EUTACE^. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA, r-^ 



PTELEA. 



Flowers polygamous ; calyx 4 or 5-parted, the lobes imbricated in estivation ; 

 petals 4 or 5, imbricated in aestivation, liypogynous. Fruit, a 2 or 3-celled broadly 

 Avingcd, or rarely wingless, indchiscent samara. Leaves trifoliate, or rarely pinnately 

 quinquefoliate. 



Ptelea, Linnieus, Ge7U 29. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 375- — Bentham & Hooker, Ge?i. i. 301. — BaiUon, MisL PL iv. 



Endlicher, Gen. 1147, — Meisner, Gen, 65, — Gray, Gen. 482, 



III ii. 149; Froc. Am. Acad. n. ser. xxiii. 224.— BeUucoia, Adansou, i^a^^i. P^. ii. 344. 



» 



SmaU unarmed trees or shrubs, with smooth bitter bark, slender terete brandies, small depressed 

 almost subpetiolar buds, and thick fleshy acrid roots. Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, destitute of 

 stipules, long petiolate, usually trifoliate, the leaflets conduphcate in vernation, ovate or oblong, entire, 

 crenate or serrulate, punctate with pellucid dots. Flowers produced on slender bracteolate pedicels m 

 terminal cymes or compound corymbs, greenish white. Receptacle convex, inconspicuous. Calyx 

 parted nearly to the base, much shorter than the petals, deciduous. Petals spreading, deciduous. Sta- 

 mens three or four, alternate with and as long as the petals, hypogynous; much shorter in the fertile 

 flowers with imperfect or rudimentary anthers; filaments subulate, more or less pilose towards the base, 

 especially on the inner surface ; anthers ovate or cordate, introrse, two-celled ; the ceUs opening longi- 

 tudinaUy. Pistil raised on a short gynophore ; abortive and nearly sessile in the sterile flowers; ovary 

 compressed, two to three-ceUed; style short; stigma two to three-lobed; ovules two in each cell, 

 mserted one above the other, ascending, amphitropous, raphe ventral, micropyle superior, the upper 

 ovule only fertilized. Fruit orbicular, surrounded by a broad reticulate wing, or rarely nut-lilze and 

 wmgless. Seed oblong; testa smooth or slightly wi-inkled, coriaceous; albumen fleshy. Embryo 

 straight ; cotyledons ovate-oblong ; radicle short, superior. 



The genus Ptelea is confined to the United States and Mexico. Four or five species are known. 

 Ptelea trifohata, a smafl tree, and the only arborescent species of the genus, ranges from southern 

 Ontario to Mexico. Ftelea angustifolia^ inhabits the Atlantic-coast region from South Carolina to 

 Florida, and is common from Texas to California, extending north to the mountains of Colorado and 

 south into northern Mexico. One, and perhaps two species occur in southern Mexico,^ and one species 

 in the peninsula of Lower California.^ 



The bark and foliage o£ Ptelea is bitter and strong-scented, and possesses tonic and anthelmintic 

 properties. 



The name Ptelea, derived from the Greek nt^Xka, a classical name of the Elm-tree, was transferred 

 by Linnseus to this genus from the resemblance of its winged fruit to that of the Elm. 



Bentham, PI Hartweg. 9. — Brewer & Watson, Bot. Cat i. 97. s pi^i^a aptera, Parry, Proc. Davenport Acad. Sci. iv. 39, a low 



{P. Baldwinii, Torrey & Gray, FL N. Am. i. 215. — Chapman, FL aromatic shrub from the shores of Todos-Sautos Bay, distinguished 



by its remarkable nut-like glandular turgid fruit, surrounded by a 

 Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 171. narrow rudimentary wing, or quite wingless. 



