312 AEALIACE.E. 



Order LIII. ARALIACE/E. 



A. Eichard; Dictionaire Classique d'Histoire Naturelle, i. 506 (1822). 

 Arali^., Juss. (1789). Tribe of Umbellifer^, Baillon (1880). 



Herbs, shrubs or trees, with mostly stout hollow stems, and alternate 

 lobed or compound leaves. Flowers small, in simple but often panicled 

 or racemosely arranged umbels. Calyx joined to the ovary, entire or 

 toothed. Petals 5—10, deciduous. Stamens as many or twice as many 

 as the petals, inserted around the border of the calyx outside of an epigy- 

 nous disk. Ovary more than 2-celled; styles as many as the cells, some- 

 times connate. Fruit berry-like. Seeds pendulous; embryo minute; 

 albumen fleshy. — An order closely allied to the Grape Family; but so 

 near to Umbelliferse as to be scarcely separable therefrom by its fleshy 

 and more than bicarpellary fruits. 



1. ARALIA, Vaillant (Spikenard). Our species a very coarse peren- 

 nial herb, with ternately compound leaves and large serrate leaflets. 

 Calyx 5- toothed or entire. Petals 5, ovate, slightly imbricate. Stamens 5. 

 Disk depressed or 0. Fruit laterally compressed, becoming 3— 5-angled, 

 fleshy externally; endocarp chartaceous. 



1. A. Californica, Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. xi. 144 (1876). Herbaceous* 

 unarmed, 6—10 ft. high, from a large thick perennial root: leaves bipin- 

 nate, or the upper pinnate with only 1—2 pairs of leaflets: leaflets cordate- 

 ovate, 4 10 in. long, abruptly acuminate, simply or doubly serrate with 

 short acute teeth : umbels in loose terminal and axillary compound or 

 simple racemose panicles which are 1 — 2 ft. long, each umbel subtended 

 \>Y several linear bractlets: fl. 2 lines long; disk and style-base (stylo- 

 podium) obsolete; styles united for half their length: fr. 2 lines long. — In 

 shaded and moist ravines of the Coast Range. 



2. HEDERA, P//*iy (Ivy). Shrubby, climbing by aerial roots. Leaves 

 coriaceous, evergreen, simple, lobed. Flowers in a terminal panicle of 

 umbels. Calyx 5-toothed. Petals 5. Stamens 5. Styles united into a 

 single very short one. Cells of the ovary 5 or 10. Berry smooth and 

 black, with 2—5 seeds. 



1. H. Helix, Gerard, Herb. Em. 857 (1633); Park. Theatr. 679 (1640); 

 Linn. Sp. PI. i. 292 (1753). Leaves ovate, angularly 3 — 5-lobed, those of 

 the sterile and young shoots more deeply so than those of the flowering 

 branches; these bushy, erect, projecting a foot or more from the climbing 

 main stem: umbels globose.- fl. yellowish-green. — The English Ivy, com- 

 mon on trees in parks, and on buildings, and well adapted to our climate, 

 fruits freely here, and will often be met with wild, as an escape from 

 cultivation. 



