OLEACE. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 61 
and a half long. The leaves are ovate or oblong, acuminate, with short broad points, or sometimes 
rounded at the apex, gradually narrowed below into stout puberulous petioles, entire with undulate 
margins, and coarsely reticulate-venulose ; when they unfold they are yellow-green and lustrous on the 
upper surface, pubescent on the lower, and ciliate on the margins, and at maturity they are four to eight 
inches long, half an inch to four inches broad, thick and firm, dark green above, and pale and glabrous 
below, except along the stout midribs and conspicuous arcuate primary veins, which are more or less 
covered with short white hairs; they are borne on petioles which vary from half an inch to nearly an 
inch in length, and, having turned bright clear yellow, fall early in the autumn. The flowers appear 
from the middle of April in the south to the beginning of June in New England, when the leaves are 
about a third grown, in loose pubescent drooping panicles four to six inches long, and are slightly and 
agreeably fragrant. The bracts at the base of the lower branches of the inflorescence are obovate, 
foliaceous, glabrous on the upper surface, pubescent on the lower, and sometimes an inch long; those 
at the base of the upper branches are oval, successively smaller, and gradually pass into the minute 
laciniate bracts which subtend the lateral pedicels of the three-flowered clusters which terminate the 
last divisions of the panicle. The calyx is light green, glabrous, and deeply divided into four acute 
entire or laciniately cut lobes. The corolla is an inch long, marked on the inner surface near the base 
by a row of bright purple spots, and is divided into four or sometimes into five or six narrow strap-shaped 
divisions usually united below or separable. The anthers are light yellow with a green connective. 
The stigma is two-lobed, and matures and begins to wither before the anthers discharge their pollen. 
The fruit, which ripens in September, is borne in loose few-fruited clusters on which the persistent 
leaf-like bracts have sometimes become two inches long; it is oval or oblong, surrounded at the base 
by the persistent calyx, tipped with the remnants of the style, an inch long, dark blue or nearly black, 
and often covered with a glaucous bloom ; it has a thick skin, thin dry flesh, and a thin rather brittle- 
walled stone. The seed is a third of an inch long, ovate, narrowed at the apex, and covered by a 
thin light chestnut-brown coat marked by reticulate veins which radiate from the short hilum. 
Chionanthus Virginica usually inhabits the banks of streams, where it grows in rich moist soil, 
and is distributed from Lancaster and Chester counties in southern Pennsylvania to the shores of 
Tampa Bay in Florida, and through the Gulf states to southern Arkansas and to the valley of the 
Brazos River in Texas. 
The wood of Chionanthus Virginica is heavy, hard, and close-grained, and contains numerous 
obscure medullary rays, the layers of annual growth being marked by several rows of large open ducts 
It is light brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood. 
The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.6372, a cubic foot weighing 39.71 pounds. 
The bark is tonic, and is sometimes used in decoction, in the treatment of mtermittent fevers, or as 
1 
connected by branching groups of similar ducts. 
an aperient or diuretic ;* and in homeopathic practice.” 
The first authentic figure of Chionanthus Virginica was published by Mark Catesby in the 
Natural History of Carolina* in 1771.4 It is said to have been first cultivated in Europe in 1736° 
by Peter Collinson.® 
1 Griffith, Med. Bot. 441. — Porcher, Resources of Southern Fields 
and Forests, 494. — U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 1752. 
2 Millspaugh, Am. Med. Pl. in Homeopathic Remedies, ii. 136, t. 
136. 
8 Amelanchier Virginiana, Lauro cerasifolio, i. 68, t. 68. 
Chionanthus, Linneus, Hort. Cliff. 17. — Clayton, Fl. Virgin. 
10.— Royen, Fi. Leyd. Prodr. 399.— Duhamel, Traité des Arbres, 
i. 165, t. 63. 
Chionanthus pedunculis multifloris paniculatis, Linneus, Fl. Zey- 
lan. 5. 
Chionanthus pedunculis trifidis trifloris, Miller, Dict. ed. 7. 
4 The figure of Plukenet’s Arbor Zeylanica, Cotini foliis subtus 
lanugine villosis, floribus albis, Cuculi modo laciniatis (Phyt. t. 241, 
f. 4; Alm. Bot. 44.—Ray, Hist. Pl. iii. Dendr. 124, — Burman, 
Thes. Zeylan. 31), published in 1691, upon which Linnzus estab- 
lished the genus Chionanthus, and Willdenow his Chionanthus cotini- 
folia, was intended to represent Chionanthus Virginica, although in 
the figure the corolla is generally five-parted, and the native coun- 
try of the plant is said to have been Ceylon, where, however, no- 
thing like it is now known to exist. This was the view of Catesby 
and of Duhamel, who both quoted Plukenet’s descriptive phrase 
as a synonym of the American species ; De Candolle suggested 
the same explanation (Prodr. viii. 295), which has now been sub- 
stantiated by Plukenet’s specimen in the British Museum (Britten, 
Jour. Bot. xxxii. 38). 
5 Aiton, Hort. Kew. i.15.— Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 1206, £. 1029, 
1030. 
8 See i. 8. 
