OLEACE^ 769 



conspicuous veins forked near the margins and connected by coarse reticulate vein- 

 lets. FloTvers dioecious, appearing in March as the leaves begin to unfold, in 

 compact glabrous panicles from the axils of leaves of the previous year, and covered 

 in the bud by ovate rounded orange-colored scales; staminate flower composed of a 

 minute or nearly obsolete 4-lobed calyx and 2 stamens, with short filaments and 

 linear-oblong light purple apiculate anthers; calyx of the female flower oblong, cup- 

 shaped, and divided to the base into 4 acute lobes; ovary gradually narrowed into a 

 long slender style terminating in 2 large stigmatic lobes. Fruit ripening in May, 

 in short compact clusters, spatulate to oblong, surrounded at the base by the per- 

 sistent calyx, ^'-1' long, with a terminal wing rounded or occasionally emarginate at 

 the apex, ^' wide, and about 3 times as long as the short terete marginless many- 

 rayed body. 



A tree, rarely 50 high, with a short trunk occasionally 2-3 in diameter, thick 

 spreading often contorted branches, and stout terete branchlets dark green tinged 

 with red and slightly puberulous when they first appear, becoming light yellow- 

 brown or light orange color during the summer, and in their first winter light brown 

 marked by remote oblong pale lenticels and by large elevated lunate leaf-scars 

 displaying a row of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and dark or reddish 

 brown in their second or third season; usually much smaller. Winter-buds termi- 

 nal, acute, with 3 pairs of scales, those of the first pair broadly ovate, rounded at the 

 apex, dark orange color, pilose toward the base, and rather shorter than the ovate 

 rounded scales of the second pair coated with rufous tomentum and becoming ^' long 

 or about one half the length of the linear strap-shaped scales of the inner pair trun- 

 cate or emarginate at the apex and orange color. Bark of the trunk ^'-^' thick, 

 dark gray and deeply divided by narrow fissures into broad scaly ridges. Wood 

 heavy, hard, strong, light brown, with thin lighter colored sapwood; valued as fuel 

 and occasionally used for flooring. 



Distribution. High dry limestone bluffs and ridges ; northern, central, and 

 western Texas from the neighborhood of the city of Dallas to the valley of the 

 Devil's River. 



10. Fraxinus Berlandieriana, DC. 



Leaves 3'-7' long, with slender elongated petioles, and 3-5 ovate or rarely obovate 

 glabrous leaflets, pointed or rounded at the apex, gradually narrowed at the base 

 into long petiolules, sharply and coarsely serrate above the middle, with acute teeth, 

 or sometimes almost entire, thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, 

 pale beneath, 1^-4' long and |'-1^' wide, with prominent midribs and primary veins 

 connected by conspicuous reticulate veinlets. FloTvers dioecious, in short glabrous 

 panicles inclosed in the bud by broadly ovate rounded chestnut-brown pubescent 

 scales; staminate flower with a minute obscurely lobed calyx and 2 linear-oblong 

 apiculate anthers raised on short filaments; calyx of the pistillate flower cup-shaped, 

 deeply divided, and as long as the ovary gradually narrowed into a slender style 

 2-lobed and stigmatic at the apex. Fruit often 3-winged, ovate or spatulate, sur- 

 rounded at the base by the persistent calyx, l'-l|' long, with a short clavate body 

 more or less margined by the thin ovate or obovate wing usually yV~i' wide and 

 mostly narrowed toward the acute or rounded and emarginate apex. 



A tree, in the United States rarely more than 30 high, or with a trunk more 

 than a foot in diameter, and terete slender branchlets light green when they first 

 appear, becoming in their first winter light brown tinged with red or ashy gray, and 



