5AP0TACEAE 237 



sists of several united carpels, is 4- to 12-celled, and develops 

 into a berry containing as a rule 1 nutlike seed. 



The more than 400 species in this family are for the most 

 part inhabitants of tropical regions. They represent about 35 

 genera, 5 of which occur in North America and 1 in Illinois. 



BUMELIA Swartz 

 The Bumelias Buckthorns 



The bumelias are small trees or, with us, shrubs, which 

 bear conspicuously nerved, simple, alternate leaves and, some- 

 times, spines in the axils of the leaves. The small, perfect 

 flowers, borne in axillary clusters, are white, and the corolla 

 lobes are longer than the tube and appended on each side. 

 There are 5 stamens, and the ovary is 5-celled; but the berry 

 is drupelike and usually contains a solitary seed. 



There are about 35 species of bumelias, all of them native 

 in America. The following two are shrubby and occur in 

 Illinois. 



Key to the Shrubby Species 



Leaves glabrous or nearly so B. lycioides 



Leaves rusty-woolly beneath B. lanuginosa 



BUMELIA LYCIOIDES (Linnaeus) Persoon 

 Southern Buckthorn Carolina Buckthorn 



The Southern Buckthorn, fig. 62, is an erect, gray-barked 

 shrub or sometimes a small tree up to 25 feet high with short, 

 divergent branches which resemble spines and, on the branch- 

 lets, bark roughened by many lenticels. On terminal branchlets 

 of the current season, the leaves are alternate, but on lateral 

 branchlets from old wood they stand in clusters of 2 to 6. The 

 leaf blades are elliptic to oblanceolate, commonly 2]/^ to 5 

 inches long and yz to lYz inches wide, with entire and slightly 

 revolute margins. They are acute at the apex, wedge shaped 

 at the base, and at maturity smooth both above and beneath 

 and definitely reticulated. The petioles are short, commonly 

 about 14 inch long. 



The white flowers, which appear at about the time the leaves 

 are full grown, are borne on old wood in clusters ranging from 

 15 to 75 flowers, each on a short, glabrous petiole. The fruit, 



