LEGUMINOSZ. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 47 
OLNEYA. 
FLOWERS in short axillary racemes; calyx subcampanulate, 5-lobed, the lobes 
imbricated in estivation; corolla papilionaceous; ovary many-ovuled. Legume com- 
pressed, thick-valved, tardily dehiscent. Leaves pinnate, destitute of stipules. 
Olneya, Gray, Mem. Am. Acad. n. ser. v. 328 (Pl. Thurber.). — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 500. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. 
ii. 271. 
A small tree, with thin scaly bark and stout terete hoary-canescent, slightly many-angled branchlets 
often armed with stout infrastipular spines. Leaves hoary-canescent, persistent, equally or unequally 
pinnate, ten to fifteen-foliolate, destitute of stipules and stipels, short-petiolate, often fascicled in former 
axils; leaflets cuneate, oblong or obovate, entire, obtuse, often mucronate, rigid, short-petiolulate, 
reticulate-veined, with broad conspicuous midribs. Flowers in short axillary few-flowered hoary- 
canescent racemes. Bracts and bractlets chartaceous, acute, minute, deciduous before the expansion 
of the flowers. Pedicels stout, as long as or rather longer than the calyx. Calyx hoary-canescent 
with short thick pubescence, the lobes ovate, obtuse, almost equal, the two upper connate for the 
greater part of their length. Disk cupuliform, adnate to the tube of the calyx. Corolla papiliona- 
ceous ; petals unguiculate, purple, or violet, inserted on the disk ; standard orbicular, deeply emarginate, 
reflexed, furnished at the base of the blade with two infolded ear-shaped appendages covering two 
prominent callosities ; wings oblique, oblong, slightly auriculate at the base of the blade on the upper 
side, free, as long as the broad obtuse incurved keel-petals. Stamens ten, diadelphous, the superior 
one free, filling the slit in the staminal tube ; filaments filiform, of the same length; anthers uniform, 
attached on the back, two-celled, the cells opening longitudinally. Ovary sessile or slightly stipitate, 
pilose, many-ovuled ; style inflexed, bearded above the middle; stigma thick and fleshy, depressed- 
capitate ; ovules suspended from the mner angle of the ovary, superposed, amphitropous, the micro- 
pyle superior. Legume oblique, compressed, glandular-hairy, light brown, two-valved, often tipped 
with the remnants of the long persistent style, one to five-seeded ; valves thick and coriaceous, unequally 
and interruptedly convex at maturity by the growth of the seeds. Seeds broadly ovate, slightly angled 
on the ventral side, estrophiolate, suspended by short thick funicles, destitute of albumen ; testa thin, 
membranaceous, bright chestnut-brown and lustrous. Embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons 
thick and fleshy, accumbent on the short incurved radicle, light green. 
The wood of Olneya is very heavy, hard, and strong, although brittle. The character of the grain, 
which is usually contorted, although it increases its beauty, renders it difficult to cut and work. It is 
rich dark brown striped with red, with thin clear yellow sapwood, and contains numerous thin medul- 
lary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry heartwood is 1.1486, a cubic foot weighing 66.07 
pounds. It furnishes excellent fuel, and is sometimes manufactured into canes and other small objects. 
Olneya was discovered in July, 1852, by Dr. George Thurber, the botanist of the United States 
and Mexican Boundary Survey Commission, on the table-lands of the valley of the lower Gila River in 
what is now the Territory of Arizona. 
The generic name commemorates the services to botany of Stephen T. Olney.’ The genus is 
represented by a single species. 
1 Stephen Thayer Olney (1812-1878) was a native of Providence, he bequeathed to Brown University, and to study critically the 
Rhode Island, where he was actively engaged during nearly his plants of his native State. He published a catalogue of these in 
entire life in business and manufacturing enterprises which left 1845, with continuations and emendations in 1846 and 1847 ; and 
him, however, the opportunity to indulge his taste for botany, and in 1871 a List of Rhode Island Alge. Mr. Olney was president of 
to collect « large and rich herbarium and botanical library which the Providence Franklin Society from 1859 to 1869. 
