88 SOAPBERRY FAMILY. 



Represented both as to native and cultivated plants by two 

 genera : 



1. CELASTRUS. Flowers polygamous or dioecious. Petals and stamens 5, on the 



edge of a concave disk which lines the bottom of the calyx. Filaments and 

 style rather slender. Pod globular, berry-like, but dry. Leaves alternate. 



2. EUONYMUS. Flowers perfect, flat; the calyx-lobes and petals (4 or 5) widely 



spreading. Stamens mostly with short filaments or almost sessile anthers, 

 borne on the surface of a flat disk which more or less conceals or covers 

 the ovary. Pod 3-5-lobed, generally bright-colored. Leaves opposite: 

 branchlets 4-sided. 



1. CELASTRUS, STAFF-TREE. (Old Greek name, of obscure mean- 



ing and application.) 



C. scandens, CLIMBING BITTER-SWEET or WAX-WORK. A twining 

 high-climbing shrub, smooth, with thin ovate-oblong and j>ointed finely serrate 

 leaves, racemes of greenish-white flowers (in early summer) terminating the 

 branches, the petals serrate or eremite-toothed, and orange-colored berry-like 

 pods in autumn, which open and display the seeds enclosed in their scarlet 

 pulpy aril : wild in low grounds, and planted for the showy fruit. 



2. EUONYMUS, SPINDLE-TREE. (Old Greek name, means of good 

 repute.) Shrubs not twining, with dull-colored inconspicuous flowers, in small 

 cymes on axillary peduncles, produced in early summer; the pods in autumn 

 ornamental, especially when they open and display the seeds enveloped in 

 their scarlet pulpy aril. 



* Leaves deciduous, finely serrate. : style short or nearly none. 

 *- North American species : anthers sessile or nearly so. 



E. atropurpiireus, BURNING-HUSH or SPIXDLE-TUEE. Tall shrub, wild 

 from New York W. & S., and commonly planted ; with oval or oblong petiolcd 

 leaves, flowers with rounded dark dull-purple petals (generally 4), and smooth 

 deeply 4-lobcd red fruit, hanging on slender peduncles. 



E. Americanus, AMERICAN STRAWBERRY-BUSH. Low shrub, wild 

 from New York VV. & S., and sometimes cult. ; with thickish ovate or lance- 

 ovate almost sessile leaves, usually 5 greenish-purple rounded petals, and rough- 

 warty somewhat: 3-lobed fruit, crimson when ripe. Var. OBOvAxus, with 

 thinner and dull obovate or oblong leaves, has long and spreading or trailing 

 and rooting branches. 



-- *- Exotic : antliers raised on evident filament*. 



E. Europaeus, EUROPEAN SPINDLE-TREE. Occasionally planted, but 

 inferior to the foregoing ; a rather low shrub, with lancc-ovato or oblong short- 

 pjtiolcd leaves, about .'Mlowered peduncles, 4 greenish oblong petals, and a 

 smooth 4-lobcd red fruit, the aril orange-color. 



* * Leaves everyreen, serrulate : filaments and style rather slender. 

 E. Japonicus, JAPAN S. Planted S. under the name of CHINESE Box, 

 there hardy, but is a givenhous;-, plant N. ; has obovate shining and bright 

 green leaves (also a form with white or yellowish variegation), several -flowered 

 peduncles, 4 obovate whitish petals, and smooth globular pods. 



35. SAPINDACE^I, SOAPBERRY FAMILY. 



Tree.-, shrulis, or one or two herbaceous climbers, mostly with 

 compound or lolx-d leaves, and un-ymmetrical flowers, the stamens 

 sometime* twice, a> many as die petals or lobes of the calyx, but 

 commonly rather fewer. wh.Mi of equal number alternate, with the 

 petals ; these irnhrirated in the bud, inserted on a disk in the bottom 

 of the calyx and often coherent with it: ovary 2 - 3-celled, sometimes 

 2 - 3-lobed, with 1 - .'5 (or in Stapliylea several) ovules in eacli cell 

 1 he. common plants belong to the three following >uborders. 



