OLEACE^ 757 



ovary usually 2, rarely 4-celled, and coated, like the exserted style, with pale tomen- 

 tum. Fruit oblong, compressed, l^'-2' long, often nearly 1' wide, with 2 broad wings 

 and frequently with 2 or sometimes 3 narrow supplementary wings between them; 

 stone narrowly obovate, conspicuously sulcate, with about 8 dark ridges, and con- 

 tracted into a slender stipe sometimes 1' in length; seeds acuminate at the ends, 

 about f ' long. 



A tree, rarely 30 high, with a short trunk occasionally 8'-10' in diameter, hori- 

 zontal branches forming a low broad head, and slender branchlets, light green and 

 more or less coated with pale pubescence at first, becoming usually glabrous in their 

 first winter and orange color or reddish brown and lustrous, and marked with large 

 elevated obcordate leaf-scars, and in their second year dark red-brown, with bark 

 often separating into thread-like scales and dividing the following season into irregu- 

 lar pale longitudinal fissures; more often a shrub, with numerous stout spreading 

 stems. "Winter-buds Jg' long, ovate, obtuse, with broadly ovate acute light red 

 pubescent scales, those of the inner ranks becoming strap-shaped, scarious, and \' 

 in length. Bark of the trunk ^'-^' thick, brown tinged with red, and divided by 

 irregular longitudinal often broad fissures, the surface separating into small thin 

 appressed scales. "Wood light, soft, strong, very close-grained, light brown, with 

 thick lighter colored sap wood. 



Distribution. Low wet woods and the borders of swamps; coast region of the 

 south Atlantic and Gulf states from South Carolina to northern Florida and eastern 

 Texas, and through Louisiana to central Arkansas. 



Occasionally cultivated in the gardens of the southern states. 



LVI. OLEACEiE. 



Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, scaly buds, their inner scales accrescent, 

 opposite leaves without stipules, and fibrous roots. Flowers perfect, dioecious 

 or polygamous, regular ; calyx 4-lobed, or ; corolla of 2-4 petals, or ; disk 

 ; stamens 2-4, rudimentary or in unisexual pistillate flowers ; anthers 

 attached on the back below the middle, often apiculate by the prolongation of 

 the connective, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally usually by 

 lateral slits ; ovary superior, free, 2 or rarely 3-celled, rudimentary or in the 

 staminate flower ; style simple ; ovules 2 in each cell, pendulous, anatropous ; 

 micropyle superior. Fruit (in the North American arborescent genera) a 

 samara or berry. Seed pendulous ; seed-coat membranaceous ; embryo straight 

 in copious fleshy albumen ; cotyledons flat, much longer than the short terete 

 superior radicle turned toward the minute hilum. 



The Olive family with twenty genera is widely distributed in temperate and 

 tropical regions chiefly in the northern hemisphere. Of the five genera indi- 

 genous to the United States three are arborescent. To this family belong Olea 

 Europcea, L., the Olive-tree of the Mediterranean basin, now largely cultivated 

 in California for its fruit, and the Lilacs, Forsythias, and Privets, favorite 

 garden plants in all countries with temperate climates. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Fruit a winged samara ; leaves compound. 1. Fraxinus. 



Fruit a fleshy drupe ; leaves simple. 



Corolla of 4 long linear petals united only at the base ; leaves deciduous. 



2. Chionanthus. 



Corolla tubular ; leaves persistent. 3. Osmanthus. 



