BORRAGINACEZ. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 79 
EHRETIA. 
FLowers regular, perfect; calyx 5-parted, open or closed in estivation, the 
divisions imbricated ; corolla gamopetalous, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in estivation ; 
stamens 5; disk annular; ovary incompletely 4-celled; ovule solitary. Fruit a fleshy 
2 or 4-stoned drupe. Leaves alternate, entire or dentate, without stipules. 
Gen. ii. 840. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. iii. 392.— Engler & 
Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iv. pt. iii. 87. 
Carmona, Cavanilles, Anal. Cienc. Nat. i. 38, t. 3 (1799) ; 
Icon. v. 22, t. 438. 
Hilsenbergia, Meisner, Gen. ii. 198 (1840). 
Ehretia, Browne, Nat. Hist. Jam. 168 (1756). — Adanson, 
Fam. Pl. ii. 177.— Linnzus, Syst. Nat. ed. 10, 936; 
Gen. ed. 6, 102. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 128. — Meisner, 
Gen. 278. — Endlicher, Gen. 645. — Bentham & Hooker, 
Glabrous or scabrous-pubescent trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets and fibrous roots. Leaves 
alternate, entire, or dentate. Flowers small, in terminal or rarely in axillary scorpioid cymes, corymbs, 
or panicles. Calyx open or closed before anthesis, five-parted, the divisions ovate or linear, persistent 
under the fruit. Corolla usually white, the tube short or cylindrical, with five spreading obtuse lobes. 
Stamens five, inserted on the tube of the corolla, introrse, exserted or included ; filaments filiform ; 
anthers ovate or oblong, attached on the back near the base, two-celled, the cells opening longitu- 
dinally. Ovary oblong-conical, sessile on the annular disk, one-celled before anthesis, incompletely 
four-celled by the development of the two parietal placentas; style columnar, slightly or deeply parted 
into two divisions terminating in capitate or clavate stigmas; ovules solitary in each cell, attached 
laterally near or above the middle on the inner face of the revolute placenta, anatropous; raphe 
ventral ; micropyle superior. Fruit small, usually globose, tipped with the remnants of the style, and 
surrounded at the base by the persistent calyx; epicarp thin, dry, or juicy; endocarp separable into 
two two-celled or into four one-celled thick-walled bony nutlets rounded on the back, plane on the face, 
and attached to a thin axile columella. Seed terete, usually erect, filling the longitudinally incurved 
seminal cavity ; testa thin, membranaceous, light brown. Embryo axile in thin albumen; cotyledons 
ovate, plane, shorter than the elongated superior radicle turned toward the hilum. 
Ehretia is found in the tropics and warm extratropical regions of the two hemispheres, about fifty 
In the United States the genus is represented by a single species, a 
small tree of southwestern Texas and northern Mexico. 
Some of the species produce edible fruit, and wood of moderate value. 
Ehretia acuminata, an inhabitant of the Himalaya forests, is often 
species being now distinguished.' 
The genus is not known 
to possess other useful properties. 
planted as a shade-tree in India, China, and Japan. 
xiii. t. 1097. — De Candolle, /.c.— Franchet & Savatier, Enum. 
Pl. Jap. i. 333. — Kurz, Forest Fl. Brit. Burm. ii. 210. 
Ehretia pyrifolia, D. Don, Prodr. Fl. Nepal. 102 (1825). 
Ehretia ovalifolia, Hasskarl, Cat. Hort. Bogor. 137 (not Wight) 
(1844). 
Cordia thyrsiflora, Siebold & Zuccarini, Abhand. Akad. Miinch. 
iv. pt. iii. 150 (1846). 
In India the fruit of this handsome tree, which is sweet and 
1 Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et Spec. iii. 65.— 
Kunth, Syn. Pl. iquin. ii. 189.— Blume, Bijdr. Fl. Ned. Ind. 
841. — De Candolle, Prodr. ix. 502 (excel. see. Bourreria in part). — 
Miquel, Fl. Ind. Bat. ii. 919. — Bentham, Fl. Hongk. 234; Fi. 
Austral. iv. 387.— Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 481.— Miers, 
Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, iti. 106 ; Contrib. ii. 224. — Hems- 
ley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. ii. 370. — C. B. Clarke, Hooker f. Fi. 
Brit. Ind. iv. 141.— Forbes & Hemsley, Jour. Linn. Soc. xxvi. 
143. — Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xxvi. 144. 
2 R. Brown, Prodr. Fl. Nov. Holl. 497 (1810). — De Candolle, 
i. c. 503. — Bentham, Fv. Austral. iv. 387. —C. B. Clarke, 1. c.— 
Forbes & Hemsley, J. c. 
Ehretia serrata, Roxburgh, Fi. Ind. ii. 340 (1824) ; Bot. Reg. 
insipid, is eaten, and the soft and easily worked wood is used in 
building and in the manufacture of agricultural implements, scab- 
bards, sword-handles, and gun-stocks (Brandis, Forest Fl. Brit. Ind. 
339, under Ehretia serrata). 
