134 SOAPBERRY FAMILY 



in disorders of the heart, for superstition of older days 

 declared such marks to be evidence that *^God hath im- 

 printed upon the Plants, Herbs, and Flowers, as it were 

 in Hieroglyphicks, the very signature of their Vertues." 

 This famous ''Doctrine of Signatures" offered wide fields 

 to the imagination, and during the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries won many adherents. 



Cardiospennum microcarpmn. Flowers greenish, incon- 

 spicuous. Capsule inflated, 3-seeded, V2 in. in diameter. 

 Vine, climbing by tendrils. Leaves of 3 deeply toothed and 

 parted leaflets. Roadsides and thickets. Blooming from 

 spring to fall. Fla. to Texas. 



Soapberry and Butterbough (Genera Sapindus and 



Exothia) 



Trees and shrubs of the genus Sapindus are noted for 

 their saponaceous fruit, which has long been used for 

 cleansing purposes. S. Saponaria, a small tree of the 

 southern part of the penisula, has leaves of four to ten 

 bright green leaflets, one to five inches long, on a broadly 

 winged rachis. The minute hairy flowers are in large 

 panicles. The globose fruit, nearly three-fourths of an 

 inch in diameter, becomes orange or brown in ripening, 

 and contains one or more large black seeds. 



Another soapberry, S. marginatus, has leaflets on a nearly 

 wingless rachis, and panicles of white or reddish flowers. 



The butterbough, or inkwood, Exothia paniculata, a tree 

 of southern Florida, has leaves of four or six glossy leaf- 

 lets, two to five inches long, small, fragrant white flowers 

 in panicles, and globose one-seeded fruit, about half an 

 inch in diameter, which becomes orange and finally purple 

 in ripening. 



Cultivated fruits of this family include the Chinese 

 litchi, the Spanish lime, the longan, and the akee. 



