228 EHAMNACEAE. 



Shrubs, small trees, or vines ; petals 4 or 5, or none ; fruit a drupe or capsule. 



Fam. 1. RHAMNACEAE. 

 Vines, climbing by tendrils, rarely shrubs ; petals caducous ; 



fruit a berry. Fam. 2. VITACEAE.. 



Family 1. RHAMNACEAE Dumort. 

 BUCKTHORK FAMILY. 



Erect or climbing shrubs, or small trees, often thorny. Leaves sim- 

 ple, stipulate, mainly alternate, often 3-5-nerved. Stipules small, decidu- 

 ous. Inflorescerce commonly of cymes or panicles. Flowers small, reg- 

 ular, perfect or polygamous. Calyx -limb 4-5-toothed. Petals 4-5, inserted 

 on the calyx, or none. Stamens 4-5, inserted with the petals and opposite 

 them; anthers short, versatile. Disk fleshy. Ovary sessile, free from or 

 immersed in f he disk, 2-5- (often 3-) celled; ovules 1 in each cavity, anat- 

 ropous. Fruit often 3-celled. Seeds solitary in the cavities, erect; endo- 

 sperm fleshy, rarely none; embryo large; cotyledons flat. About 50 genera 

 and 600 species, of temperate and warm regions. 



Colubrina asiatica Brongn., an Asiatic shrub 6-10 high, with slender 

 branches, ovate dentate acuminate leaves, and small axillary clusters of 

 greenish flowers followed by globose fruits, was found prior to 1879 on St. 

 David's Island, according to Lefroy; it has not been seen there recently. 



Under the name Phylica odorata Cass., Lefroy records a plant identified 

 in 1873, without record of locality; this is not a published species, and I am 

 unable to determine what he had in mind. 



A species of Ceanothus, presumably from California, was growing well at 

 Wood Haven in 1914. 



Family 2. VITACEAE Lindl. 

 GRAPE FAMILY. 



Climbing or erect shrubs, with copious watery sap, nodose joints, 

 alternate petioled leaves, and small regular greenish perfect or polygamo- 

 dioecious flowers, in panicles, racemes or cymes. Calyx entire or 4-5- 

 toothed. Petals 45, separate or coherent, valvate, caducous. Filaments 

 subulate, inserted at the base of the disk or between its lobes; disk some- 

 times obsolete or wanting; anthers 2-celled. Ovary 1, generally immersed 

 in the disk, 2-6-celled; ovules 1-2 in each cavity, ascending, anatropous. 

 Fruit a 1-6-celled berry (commonly 2-called). Seeds erect; testa bony; 

 raphe generally distinct; endosperm cartilaginous; embryo short. About 

 10 genera .and over 500 species, widely distributed. 



Hypogynous disk of the flower cup-shaped: leaves 1-3-foliolate. 1. Cissus. 

 Hypogynous disk none ; leaves digitately 5-7-foliolate. 2. Parthenocis&us. 



1. CISSUS L. 



Mostly climbing vines with fleshy foliage. Leaves 1-3-foliolate or simple, 

 when compound the leaflets commonly separating in drying. Flowers mostly 

 perfect. Petals usually 4, spreading. Disk cup-shaped, adnate to the base 

 of the ovary, mostly 4-lobed. [Greek, ivy.] A large genus of over 225 

 species, mostly tropical. Type species: Cissus vitaginea L. 



