GLEDITSCHIA 



Gleditschia, Clayton, ex Linnaeus, Gen. PI. 480 (1742); Willdenow, Berl. Baumz. 132 (1796); 

 Spach, Hist. Veg. i. 90 (1834); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. PL i. 568 (1865); Maximowicz, 

 Mel. Biol. xii. 450 (1886); Rehder, in Bailey, Cyel. Amer. Hort. 650 (1900). 



Gledilsia, Linnaeus, Sp. PI. 1056 (1753); Schneider, Laubhohkunde, ii. 8 (1907). 



Deciduous trees belonging to the division Caesalpineae of the order Leguminosae. 

 Stem and branches often armed with stout rigid sharp long-pointed spines, which 

 are simple or branched. These spines are abortive branches, which arise above the 

 axils of the leaves, being developed from buds embedded in the bark. Buds of the 

 leafy branches, axillary, no true terminal bud being formed, concealed in the tissue 

 of the twig, multiple, three or four superposed in a vertical line, the two or three 

 lower without scales and covered by the base of the petiole in summer and by the 

 leaf-scar in winter ; the uppermost bud, larger than the others, covered with minute 

 scales. 



Leaves alternate or fascicled, long-stalked, equally pinnate or bipinnate, some 

 of the pinnae in the latter often reduced ' to simple leaflets. Leaflets membran- 

 ous, opposite or alternate, crenulate in margin, without stipels. Stipules leafy, early 

 deciduous. 



Flowers polygamous, dioecious, or perfect ; regular, minute, greenish white, in 

 axillary simple or spicate racemes, with scale-like caducous bracts. Calyx campanu- 

 late, lined with a disc, three- to five-lobed. Petals as many as the lobes of the calyx. 

 Stamens, six to ten, inserted with the petals on the margin of the disc, exserted ; 

 filaments free, erect ; anthers abortive in the pistillate flowers ; ovary usually one- 

 celled, rudimentary or absent in the staminate flowers ; style short, with a dilated 

 terminal stigma ; ovules two or many. 



Pod coriaceous, compressed ; either elongated, containing pulp, many-seeded, 

 and indehiscent ; or short, without pulp, one- or two-seeded, and ultimately dehiscent. 

 Seed oval or orbicular, more or less compressed, attached by a long slender 

 funicle. 



About a dozen species of Gleditschia are known, natives of North America, 

 Caucasus, North Persia, Japan, China, Formosa, the Philippines, Celebes, Tropical 

 Africa, and Argentina. 



The following key comprises the species cultivated in Europe, which I have 

 been able to identify. The leaflets described are those of the simply pinnate leaves 

 on adult trees. 



1 Leavitt, in Sot. Gat. xlvii. 49, fig. 14 (1909), describes and figures these peculiar leaves, occurring in G. triacanthos. 



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