulous above, paler 
and more or less pubescent especially in the nerves beneath ; 
lateral nerves about 7 on each side. Umbels clustered at 
the ends of the branches, the terminal much larger than the 
others, many-flowered, dense, $—24 in. across; peduncles 
stout, almost glabrous or pubescent or somewhat tomentose, 
1-1} in. long ; pedicels in flower 4-6 lin. long, with the 
same degree of pubescence as their peduncles, never articu-. 
late. Ovary glabrous or more or less pubescent, obovoid, 
in flower 3-1} lin. long; disk 3-11 lin. across. Petals 
almost or quite as long as the ovary. Styles of the fertile 
flowers 2-1 lin. long or slightly longer, connate; stigmas 
minute. Berry black, globose, 4-5 lin. in diameter. 
_ Hig. 1, mate flower ; 2, calyx and pistil of a’hermaphrodite or female flower 
with short styles; 3, section of a female flower; 4, calyx and pistil of a herma- 
phrodite or female flower with long styles: 5 : ion of the same; 
7, embryo:—all enlarged. Hrs % Darene: 6, pene ; 
