ROSACER. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 57 
VAUQUELINIA. 
FLOWERS regular, perfect ; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes valvate in estivation ; petals 5 
imbricated in estivation ; stamens 15 to 25; carpels 5, united into a 5-celled ovary; 
ovules 2 in each cell, ascending. Fruit a dry 5-celled woody capsule. Leaves simple. 
Vauquelinia, Correa; Humboldt & Bonpland, Pl. Hquin. 
i. 140. — Meisner, Gen. 103. — Endlicher, Gen. 1249. — 
Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 615. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. i. 
472. 
Small trees or shrubs, with slender terete branches and scaly bark. Leaves alternate or rarely 
opposite, lanceolate, serrate, long-petiolate, reticulate-vened, coriaceous, persistent ; stipules minute, 
deciduous. Flowers white, in compound terminal corymbs, the lower branches of the inflorescence from 
the axils of leaves, the upper from those of minute deciduous bracts. Pedicels slender, bibracteo- 
late. Calyx shortly turbinate, coriaceous, persistent, five-lobed, the lobes ovate, obtuse or acute, erect. 
Disk connate to and lining the tube of the calyx, glandular. Petals five, inserted in the mouth of the 
Stamens fifteen to twenty-five, inserted on 
the margin of the disk in three or four proximate rows, equal or subequal, those of the outer row para- 
petalous, those of the next alternate with them and with those of the other rows; filaments subulate, 
those of the outer row rather thicker at the base than the others, exserted, persistent; anthers attached 
on the back near the middle, versatile, extrorse, two-celled, the cells opening longitudinally. Carpels 
five, opposite the sepals, inserted on the thickened base of the calyx-tube, united below into a five-celled 
ovoid ovary coated with tomentum and crowned by five short spreading styles with dilated capitate 
stigmas; ovules two in each cell, subbasilar, ascending, collateral, anatropous, two-coated, prolonged 
calyx, orbicular or oblong, reflexed at maturity, persistent. 
at the apex into thin membranaceous wings; raphe ventral, micropyle superior. Fruit a woody ovoid 
five-celled tomentose capsule inclosed at the base by the remnants of the flower and separating at 
maturity into five nutlets adherent below, tipped with the remnants of the styles, and at maturity split- 
ting longitudinally down the back. Seeds two im each cell, ascending, compressed, exalbuminous ; testa 
membranaceous, expanded at the apex into a long membranaceous wing. Embryo filling the cavity of 
the seed; cotyledons flat; radicle straight, erect. 
Vauquelinia is confined to the New World, where it inhabits southern Mexico, northern Mexico, 
Arizona, and Lower California. Three species are distinguished. The type of the genus, Vauquelinia 
corymbosa; is a small tree widely distributed from the mountains of Oaxaca to those of Coahuila and 
Chihuahua ; Vauquelinia Karwinskyi, described as a shrub, inhabits southern Mexico, and Vauque- 
linia Californica the mountain ranges of southern Arizona and the adjacent portions of Sonora and 
Lower California. The genus is not known to possess properties useful to man. 
The generic name commemorates the scientific labors of the distinguished French chemist, Louis 
Nicolas Vauquelin.? 
1 Correa ; Humboldt & Bonpland, Pl. Aquin. i. 140, t. 40. — 
Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et Spec. vi. 238. — Kunth, 
Syn. Pl. Ziquin. iii. 479. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. i. 398, £. 452-455. — 
Maximowicz, Act. Hort. Petrop. vi. 236 (Adnot. Spireaceis, 132).— 
Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 370. — Pringle, Garden and For- 
est, i. 524. 
2 Maximowicz, l. ¢. 
3 Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (1763-1829) ; a native of Saint-An- 
dré-des-Berteaux, after a youth of much privation, became the pupil 
and later the associate of Foureroy, with whom he published the 
results of many of his early investigations and through whom he 
obtained the position of inspector of mines, and professorships in 
V’Ecole des Mines, in VP’ Beole Polytechnique, and in the Collége de 
France. He became a member of the Institut de France, direc- 
tor of Ecole de Pharmacie, professor of chemistry in the Mu- 
séum d’Histoire Naturelle, and a member of the Conseil des Arts 
et Manufactures. In addition to many papers printed in the Pro- 
ceedings of learned societies, Wenge who was regarded as one 
of the most distinguished in physics and chemistry 
of his time, published Le Moa @Essayeur and edited the Dic- 
tionnaire de Chimie et de Métallurgie which formed part of the En- 
cyclopédie Methodique. 
