Rhamnaceae. Buckthorn Family. 
Shrubs or trees with simple alternate leaves bearing snall stipules. 
Flowers greenish,regular, perfect or polygamous. Sepals 4 or 5, valvate. 
Petals 4 or 5 (sometimes wanting),seated on the disc. Stamens 4 or 5, 
perigynous, alternate with the sepals and opposite the petals. Pistil 1 , 
the ovary 2-d5-chambered, more or less united with the disc. Fruit a drupe 
or capsule. 
O Petals (sometimes wanting) not attenuate at the base 
into a slender claw; fruit a berry-like drupe 
4 with 3-4 nutlets; lateral veins of leaves numerous, 
\ parallel / ms ’ 
2 
i 
( Petals attemate into a long claw hooded at the i 
japex; fruit dry, splitting into 3 divisions; 
< commonly with two praminent lateral veins, one on 
‘either side of the midrib hig 
2. Ceanothus 
foamy thy base, oF 
/. Rhammus (Tourn,) L. 
Woody plants wit 
rather conspicuously 
veined leaves, the lateral veins parallel, the stipules deciduous. Flowers 
imconspicuous, greenish, axillary,subumbellate. Sepels—+—or-S? Disc cup=? =) 
di shaped. Petals 4=6—-er-wantine> closisse. borne on the margin of the disc. 
Stamens 4=5> borne on the edge of the disc. Crary—2—4--chemberedp Styles | 
2-4. Fruit a berry-like drupe with 3-4 mtlets. 
f Leaves nearly entire, commonly 10-20 om. long; 
| tending to be oblong Fs 
—a 
Re Purshiana 
' Leaves crenulate, the teeth appearing rounded but . 
/bearing a mimute glandular prong directed toward ' 
y { the sims; leaves commonly 5-10 om. long, tending 
\to be obovate 2, Re alnifolia 
stems, 1. Re ; eee DC. Cascara sagrada. A straggling shrub or small tree 
3=8 me tall, the bark gray, rather smooth but dull, mottled with lighter 
longitudinal areas but scarcely furrowed, branchlets reddish, finely hairy; 
leaves 10-20 cm. long, 4-5 cm. broad, oval or obovate, commonly sane 
above—tho-middle, rounded at.the-apep and blunt or very abruptly acuminate, 
rounded at the base, thwxanaemgim noarly entire, beshusunfasss glabrous or the 
veins beneath sparingly pubescent, the upper surface dark green, vetioles 1-1.5 
cme long; flowers 3-6 in axillary umbels on first year wood on peduncles 1-2 
cme long, the pedicels 5-10 mm. long; flowers 3.5 mn. long, campanulats, calyx 
lobes acute, deltoid,1.5 mm. long, pubescent:pdruves zlobose; 8-10 mm. in 
diameter, red, then black,f@petals 1 mm. 
ooding tne stamens; stamens 5% 
— & - La 7 
Throughout our range at low elevations in alluvial stream bottoms, 
q) or boggy places, often in watere 
ae 
a 
Wolf discusses this species, including — | 
the ess type, in Rancho Santa Ana Bote Gard, Monoge 1:96, 1938, 
