260 



Araliaceae. 



Aralia. Angelica Tree. 

 (Family Araliaceae). 



Small few-branched trees or ar- 

 borescent shrubs with strong cor- 

 tical prickles, or other species 

 herbaceous: deciduous. Twigs 

 ver"y stout, terete: pith large, pale, 

 roundish, continuous. Buds ovoid- 

 conical, .solitary, sessile, with few 

 scales. Leaf-scars alternate, U- 

 shaped, fully half-encircling the 

 stem, low: bundle-traces about 5 

 in a single series: stipule-scars 

 lacking. (Dimorphanthus) . 



Winter-character references: 

 Aralia sinensis. Shirasawa, 248, 

 pi. 4. A. spinosa. Schneider, f. 

 11. 



The angelica tree, Hercules' 

 Club, tear-blanket, or monkey 

 tree, as it is variously called, is 

 one of the most tropical-looking 

 of hardy woody plants because of 

 its enormous twice- or thrice-pinnate leaves. If well grown 

 it forms dense masses from the ground, and when it is killed 

 back by an unusually severe winter this habit of growth is 

 intensified. 



Few plants present equally good leaf-scars for ready un- 

 derstanding, and few present equally good examples of unmis- 

 takable prickles, representing neither modified leaves nor 

 twigs, but outgrowths of the cortex. As with the devil's club 

 of the Northwest (Echinopanax horridum), the prickles are 

 believed popularly to be poisonous. 

 Branches gray-straw-colored, glabrous. A. spinosa. 



