Rhacoma 



631 



leaves, with very small stipules which fall away early. The rather small flowers 

 are in stalked axillary cymes, and are either perfect or polygamous; the calyx is 

 4-lobed or 5-lobed; there are 4 or 5 petals, as many stamens, and the ovary is from 

 3-celled to 5-celled, usually with 2 ovules 

 in each cavity; the style is short and 

 there are as many stigma-lobes as ovary- 

 cavities. The fruit is a more or less 

 fleshy lobed capsule, sphtting into valves 

 when ripe, the seeds with a large red or 

 purple aril. 



The Wahoo, known also as Burning 

 bush and Indian arrow, while often a 

 shrub, locally becomes a tree 8 or 9 me- 

 ters high, with a trunk 2 dm. thick. It 

 grows in woodlands and thickets from 

 Ontario to Pennsylvania, Florida, Mon- 

 tana, the Indian Territory, and Arkan- 

 sas. Its bark is gray and ridged; the 

 young twigs are smooth, bluntly angled, 

 slender and green, becoming round and purpUsh brown; the buds are purple, 3 

 or 4 mm. long. The leaves are ovate-oblong to eUiptic, 4 to 13 cm. long, pointed, 

 thin, finely hairy on the under side, darker green and smooth on the upper, nar- 

 rowed or sometimes rounded at the base, finely toothed, strongly pinnately veined; 

 the leaf-stalks are 8 to 20 mm. long. The flower-clusters are long-stalked; the 

 flowers are deep purple, about 12 mm. wide, and open in May or June; their 

 parts are usually in 4's, the obovate wavy-margined petals much longer than the 

 calyx-lobes and stamens. The fruit is deeply 4-lobed, rarely 3-lobed, 12 to 16 mm. 

 broad, purplish, its valves hanging on the twigs into the winter. 



The wood is nearly white, hard and dense, with a specific gravity of about 

 0.66. The bark of the stem and root is used in medicine. Local names are 

 Spindle tree, Strawberry tree, Arrowwood, and Bleeding heart. 



Fig. 582. Wahoo. 



II. RHACOMA 



GENUS RHACOMA LINN^US 

 Species Rhacoma Crossopetalum Linnaeus 

 Myginda Rhacoma Swartz. Crossopetalum aiistrimim Gardner 



SHRUB or small tree widely distributed in the West Indies, and 

 growing in sandy soil in southern peninsular Florida and on the 

 Keys, where it reaches the height of 6 meters; it is the type species of 

 the genus. 

 It has a smooth, pale bark and 4-angled brownish or ashy-gray twigs. The 



v^m 



