480 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



tannin, has astringent and febrifugal properties, and may be 

 used to dye yellow ; and the fruit is saponaceous, and is eaten 

 by sheep and deer, and, when boiled, is used to fatten cattle 

 and fowls. In Turkey and Germany, it is employed in veteri- 

 nary medicine, whence the name horse-chestnut and the specific 

 name hippocdstanum given it by Tournefort. Of the Amer- 

 ican species, one, the Ohio Buckeye, JE. glabra, resembles the 

 cultivated in its prickly fruit. It is a small tree with a rough 

 bark which exhales a disagreeable odor. Of the others, which 

 are distinguished by the smoothness of their fruits, the Sweet 

 Buckeye of the Western and Southern States, &. Jlava, with 

 yellow flowers, is found from four to eighty feet high and with 

 a trunk sometimes four feet in diameter. The others, 2E. par- 

 viflora, Californica, pdvia, and their varieties, are shrubs or 

 small trees. 



FAMILY XXXIII. THE MAPLE FAMILY. ACERA'CEM. Jussieu. 



This family, which contains two or three genera besides the 

 maple, consists of trees or tall shrubs, with opposite leaves 

 without stipules. The flowers, springing from the axil of the 

 leaves or buds, are either perfect, or contain pistils or stamens 

 only. On the tall trees, they are usually in corymbs ; on the 

 smaller plants, as on the Moose wood, they hang in a beautiful 

 raceme, like a bunch of currants. 



Early in the season, from a bud in which they overlie each 

 other like tiles, usually 5, sometimes 4 to 9, sepals expand, 

 within which and alternate to them are the same number of 

 petals, and usually 8 distinct stamens. In the centre is a 2- 

 lobed ovary, with 1 style and 2 stigmas. The fruit, called 

 a samara, consists of two parts, united, with broad, nerved 

 wings, each part containing 1 cell and 1 or 2 seeds. These are 

 erect, without albumen, containing a curved embryo, with 

 wrinkled, leaf-like cotyledons, and an inferior radicle. 



In no part of the world are the maples of greater importance 

 than in New England. The excellence of the wood as fuel, 



