RHAMNACE^ 657 



numerous shallow reticulated fissures. Wood heavy, close-grained, rather soft and 

 brittle, red tinged with brown, with lighter colored sapwood. The sweet seeds pos- 

 sess powerful emetic properties and are reputed to be poisonous. 



Distribution. Borders of streams, limestone hills, and westward on the sides of 

 mountain canons; valley of the Trinity River, Texas, to the Oran Mountains, New 

 Mexico, and southward into Mexico; most common and of its largest size forty to 

 fifty miles from the Texas coast west of the Colorado River. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the southern United States. 



XXXVI. RHAMNACEiE. 



Trees or shrubs, with scaly or naked buds, watery bitter astringent juice, 

 simple leaves, and minute deciduous stipules {persistent in Krugiodendron) . 

 Flowers small, mostly greenish, perfect (polgyamo-dioecious in one species of 

 RhaTimus) ; calyx 4-5-lobed, the lobes valvate in the bud ; petals 4-5, inserted 

 <3n the calyx near the margin of the conspicuous disk lining the short calyx- 

 tube, and infolding the stamens, or ; stamens as many as and alternate with the 

 calyx-lobes, free, inserted at or below the margins of the disk ; filaments slender, 

 subulate; anthers introrse, versatile, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; 

 pistils of 2-3 united carpels; ovary 2-3, or rarely 1-celled by abortion, partly 

 immersed in the disk; style terminal; stigma 2-4-lobed; ovules 1 in each cell, 

 erect, anatropous; raphe ventral ; micropyle inferior. Fruit drupaceous, sup- 

 ported on the tube of the calyx and bearing the remnants of the style. Seed 

 usually with scanty oily albumen; embryo with broad cotyledons; radicle in- 

 ferior, next the hilum. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Fruit more or less fleshy. 



Fruit with a single stone ; petals 0. 

 Sepals without crests. 



Leaves alternate ; branches spinescent. 1. Condalia. 



Leaves nearly opposite ; branches not spinescent. 2. Reynosia. 



Sepals crested ; leaves mostly opposite. 3. Krugiodendron. 



Fruit with 2 or 3 nutlets ; petals 4 or 5, or ; leaves alternate. 4. Rhamnus. 



Fruit crustaceous, 3-lobed, separating- into 3 longitudinally 2-valved nutlets. 



Sepals inflexed ; petals narrowed into long- slender claws. 5. Ceanothus. 



Sepals spreading ; petals sessile. 6. Colubrina. 



1. CONDALIA, Cav. 



Trees or shrubs, with ligid spinescent branches and minute scaly buds. Leaves 

 alternate, subsessile, obovate or oblong, entire, feather-veined. Flowers axillary, 

 solitary or fascicled, greenish white, on short pedicels; calyx with a short broadly 

 obconical tube and o-lobed limb, the lobes ovate, acute, membranaceous, spreading 

 and persistent; disk fleshy, flat, slightly 5-angled, surrounding the free base of the 

 ovary; petals 0; stamens 5, inserted on the free margin of the disk between the lobes 

 of the calyx; filaments incurved, shorter than the calyx-lobes; 1-celled, conical, grad- 

 ually narrowed into a short thick style; stigma 3-lobed; ovule ascending from the 

 base of the cell. Fruit ovoid or subglobose; flesh thin; stone thick-walled, crustaceous. 

 Seed compressed; seed-coat thin and smooth; cotyledons oval, flat. 



Condalia with nine or ten species is confined to the New World and is distributed 



