158 XANTHOXYLUM FRAXINEUM. 
stamens. The pistilliferous flowers grow on a 
separate shrub, Calyx smaller and more com- 
pressed. Germs about five, pedicelled; styles 
converging into close contact at top, and a little 
twisted. Stigmas obtuse. All the flowers are 
destitute of corolla. Each fertile flower produces 
an umbel of as many stipitate capsules as there 
were germs in the flower. These capsules are 
oval, covered with excavated dots, varying from 
green to red, two valved, one seeded; the seed 
oval, blackish. _ 
The bark of the Prickly ash has a slight 
aromatic flayour, combined with a strong pun- 
gency, which is rather slow in manifesting itself 
in the mouth. The leaves are more aromatic, 
very much resembling, in smell, the leaves of the 
Lemon tree. The rind of the capsule is highly 
fragrant, imparting to the fingers, when rubbed 
between them, an odour much like the oil of 
lemons. The odorous portion is an essential 
oil residing in transparent vesicular points on the 
surface of the capsules and about the margins of 
the leaves. ‘The acrimony, which resides in the 
bark, has its foundation in a different principle ; 
being separated by decoction, but not by distil- 
lation; at least none of it came over in my 
experiments, which were repeated with both the 
