182 CHINESE ECONOMIC TREES 



Anhwei, Chekiang, Kiangsu, Hupeh and Szechuan. 



The pods of this tree are saponaceous and are used as a substitute 

 for soap for laundry purposes. A perfumed soap of high quality for the 

 washing of hair and delicate fabrics is made with the addition of honey, 

 sandal wood, camphor, musk and several other ingredients. This pre- 

 paration is also valued as a comestic or salve. The seeds, after the black 

 coat is removed by steaming, are used by embroiderers to gloss' silk 

 threads in much the same way as wax is used for the same purpose. 



GLEDITSIA 



Deciduous trees with inconspicuous buds scarcely raised above 

 the bark. Branches and trunks often armed with branched or 

 simple spines. Leaves alternate, pinnately or bipinnately compound; 

 stipules deciduous. Leaflets irregularly crenate. Flowers dioecious or 

 polygamous, greenish-white, in lateral simple or fascicled racemes. 

 Calyx lobes and petals 3-5; stamens 6-10, exserted; ovary usually 1 

 celled; ovules 2 to many; style short, with large terminal stigma. 

 Pods mostly large and indehiscent, pulpy, compressed, walls thin and 

 membranous or pulpless and ovate, tardily dehiscent, or inhediscent with 

 woody walls; seeds many or rarely few, ovate or compressed, attached by 

 a long slender funicle. 



About 12 species known in C. and E. Asia, N. and S. America, and 

 tropical Africa. The genus yields a wood that is' fairly hard and durable 

 but coarse grained. When planted close together and severely pruned 

 most Gleditsias form good windbreaks and hedges. They are late in 

 developing leaves in spring. Also spelled gleditschia. 



Gleditsia macracantha Desfontaines. 

 Honey Locust. 



Tree 15 m. tall. Branchlets glabrous; spines terete, reddish-brown, 

 simple or compound with 1 or 2 or more branches. Leaves pinnate; 

 rachis pubescent along the grooves; leaflets 6-12, reticulate beneath, 

 midrib and petiolules pubescent, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 5-8 cm. long, 

 diminishing in size toward the tip of the leaves. Flowers polygamo- 

 dioecious, in racemes, pubescent, 6-13 mm. long on slender pedicels. 

 Pod 10 to 15 cm. long, 3 cm. wide, often cylindrical, indehiscent, straight, 

 slightly convex, purplish-brown, many seeded. 



Hupeh and Szechuan. 



