472 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



lowish green border. Stamens 5, erect, opposite the petals, 

 inserted at the base of the ovary, which is reddish and conical, 

 surmounted by a roundish stigma without a style. Fruit in 

 terminal or axillary panicles, or opposite the leaves. The 

 stalks successively dividing by threes, at equal angles. The 

 berries become dark blue or nearly black, when mature ; at 

 the same period, the fruit-stalks and tendrils assume a rich 

 crimson or red color. 



The great variety of rich colors, — shades of scarlet, crimson, 

 and purple, — which the leaves and stems of this plant assume, 

 and the situations in which we see it, climbing up the trunks and 

 spreading along the branches of trees, covering walls and heaps 

 of stones, forming natural festoons from tree to tree, or trained 

 on the sides and along the piazzas of dwelling houses, make it 

 one of the most conspicuous ornaments of the autumnal months. 

 Often, in October, it may be seen mingling its scarlet and orange 

 leaves, thirty or forty feet from the ground, with the green 

 leaves of the still unchanged tree on which it has climbed. 



FAMILY XXXI. THE BUCKTHORN FAMILY. RHAMNA y CE&. 



JUSSIEU. 



Found every where except in the polar regions, but chiefly 

 in the hotter parts of the United States, Europe and Asia, and 

 the northern parts of Africa. 



The inner bark and fruit of the Buckthorns, as well as of 

 most plants in this family, have active cathartic powers, and 

 some of them are also emetic and astringent. The young shoots 

 and leaves of one species, R. alaternns, dye wool of a yellow 

 color. The bark and berries of another, R. linclbrius, are val- 

 ued as dyes. The Avignon berry, the fruit of R. infectbritis, is 

 used to give its yellow color to Morocco leather. A similar dye 

 is obtained from several other species, natives of the shores of 

 the Mediterranean. With preparations of iron, some of them 

 give a good black. The aromatic leaves of a species of Sage- 

 retia, & /hecB^zanst, are used by the poor in China as a substitute 



