107. CYRILLA RACEMIFLORA RED TITI, IRON-WOOD. 31 



The Prickly Ash is occasionally planted for ornamental purposes. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. Xanthoxylum is stimulant, and as a 

 remedy in chronic rheumatism it enjoys some reputation in this country. 

 The powdered bark has sometimes been employed as a topical irritant. * 



ORDER CYRILLACEJE : CYRILLA FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, exstipulate. Flowers regular, perfect, 5-numerous, in terminal 

 or lateral racemes; petals hypogynous, imbricated in the bud; stamens 5-10, in- 

 serted with the petals on an annular disk united with the base of the ovary, anthers 

 introrss, opening lengthwise; pistil with stigma entire or lobed, ovary 2-4- eel led with 

 usually a single pendulous ovule in each cell. Fruit a achenium or drupe, and seed 

 with straight embryo, in fleshy albumen. 



Shrubs and trees of the Southern States of America, 



GENUS CYRILLA, L. 



Leaves alternate, exstipulate, mostly at the ends of the branchlets, coriaceous, 

 narrow-obvate to obovate-oblong, entire, short-pointed, rounded or slightly emargin- 

 ate at apex, reticulate veined and with short petioles. Flowers in slender, rigid, 

 spreading racemes from near the extremity of the growth of the previous year, 

 small, with slender pedicels, in the axils of one or two persistent bracts; calyx with 

 5, persistent, acute lobes; petals white or rose-colored, about in. long, acute, decidu- 

 ous, furnished inside with nectiferous gland; stamens shorter than the petals and 

 opposite the calyx-lobes, with subulate, thick filaments and introrse anthers; pistil 

 free, with short thick style, stigma with two spreading lobes and 2-celled ovary, 

 each cell containing anatropous ovules suspended in a cluster from its apex. Fruit 

 a broadly ovoid, drupe crowned with the persistent style, 2-celled, 2-seeded and 

 with spongy pericarp. 



(Genus named in compliment to Domenico Cyrillo, an Italian naturalist.) 



107. CYRILLA RACEMIFLORA, L. 



RED TITI, LEATHER-WOOD, IRON-WOOD. 



Ger., Traubenbldttrige Cyrille Fr., Cyrille de Caroline; Sp., Madera 



de hierro. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS : Leaves 1 to 3 in. long, glabrous, shining green and 

 grooved along the mid-rib above, turning to light orange-red and falling late in the 

 northern part of its range, evergreen in the south; young twigs with large leaf-scars 

 and bearing prominent ridges which continue down one from the base of each leaf. 

 Flowers appear in early summer, in straight racemes 3-6 in. long, at first rigid but 

 finally drooping. Fruit a small, dryish drupe no often more than ^ in. in diameter, 

 and many remaining on the tree into the first and even second season. 



(The specific name is descriptive, in Latin, of the form of flower-cluster, i. e. 

 raceme- flowered.) 



A small tree occasionally attaining the height of 30 or 35 ft. (10 m.) 

 with wide-spreading top and irregular trunk about 12 in. (0.30 m.) in 

 diameter, and clothed in a peculiar soft and spongy reddish-brown bark 

 which flakes off in irregular friable scales. It is a beautiful tree, especi- 

 ally when bearing its abundant racemes of white flowers, which some- 

 times are so numerous as almost to prevail over the lustrous dark-green 

 of the foliage. Often it grows as simply a large shrub sending up many 

 stems from a common root. 



* U. S. Dispensatory, 16th ed., p. 1606. 



