20 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



and bright red berries entitle it to recognition as an ornamental 

 species of value for localities sufficiently moist to meet its require- 

 ments. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES of an emetic nature are said to exist in 

 the leaves, and on account of this they were formerly employed by 

 the Indians together with the leaves of the I. vomitoria, in their 

 " black drink," for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. 



ORDER RHAMNACE^: BUCKTHORN FAMILY. 



Leaves simple, mostly alternate and often 3-nerved; stipules small, mostly 

 deciduous. Flowers small, greenish, mostly perfect; calyx 4-5-lobed valvate; 

 petals 4-5 inserted on the calyx; disk annular and lining the calyx-tube or none; 

 stamens opposite the petals and inserted with them on the edge of the fleshy disk ; 

 anthers introrse, versatile; ovary superior, 2-5-celled with 1 anatropous ovule 

 in each cell; style columnar with terminal stigma. Fruit a drupe or drupe-like, 

 tipped with the remnants of the style; seed usually with albumen. 



Trees and shrubs with watery bitter juice and of about five hundred seventy-five 

 species, grouped in forty-five genera. They are natives of warm and temperate 

 regions, and six of the genera have aborescent representatives in the United 

 States, Rhamus only being represented in the northeastern states. 



GENUS RHAMXUS, L. 



Leaves mostly alternate and deciduous or persistent, petiolate, conduplicate in 

 the bud. Flowers perfect or polygamous in small axillary cymes, racemes or 

 panicles; calyx campanulate, 4-5-lobed; petals 4-5, emarginate and hooded around 

 the stamen or none; stamens 4-5 with very short filaments; ovary ovoid, free 

 from the disk; style 3-4-cleft or lobed. Fruit a drupe with succulent flesh and 

 2-4-nutlets each containing a single erect grooved seed with large foliaceous 

 cotyledons and scant albumen. 



Trees and shrubs with bitter bark and often spinescent branches, of about 

 seventy species, inhabiting chiefly northern temperate and tropical regions. Five 

 or six species are indigenous to the United States and at least one or two others 

 are naturalized from Europe. (The name is the classical Green name of the 

 European Buckthorn.} 



277. RHAMNUS CATHARTICA, L. 



COMMON OR EUROPEAN BUCKTHORN. WAYTHORN. 



Ger., Stechdorn; Fr., Nerprun; Sp., Ramno carliartico. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves opposite, deciduous, broad ovate or oval, iy>-3 

 in. long, mostly rounded or obtuse at base, obtuse or acute, finely crenate serra'te, 

 glabrous, with 2-4 pairs of prominent veins running from near the base nearly 

 to the apex; winter buds scaly. Flowers (May- June) about % in. wide, in 2-5 

 axillary clusters, 4 numerous; petals very narrow. Fruit subglobose, black, about 

 */4 in. across, very bitter and containing 3 or 4 nutlets; seed silicate on the back. 



