RUE FAMILY. 99 



2. Shrubs or trees, hardy, with polygamous, dioecious, or sometimes perfect, small 

 (greenish or whitish) flowers ; stamens 4^6, as many as the petals ; seeds single 

 or in pairs. ^ j jeaves compound, deciduous. 



3. XANTHOXYLUM. Flowers dioecious. Pistils 2-5 ; their styles slightly cohering ; the 



ovaries separate, ripening into rather fleshy at length dry and 2-valved little pods. 

 Seed black, smooth, and shining. Prickly trees or shrubs ; leaves pinnate ; these and 

 the bark and pods very pungent and aromatic. 



4. PHELLODEKDRON. Flowers dioecious, greenish, inconspicuous ; stamens 5-6 ; ovary 



5-lobed, rudimentary. Drupes berry-like, black, the size of a pea, with 5 stones, in 

 flat corymbs, hanging all winter. Leaves opposite, leaflets oblong-lanceolate, long- 

 acuminate, serrulate, not pellucid-punctate. 



5. PTELEA. Flowers polygamous. Pistil a 2-celled ovary tipped with a short style, form- 



ing a 2-celled, 2-seeded, and rounded wing-fruit or samara, in shape like that of the Elm. 

 Not prickly ; leaflets 3. 



* * Leaves simple and entire, evergreen. 



6. SKIMMIA. Flowers polygamous or perfect. Ovary 2-5-celled, with a single ovule from 



the top of each cell, in fruit becoming a red berry or drupe. 



3. Shrubs or trees, exotic (only one hardy), with sweet-scented foliage and conspicuous, 

 white, fragrant and perfect flowers. 



7. CITRUS. Petals 4-8, usually 5, thickish. Filaments irregularly united more or less. 



Ovary many-celled, encircled at the base by a conspicuous disk (Lessons, p. 118, 

 Fig. 363), in fruit becoming a many-seeded, large berry with a thick rind. Branches 

 usually spiny. Leaves evergreen, compound or apparently simple, but with a 

 joint between the blade and the (commonly winged or margined) petiole, showing 

 that the leaf is a compound one reduced to the end-leaflet. Flowers white, very 

 fragrant, rather showy. 



8. ^EGLE. Stamens fewer, and all distinct and free. Parts of the flower in 3's or 5's. 



Leaves trifoliate. 



1. RUTA, RUE. (The ancient name.) Natives of the Old World. 



/?. graveolens, Linn. COMMON RUE. A bushy herb, woody or almost 

 shrubby at the base ; leaflets small, bluish-green and strongly dotted, 

 oblong or obovate, the terminal one broader and notched at the end, 

 corymbs of greenish-yellow 'flowers produced all summer ; the earliest 

 blossom has the parts in 5's, the rest in 4's. Plant very acrid, sometimes 

 even blistering the skin. Cult, in country gardens. 



2. DICTAMNUS, FRAXINELLA, GAS PLANT. (Ancient Greek 

 name.) 



D. d/bus, Linn, (or D. ERAXINELLA.) Herb with an almost woody base, 

 viscid-glandular, and with a strong aromatic scent ; the leaves likened to 

 those of Ash on a smaller scale (whence one of the common names) of 

 9-13 ovate and serrate leaflets ; the large flowers in a terminal raceme, in 

 summer, in one variety pale purple with redder veins, another white. 

 S. Eu. 



3. XANTHOXYLUM, PRICKLY ASH. (Greek : yellow wood.) 



X. Americ&num, Mill. NORTHERN P., or TOOTHACHE TREE. Leaves 

 downy when young, of 9-11 ovate or oblong leaflets ; the greenish flowers 

 in axillary clusters, in spring, preceding the leaves, the sepals wanting ; 

 pistils 3-5 with slender styles ; pods about the size and shape of pepper- 

 corns, lemon-scented, raised from the receptacle on thickish stalks. 

 Rocky woods and banks, N. 



X. Cl^va-H^rculis, Linn. SOUTHERN P. A small tree, the bark with 

 warty and the leafstalks with very slender prickles, smooth, with 7-9 

 ovate or lance-ovate leaflets, and whitish flowers in a terminal cyme, in 



