RUTACE^ 



587 



3. PTELEA, L. 



Small unarmed trees or shrubs, with smooth bitter bark, slender terete branches 

 without terminal buds, small depressed lateral buds covered with pale tomentum, and 

 nearly inclosed by the narrow obcordate leaf-scars marked by the ends of 2 or 3 

 small fibro- vascular bundles, and thick fleshy acrid roots. Leaves alternate or rarely 

 opposite, without stipules, long-petiolate, usually trifoliolate, the leaflets conduplicate 

 in the bud, ovate or oblong, entire or crenulate-serrate, punctate with pellucid dots. 

 Flowers polygamous, on slender bracteolate pedicels, in terminal or compound 

 cymes, greenish white; calyx 4 or 5-parted; petals 4 or 5, hypogynous; stamens 3 or 

 4, alternate with and as long as the petals, hypogynous, much shorter in the pistillate 

 flower, with imperfect or rudimentary anthers; filaments subulate, more or less 

 pilose, especially toward the base; anthers ovate or cordate; pistil raised on a short 

 gynophore, abortive and nearly sessile in the staminate flower; ovary compressed, 

 2-3-celled; style short; stigma 2-3-lobed; ovules superposed, amphitropous, the 

 upper ovule only fertilized. Fruit a 2 or 3-celled broadly winged or rarely wingless 

 indehiscent samara surrounded by a broad reticulate wing. Seed oblong, acute at 

 the apex, rounded at the base, ascending ; seed-coat smooth or slightly wrinkled, 

 coriaceous; cotyledons ovate-oblong, 



Ptelea is confined to the United States and Mexico, where four or five species are 

 known; of these one is a small tree. The bark and foliage of Ptelea is bitter and 

 strong-scented and possesses tonic properties. 



The generic name is from irreXea, a classical name of the Elm-tree. 



1. Ptelea trifoliata, L. Hop-tree. Wafer Ash. 



Leaves with sessile ovate or oblong pointed leaflets, the terminal one generally 

 larger and more gradually contracted at the base than the others, entire or finely 



serrate, covered at first with short close pubescence, becoming glabrous and rather 

 coriaceous at maturity, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 4'-6' long, 2^'-3' 

 wide, with prominent midribs and primary veins, turning clear yellow in the autumn 

 before falling ; their petioles stout, thickened at the base, and 21'-3' long. Flowers 

 appearing in early spring on slender pubescent pedicels I'-l^' long, the pistillate 



