BTJTACE^. 



SILVA OF NOUTB AMERICA. 



G5 



XANTHOXYLUM. 



Flowers dioecious or polygamous ; calyx 3 to 5-lobed, hypogynous, imbricated ia 

 Eestivation, rarely wanting ; petals 3 to 5, hypogynous, imbricated or rarely induplicatc- 

 valyatc in gestivation. Fruit composed of 1 to 5 coriaceous or fleshy 1-secded carpels. 



Xanthoxylum, Linnffius, Gen. ed. 6, 519. — A. L. de Jus- 

 sieu, Gen. 374. — Endliclier, Gen. 1146. — Meisner, Gen. 

 64. — Gray, Geji. III. ii. 147. — Bentliam & Hooker, Gen. 

 297. — Baillon, Hist. Fl iv. 468. 



Fagara, Adanson, Fam. PI. ii. 364. 



Pterota, Browne, Nat. Mist. Jam. 189. 



Blaokburnia, Forster, Char. Gen. t. 6. 



Curtisia, Schreber, Gen. 199. 

 Ochroxylum, Sclireber, Gen. 826. 

 Pseudopetalon, Rafinesque, Fl. Liidovw. 108. 

 Langsdorfia, Leandro, Act. Monac. 1819, 239 (ex. V!nd- 



licher Ge7i. 1147). 

 Tobinia, Desvaux, Hamilton Prodr. Fl. Ind. Occ. 56. 

 Pohlana, Nees & Martius, Nov. Act. Nat. Cur. ii. 185. 



Trees or shrubs, with acrid aromatic hark and pellucid aromatic-punctate fruit and fohage, usually 

 armed with stipular prickles. Leaves alternate, usually unequally pinnate, or rarely one to tliree folio- 

 late, the petioles sometimes prickly, rarely winged ; leaflets generally opposite, often obUque at tlie base, 

 entire or crenulate. Flowers small, often unisexual, greenish white or white, produced in axillary or 

 terminal, broad or contracted, pedunculate cymes. Disk small or obscure. Stamens as many as the 

 petals and alternate with them, hypogynous ; effete, rudimentary or wanting in the female flowers ; 

 filaments filiform or subulate ; anthers introrse, two-ceUed, opening longitudinally. Pistds one to five, 

 oblique, raised on the summit of a fleshy gynophore, connivent, sometimes slightly united below ; rudi- 

 mentary, simple or two to five-parted in the sterile flowers ; ovary one-celled ; styles short and slender, 

 connivent or connate towards the summit ; stigmas capitate ; ovules two, collateral, pendulous from tlie 

 inner angle of the cell, anatropous j the raphe ventral. Foflicles of fruit as many as the pistils or 

 by abortion fewer, broadly obovate, sessile or stipitate, ventrally dehiscent. Seed oblong or globular, 

 suspended on a slender funiculus, often hanging from the carpel at maturity; testa thm bony or crus- 

 taceous, blue or black, shiny, conspicuously marked by the broad hilum ; tegmen thick, crustaceous. 

 Embryo axile, straight or arcuate ; cotyledons oval or orbicular, foliaceous ; radicle short, superior. 



The genus Xanthoxylum is widely distributed through tropical and extra-tropical regions. E.glity 

 to one hundred species are distinguished, of which a large part inhabit tropical America. The genus 

 is represented in North America by five species ; three attain the size of small trees, the others are tree- 



bke shrubs.^ 



1 Xanthoxylum Americanum, Miller, Diet. ^ Xanthoxylum emar- 

 ginaium, Swarfcz, Fl. Occ. i. 572, 



X. Ajnericanum is common in the nortliera states from eastern 

 Massachusetts to Minnesota, extending south to the mountains of 

 Virginia, and to eastern Kansas. It is a spreading shrub, attaining 

 sometimes in cultivation the liabifc of a small tree. The flowers, 

 which are produced before the leaves in axillary clusters, are desti- 

 tute of sepals. The bark, leaves, and fruit are exceedingly acrid 

 and aromatic, and are a popular remedy for toothache. 



X. emarginatum is a "West Indian species with coriaceous shiumg 

 leaves, composed of two or four pairs of entire leaflets, and a three- 

 parted calyx. It is described as a shrub or small tree. The wood 



is said by Baillon (Hist. PI iv. 438) to he white, heavy, and aro- 

 matic, and to be one of the so-called rosewoods exported from the 

 West Indies. It is described by Macfadyen (H. Jam. 191), who 

 makes no mention of its economic properties, as a shrubby tree. 

 This species was found by Dr. A. P. Garber, on an island m Bay 

 Biscayne ia 1877, growing as a small shrub. It has not since bee» 

 seen in the United States, although the shores of Bay Biscayne have 

 been several times carefully explored by botanists. 



Abraham Pascal Garber (1838-1881), who found this plant m 

 Florida was a native of Columbia. Pennsylvania, a graduate of 

 I a Favette College, where he acquired a taste fur botany, and of 

 the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Garber 



