SAPINDACEZt 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 5 
SAPINDUS MARGINATUS. 
Soapberry. 
SEPALS rounded ; petals appendiculate. 
lance-oblong. 
Sapindus marginatus, Willdenow, Enum. 432 (1809). — 
Muehlenberg, Cat. 41.— De Candolle, Prodr. i. 607. — 
Sprengel, Syst. ii. 250.— Don, Gen. Syst. i. 665.— 
Spach, Hist. Vég. iii. 54. — Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 
255 (in part). — Nuttall, Sylva, ii. 72, t. 65. — Engel- 
mann & Gray, Jour. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. v. 241 (Pl. 
Lindheim. i.) (in part).— Gray, Gen. Ill. ii. 214 (in 
part). — Schnizlein, Zcon. t. 230, f. 22.— Chapman, FV. 
79.— Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 214 (in part). — 
Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 44 
(in part); Silva N. Am. ii. 71 (in part). — Robinson, 
Gray Syn. Fl. N. Am. i. pt. i. 444. 
Fruit dorsally carinate. Leaflets 7 to 13, 
Sapindus Saponaria, Lamarck, Jil. ii. 441, t. 307 (not 
Linneus) (1793).— Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 242.— 
Poiret, Lamarck Dict. vi. 663 (in part). — Persoon, Syn. 
i. 444, — Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i. 274. — Nuttall, Gen. i. 
257. — Elliott, Sk. i. 460. 
Sapindus falcatus, Rafinesque, Med. FI. ii. 261 (1830). 
Sapindus acuminatus, Rafinesque, New Fl. iii. 22 
(1836). — Radlkofer, Sitz. Akad. Miinch. 1878, 316, 
393.— Watson & Coulter, Gray’s Man. ed. 6, 116 (in part). 
Sapindus Manatensis, Radlkofer, Sitz. Akad. Miinch. 
1878, 318, 400.—Nash, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, xxiii. 
102. 
A tree, rarely more than twenty-five or thirty feet in height, with a trunk sometimes a foot in 
diameter, and stout pale brown or ultimately ashy gray branchlets. 
The leaves are six or seven inches 
long, with from seven to thirteen leaflets which are borne on a slender wingless or narrowly margined 
or marginless rachis, the lower leaflets being usually alternate and the upper opposite. 
The leaflets are 
lance-oblong, acuminate, more or less falcate, glabrous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, 
paler and glabrous or puberulous below along the slender midnerves, sessile or very short-petiolulate, from 
two to five inches in length and from three quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter in width. The 
panicles of flowers, which appear in early spring, are pyramidal, four or five inches long and usually 
about three inches wide, with villose stems and branches. The flowers, which are borne on short stout 
tomentose pedicels, are more or less tinged with red and are nearly an eighth of an inch in diameter. 
The sepals are villose on the outer surface toward the base and ciliate on the margins, the outer being 
rounded at the narrowed apex and much narrower than the inner, which are obovate and rounded at the 
broad apex. The petals are ovate-oblong, short-clawed, ciliate on the margins, and furnished on the 
inner surface near the base with a two-lobed villose scale. The berries are conspicuously keeled on the 
back, short-oblong, and often three quarters of an inch in length, with thin light yellow translucent flesh 
and obovate dark brown seeds villose at the hilum with tufted pale hairs.’ 
21 In the Synoptical Flora of North America (i. pt. i. 444 which are globose, destitute of the dorsal keel which distinguishes 
[1897]), Dr. B. L. Robinson first pointed out the characters which 
separate Sapindus marginatus of Florida from the Sapindus of the 
region west of the Mississippi River, for which the name of Sapin- 
dus Drummondi must be adopted. In the second volume of The 
Silva of North America the Texas tree was confounded with the 
Florida species, and the description of Sapindus marginatus, includ- 
ing that of the wood, was largely drawn up from the former, which 
those of Sapindus marginatus, and in drying turn black. 
The range of Sapindus Drummondi, as laid down in the descrip- 
tion of Sapindus marginatus in volume ii., can now be extended 
northward to southwestern Missouri, where this tree is abundant on 
the Cowshed River, near Pineyville, McDonald County, and on 
White River in Barry County, and to central Kansas. (See Hitch- 
cock, The Industrialist, xxiv. 387 [Flora of Kansas].) Sapindus 
is figured on plates Ixxvi. and lxxvii. of this work. 
From Sapindus marginatus the trans-Mississippi species can be 
distinguished by its wingless rachis, more numerous and narrower 
lanceolate leaflets, which vary from eight to nineteen in number 
and are pubescent or ultimately glabrate on the lower surface ; 
by its rhombic-lanceolate unguiculate petals and smaller berries, 
Drummondi was discovered in 1819 by Thomas Nuttall during his 
journey to Arkansas. 
The corrected synonymy of Sapindus Drummondi is, — 
Sapindus Drummondi, Hooker & Arnott, Bot. Voy. Beechey, 281 
(1838?). — Walpers, Rep. i. 417. — Robinson, Gray Syn. Fl. N. 
Am. i. pt. i. 444. — Britton, Man. 610. 
