CELASTRACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 15 
SCH AFFERIA. 
FLOWERS unisexual; calyx 4-parted, the lobes imbricated in estivation ; petals 4, 
imbricated in estivation, hypogynous ; stamens 4, hypogynous, inserted under the mar- 
gin of the disk ; ovary 2-celled ; ovules solitary, erect. Fruit a 2-seeded fleshy drupe. 
Scheefferia, Jacquin, Stirp. Am. 259. — Endlicher, Gen. 1103. — Meisner, Gen. 69. — Bentham & Hooker, Gev. i. 367. — 
Baillon, Hist. Pl. vi. 37. 
Glabrous trees or shrubs, with slender rigid terete branches and small obtuse buds. Leaves alter- 
nate, or fascicled on short spur-like branches, entire, obovate or spatulate, acute, rounded, or emarginate 
at the apex, destitute of stipules. Flowers diccious, pediceled or sessile, in axillary clusters from large 
buds covered with scale-like persistent bracts. Calyx-lobes orbicular, persistent, much shorter than the 
oblong obtuse white or greenish white petals. Disk small, inconspicuous. Stamens opposite the lobes 
of the calyx, wanting in the fertile flower ; filaments subulate, incurved ; anthers attached below the 
middle, subglobose, introrse, two-celled, the cells opening longitudinally. Ovary two-celled, ovoid, ses- 
sile, free ; rudimentary in the sterile flower; style very short ; stigma large, two-lobed, the lobes spread- 
ing; ovules solitary, ascending, anatropous; the raphe thin, ventral; the micropyle inferior. Fruit the 
size of a pea, ovate or obovate, crowned with the remnants of the persistent style, indistinctly two-lobed 
by a longitudinal groove on the two sides, slightly flattened; sarcocarp thin and fleshy, tuberculate ; 
nutlets bony, separable. Seeds solitary, ascending; testa membranaceous; albumen fleshy. Embryo 
axile ; cotyledons broad, foliaceous ; the radicle very short, inferior, next the hilum. 
Two species of Schefferia are described. The type of the genus, Schefferia frutescens, a small 
tree or shrub, is widely distributed in the Antilles, reaching the islands of south Florida and Central 
America. The second species,’ a little known shrub, belongs to the arid region of western Texas and 
northern Mexico. 
The wood of Schefferia is hard and close-grained; the genus is not known to possess other 
properties useful to man. It was established by Jacquin, and named in honor of J. C. Schaeffer,’ a 
distinguished German naturalist of the last century. 
1 Schefferia cuneata, Gray, Pl. Wright. i. 35; ii. 29 (Smithso- clergyman and superintendent at Ratisbon from 1779 until his 
nian Contrib. iii.,v.).— Torrey, Bot. Mex. Bound. Surv.47.—Tre- death. Schaeffer was a writer on zodlogy, and the author of several 
lease, Trans. St. Louis Acad. v. 330. botanical books, including the Botanica Expeditior and two illus- 
2 Jakob Christian Schaetier (1718-1790) ; born at Querfurt, a trated works on the Fungi found in the neighborhood of Ratisbon. 
