RHAMNACER. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 37 
RHAMNUS PURSHIANA. 
Bearberry. Coffee Tree. 
Parts of the flower usually in 5’s, sometimes in 4’s; peduncles longer than the 
petioles. Leaves deciduous or subpersistent. 
Rhamnus Purshiana, De Candolle, Prodr. ii. 25.—Lou- R. oleifolia, Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 123, t. 44. — Hooker 
don, Arb. Brit. ii. 538, £. 211. — Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 
123, t. 43; London Jour. Bot. vi. 78. — Don, Gen. Syst. 
ii. 32.— Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 262. — Dietrich, 
Syn. i. 807. — Nuttall, Sylva, ii. 52. — Newberry, Pacific 
& Arnott, Bot. Voy. Beechey, 136, 328. — Torrey & Gray, 
Fl. N. Am. i. 260. — Bentham, Bot. Voy. Sulphur, 10; 
Pl. Hartweg. 302. — Carritre, Rev. Hort. xlvi. 354, f. 
47, 49. 
hk. R. Rep. vi. 69. — Koch, Dendr. i. 610. — Gray, Proc. 
Am. Acad. viii. 379.— Brewer & Watson, Bot. Cal. i. 
101. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. 8. 
ix. 41; Garden and Forest, iv. 75. — Trelease, Trans. St. 
Louis Acad. v. 366.— H. H. Rusby, Druggists’ Bull. iv. 
334, f. 1, 6, 7, 8. 
R. alnifolia, Pursh, £2. Am. Sept. i. 166 (not L’Héritier). 
Cardiolepis obtusa, Rafinesque, Sylva Tellur. 28. 
Perfonon laurifolium, Rafinesque, Sylva Zellur. 29. 
Endotropis oleifolia, Rafinesque, Sylva Tellur. 31. 
R. laurifolia, Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 260. 
Frangula Californica, Gray, Gen. Ill. ii. 178; Proc. Bost. 
Soc. Nat. Hist. vii. 146. — Torrey, Sitgreaves’ Rep. 157 ; 
Pacific R. R. Rep. iv. 74; Bot. Mex. Bound. Surv. 
R. Californica, Eschscholtz, Mém. Acad. Sci. St. Péters- 
bourg, x. 285. — Don, Gen. Syst. ii. 32. — Torrey & Gray, 
Fil. N. Am. i. 263. — Dietrich, Syn. i. 806.— Brewer & 
46; Bot. Wilkes Explor. Exped. 261.— Newberry, Pa- 
cific R. R. Rep. vi. 69.— Bolander, Proc. Cal. Acad. iii. 
78. 
Watson, Bot. Cal. i. 101.— Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. 
Cent. i. 197. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Cen- 
sus U. S. ix. 40.— Trelease, Zrans. St. Lowis Acad. v. 
366. — Mary K. Curran, Proc. Cal. Acad. ser. 2, i. 252. — 
Mary K. Brandegee, Zoé, i. 240. — H. H. Rusby, Drug- 
gists’ Bull. iv. 335, f. 2, 3, 9. 
Frangula Purshiana, Cooper, Smithsonian Rep. 1858, 
259; Pacific R. R. Rep. xii. 29, 57.— Torrey, Bot. 
Wilkes Explor. Exped. 262. 
R. rubra, Greene, Pittonia, i. 68, 160. 
R. Californica, var. rubra, Trelease, Trans. St. Louis Acad. 
v. 367. 
A tree, thirty-five to forty feet in height, with a slender trunk often eighteen or twenty inches 
in diameter, separating, ten or fifteen feet from the ground, into numerous stout upright or sometimes 
nearly horizontal branches; often shrubby and occasionally prostrate. The bark of the trunk, even on 
old individuals, is rarely more than a quarter of an inch thick; and varies in color from dark brown to 
light brown or gray tinged with red, the surface being broken into short thin scales. The branchlets 
when they first appear are coated with fine soft pubescence; they are pale yellow-green or reddish 
brown, and are pubescent, glabrous, or covered with scattered hairs in their second season, when they 
are marked with large elevated scars left by the falling of the leaves. 
oblong, obovate, acuminate, or broadly elliptical, and are obtuse, acute, or bluntly pomted at the apex, 
rounded, subcordate, or sometimes wedge-shaped at the base, and serrulate, denticulate, obscurely 
They are thin and membranaceous or sometimes 
These are alternate, elliptical- 
crenate, or often nearly entire with wavy margins. 
thick and coriaceous, and are glabrous or pubescent with scattered hairs on the lower surface and along 
the veins on the upper surface. They vary from an inch to over seven inches in length and are 
conspicuously netted-veined, with broad and prominent midrids and primary veins; they are borne on 
stout often pubescent petioles half an inch or an inch long; and are sometimes pale yellow-green above 
and below, and sometimes dark green and rather opaque above and paler or often somewhat orange- 
colored or brown on the lower surface. In Washington and Oregon and at high elevations in the 
mountains they fall late in November, having previously turned pale yellow. Farther south and near 
the California coast they remain on the branches almost all winter, or until the following spring. The 
stipules are membranaceous, acuminate, and early deciduous. The flowers are produced on the young 
