LEGUMINOS^ 



565 



green. This tree is often cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in north- 

 ern China, the eastern United States, and in western, central, and southern Europe. 

 The generic name is from Sophera, the Arabic name of some tree with pea-shaped 

 flowers. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES. 



Flowers violet blue, in terminal racemes ; the upper calyx-lobes larger than the others and 

 united ; legume woody ; seeds without albumen ; leaves coriaceous, persistent. 



1. S. secundiflora (C, E, H). 



Flowers white, iu axillary racemes ; calyx-lobes equal ; legume fleshy ; seeds with albumen ; 

 leaves membranaceous, deciduous. 2. S. amuis (C). 



1. Sophora secundiflora, DC. Frijolito. Coral Bean. 



Leaves persistent, covered at first, especially on the lower surface of the leaflets, 

 with silky white hairs, and at maturity 4'-6' long, with stout puberulous petioles 

 slightly enlarged at the base, and 7-9 elliptical-oblong leaflets rounded, emarginate 

 or sometimes mucronate at the apex, gradually contracted at the base into short thick 



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petiolules, coriaceolis, lustrous and dark yellow-green above, rather paler below, 

 glabrous or sometimes slightly puberulous along the under surface of the stout mid- 

 ribs, entire, with thickened margins, conspicuously reticulate-veined, l'-2^' long, 

 i'_li' wide, without stipels. Flowers with a powerful and delicious fragrance, ap- 

 pearing with the young leaves in very early spring, V long, on stout pedicels some- 

 times 1' iu length, from the axils of subulate deciduous bracts ^' or more long, and 

 bibracteolate, with 2 acute bractlets, in terminal 1-sided canescent racemes 2'-3' in 

 length ; calyx campanulate, slightly enlarged on the upper side, the 3 lower teeth 

 triangular and nearly equal, the 2 upper rather larger and united almost through- 

 out; petals shortly unguiculate, violet blue, the broad erect standard marked on the 

 inner surface near the base with a few darker spots; ovary coated with long silky 

 white hairs. Fruit terete, I'-T long, ^' thick, stalked, crowned with the thickened 

 remnants of the style, covered with thick hoary tomentum, indehiscent, 1-8-seeded, 

 with hard woody walls ^' thick; seeds oblong, rounded, |' long, bright scarlet, with 

 a small pale hilum and a bony seed-coat; albumen 0; cotyledons thick, orange- 

 colored, filling the cavity of the seed; radicle short and straight. 



