277. KHAMNDS OATHARTICA BUCKTHORN. 21 



A small tree, under most favorable conditions only attaining the 

 height of 25 or 30 feet (9 m.), with bushy rounded or -spreading top 

 of many crooked spiny branches and small stiff branchlets. Its trunk 

 is short, rarely over 1 ft. (0.30 m.) in diameter and vested in a dark 

 gray bark, rough with firm longitudinal or reticulate ridges. It is 

 much more common as a shrub than a tree of the above dimensions. 



HABITAT. -- The native home of this species is Europe and 

 northern and western Asia, but it has become thoroughly naturalized 

 in localities in this country, as the result of its introduction for 

 hedges and ornamental purposes. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood heavy, hard, strong, firm, very 

 durable, of yellowish or pinkish brown color, with thin whitish sap- 

 wood, and of markedly characteristic grain. 



USES. The qualities of the wood would suggest its usefulness in 

 turnery, for small articles of wooden-ware, tool handles, etc., where 

 hardness and strength are prime requisites, but owing to its scarcity 

 in desirable size it is not of commercial importance. The chief use- 

 fulness of the Buckthorn lies in its value for hedges, its very ramose 

 habit with stiff spiny branches making it an effective barrier. Its 

 attractive foliage, close clusters of small black berries and hardy 

 nature make it popular for shrubberies and ornamental planting. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES of a cathartic nature exist in the bark of 

 this species, but it is not now as much used in medicine as it was 

 formerly. 



ORDER HIPPOCASTANACE-ZE: HORSE-CHESTNUT FAMILY. 



Leaves deciduous, opposite, petiolate, digitately compound, with 3-9 serrate 

 leaflets, and without stipules. Flowers appearing after the leaves, conspicuous, 

 polygamous, in showy terminal cymes or panicles, only the lowermost flowers 

 generally fertile; pedicel jointed; calyx campanulate with 5 unequal lobes, 

 imbricated in the bud; petals 4-5, unequal, clawed; disk hypogenous, annular; 

 stamens 5-8, usually 7, unequal with elongated filiform filaments and introrse 

 2-celled anthers longitudinally dehiscent; ovary sessile, 3-celled, with 2 ovules in 

 each cell; style slender, elongated, curved, and with terminal stigma. Fruit 

 a coriaceous 3-valved 1-2-seeded capsule, loculicidally dehiscent; seeds large, round 

 or irregularly hemispherical with smooth shining brown coat, large pale hilum, 

 large thick unequal cotyledons, 2-leaved plumule and remaining underground in 

 germination. 



Trees and a few shrubs with ill-scented bark, large branchlets and buds, and of 

 about eighteen species natives of North America and Asia and grouped in two 

 genera, Aesculus and Billia, the latter a genus of Mexico and Central America. 



GENUS AESCULUS, L. 



A genus of tn or twelve species of which four native and one naturalized arc 



represented among the trees of America. The characters are those of the family. 



The name is the classical name of a kind of oak and transferred to this genus. 



