105. MELIA AZEDARACH PUIDE OF INDIA. 29 



USES. The principal point of usefulness of the China-berry is its high 

 ornamental value, which has long been recognized as testified by the 

 abundance of large trees adorning alike the city streets and country homes 

 of the Southern States. Its wood is little used though it would seem to 

 be very appropriate for nice furniture, as it is certainly a very handsome 

 wood and quite similar in properties to the Mahogany to which it is allied. 



The name Bead-tree and the German Porter nosterbaum are both given 

 to it from a use sometimes made of the pits of the fruit for rosaries by 

 the monks of some of the European monasteries. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. The decoction of this bark is cathartic and 

 emetic, and in large doses is said to produce narcotic effects similar to 

 those of spigelia, especially if gathered at the season when the sap is mount- 

 ing. Robins eating of the sweetish fruit, of which they are very fond, 

 are often rendered so far insensible as to be picked up under the tree; 

 thougfi they usually recover in a few hours. The bark is considered in 

 the Southern States an efficient anthelinintic, the form of decoction being 

 usually preferred.* 



NOTE. The rapidity of growth of this tree under most favorable con- 

 ditions is something prodigious. One felled for the accompanying sec- 

 tions measured sixteen inches in diameter, and the annual rings show 

 that it required only nine years for growth ; the greatest growth being 

 indicated by its second ring, which measured two and one-eighth inches 

 in thickness on one side. 



ORDER RUTACE2E : RUE FAMILY. 



Leaves simple or compound, alternate or opposite, exstipulate, dotted with trans- 

 lucent glands and containing an aromatic or acrid volatile oil. Flowers regular, 

 usually 3-5-numerous, hypogynous; stamens as many or twice as many as the sepals 

 or rarely more ; pistils 2-5, separate or compound with ovary containing as many 

 cells, raised on a prolongation of the receptacle (gyinoophore) or glandular disk, 

 styles commonly united even when ovaries are distinct. Fruit usually capsular with 

 few seeds, large embryo and fleshy albumen. 



A large family of both herbaceous and woody plants, mostly of the Old World and 

 southern hemisphere. 



GENUS XANTHOXYLUM, LINNAEUS. 



Leaves alternate, mostly odd-pinnate with the petioles often furnished with 

 prickles (as are also the branchlets) ; leaflets entire or crenulate. Flowers 

 dioecious, small, greenish- white, and borne in axillary or terminal, pedunculate 

 cymes ; sepals 4-5, or wanting in one species ; petals 4-5, imbricated in the bud, or 

 rudimentary or wanting in the pistillate flowers ; stamens 4-5, alternate with the 

 petals, hypogynous, with introrse 2-celled anthers, opening longitudinally ; pistils 

 1-5, raised on a fleshy stipe, connivent or slightly united ; styles short and stigmas 

 capitate ; ovary 1-celled and containing 2 amatropous pendulous ovules. Fruit a 

 broadly ovate fleshy 2-valved follicle, dehiscent along the ventral suture and contain- 

 ing 1-2 orbicular-oblong seeds suspended by a f uniculus, with smooth and shining, 

 blackish, crustaceous seed-coat ; embryo straight and cotyledons broad and foliaceous. 



A large and widely distributed genus of trees and shrubs with bitter-acrid juice, 

 and name derived from the Greek qavSd's yellow, and qvA.ov wood. 



* 17. S. Dispensatory, 16th ed. p. 278. 



