i 4 4 TREES GROWING IN MOIST SOIL. 



WESTERN BLADDER-NUT. {Plate LXX.) 

 Staphylea Boldnderi. 



Branches: reddish brown, the new growth light yellow or green. Leaves: 

 compound ; opposite ; three-foliate ; with long petioles ; the leaflets broadly 

 oval ; abruptly pointed at the apex, and pointed or blunt at the base ; serrate; 

 glabrous. Flowers : greenish white ; perfect ; regular, and growing in drooping, 

 terminal panicles. Sepals : five. Petals : five. Stamens : five ; exserted. Pis- 

 til : one, with three styles. Fruit: large ; bladder-like, and containng from one 

 to four flattened seed in each cell. 



To follow the woods and streams with eyes alert to all that 

 is growing is to live upon the brink of discovery, and when a 

 rare or unknown plant is found there is a certain dread and ex- 

 citement lest one may have been deceived, and a fear that the 

 illusion will be shattered by some one pointing out that it has 

 been known and written about in ages past. 



The specific name of the western bladder-nut commemorates 

 the collector who first discovered it growing at McCloud's 

 Fork of the Sacramento River. It is one of the rarest shrubs of 

 the Pacific coast ; and it is not thought that it has been intro- 

 duced into cultivation. Even more interesting than the fine 

 delicate flowers are the curious bladder-like seed vessels. That 

 they have sprung from things so small seems indeed a mystery. 



ELDER. (Plate LXXI.) 



Sambucus Canadensis var. Mexicana. 



FAMILY SHAPE HEIGHT RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Honeysuckle. Round-topped, 10-30/eet. Western Texas to March-July, 



compact. California. 



Bark: brownish red ; broken in horizontal ridges. Leaves : compound ; op- 

 posite ; odd-pinnate ; with pubescent stalks and five ovate-lanceolate leaflets, 

 pointed at the apex and wedge-shaped at the base ; sharply serrate, and be- 

 coming entire at the base ; yellow-green ; thick ; pubescent along the veins. 

 Flatvers: white; minute ; growing in large, flat cymes. Fruit: a blue-black 

 drupe ; juicy, and having no bloom. 



There are, perhaps, few that are not familiar with the com- 

 mon elder, the shrub about which cluster so many old tradi- 

 tions. In western Texas, and extending to California, the vari- 



