RUTACE^ 581 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Fruit a 2-valved 1-2-seeded capsule ; flowers dioecious or polygamous. 1. Fagara. 



Fruit of 3 or 4 winged indehiscent 1-seeded carpels ; flowers perfect. 2. Helietta. 



Fruit a winged samara ; flowers polygamous. 3. Ptelea. 



Fruit a 1-seeded drupe ; flowers perfect or polygamous. 4. Amyris. 



1. FAGARA, L. 



Trees or shrubs, with acrid aromatic bark, pellucid aromatic-punctate fruit and 

 foliage, scaly buds, and usually stipular spines. Leaves alternate, unequally or rarely 

 equally pinnate; leaflets generally opposite, often oblique at the base, entire orcrenu- 

 late. Flow^ers small, dicecious or polygamous, in axillary or terminal broad or con- 

 tracted pedunculate cymes; calyx and petals hypogynous; disk small or obscure; 

 stamens as many as the petals and alternate with them, hypogynous, effete, rudi- 

 mentary or wanting in the female flower; filaments filiform or subulate; pistils 1-4, 

 oblique, raised on the summit of a fleshy gynophore, connivent, sometimes 

 slightly united below, rudimentary, simple or 2-5-parted in the sterile flower; ovaries 

 1-celled; styles short and slender, more or less united toward the summit; stigmas 

 capitate; ovules collateral, pendulous from the inner angle of the cell. Fruit a cap- 

 sule of 1-5 coriaceous or fleshy 1-seeded carpels, broadly obovate, sessile or. stipitate, 

 ventrally dehiscent. Seed oblong or globular, suspended on a slender funiculus, often 

 hanging from the carpel at maturity; seed-coat black, shining, conspicuously marked 

 by the broad hilum; cotyledons oval or orbicular, foliaceous. 



Fagara is widely distributed through tropical and extratropical regions and is 

 most abundant in tropical America. It is represented in Xorth America by four 

 arborescent species of the southern states. The resin contained in the bark, especially 

 in that of the roots, is a powerful stimulant and tonic occasionally used in medicine. 



The generic name, of Arabic origin, was used by the Greeks to designate a plant 

 now unknown. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Flowers in axulary contracted cymes ; branches armed with stipular spines. 



1. F. Fagara (D, E). 

 Flowers in terminal cymes. 



Calyx-lobes and petals 5 ; leaves unequally pinnate. 



Leaves deciduous ; branches armed with stout spines. 2. F. Clava-Herculis (C). 



Leaves persistent ; branches without spines. 3. F. flava (D). 



Calyx-lobes and petals 3 ; leaves equally pinnate, persistent. 4. F. coriacea (D). 



1. Fagara Fagara, Small. Wild Lime. 



(Xanthoxylum Fagara, Silva N. Am. i. 73.) 



Leaves persistent, 3'-4' long, with broadly winged jointed petioles, and 7-9 obovate 

 leaflets rounded or emarginate at the apex, minutely crenulate-toothed above the 

 middle, sessile, ^' long or less, coriaceous, glandular-punctate, bright green and lus- 

 trous, with minute hooked deciduous stipular prickles. Flowers on short pedicels 

 from the axils of minute ovate obtuse deciduous bracts, in short axillary contracted 

 cymes, appearing singly or in pairs from April until June, on branches of the previous 

 year, from minute dark brown globular buds, the staminate and pistillate on different 

 trees; sepals 4, membranaceous, much shorter than the 4 ovate yellow-green petals; 



