RHAMNACE^E. (BUCKTHORN FAMILY.) 113 



not shining, heart-shaped, acuminate, sharply and coarsely toothed, often ob- 

 scurely 3-lobed ; panicles compound, large and loose ; berries small, blue or black 

 with a bloom, very acerb, ripening after frosts. Var. RIPARIA, has the leaves 

 broader and cut-lobed. (V. riparia, Michx.) Thickets and river-banks : com- 

 mon. May, June. Flowers very sweet-scented. 



4. V. VUlpina, L. (MUSCADINE or SOUTHERN FOX-GRAPE.) Leaves 

 shining both sides, small, rounded with a heart-shaped base, very coarsely toothed 

 with broad and bluntish teeth, seldom lobed ; panicles small, densely flowered ; 

 berries large ('-|' in diameter), musky, purplish without a bloom, with a thick 

 and tough skin, ripe early in autumn. River-banks, Maryland to Kentucky and 

 southward. May. Bark of stem close, not separating in strips as in the other 

 species. Branchlets minutely warty. This is the original of the Scuppernong 

 Grape, &c. 



2. CtSSUS, L. Petals (5 in our species] expanding before or when they fall: 

 disk thick and broad, usually 4 - 5-lobed : flowers commonly perfect : tendrils 

 fewer. 



5. V. indivisa, Willd. Nearly glabrous ; leaves heart-shaped or truncate 

 at the base, coarsely and sharply toothed, acuminate, not lobed ; panicle small 

 and loose ; style slender ; berries of the size of a pea, 1 - 3-seeded. River- 

 banks, West Virginia, Ohio, and southward. June. 



6. V. bipinnata, Torr. & Gray. Nearly glabrous, bushy and rather up- 

 right ; leaves twice pinnate or ternate, the leaflets cut-toothed ; flowers cymose ; 

 calyx 5-toothed ; disk very thick, adherent to the ovary ; berries black, obovate. 

 Rich soils, Virginia, Kentucky, and southward. 



2. AMPEL6PSIS, Michx. VIRGINIAN CREEPER. 



Calyx slightly 5-toothed. Petals concave, thick, expanding before they fall. 

 Disk none. Leaves digitate, with 5 oblong-lanceolate sparingly serrate leaf- 

 lets. Flower-clusters cymose. Tendrils fixing themselves to trunks or walls by 

 dilated sucker-like disks at their tips. (Name from /i7reXos, a vine, and o^is, 

 appearance. ) 



1. A. quinquef61ia, Michx. A common woody vine, in low or rich 

 grounds, climbing extensively, sometimes by rootlets as well as by its disk- 

 bearing tendrils, blossoming in July, ripening its small blackish berries in 

 October. Also called American Ivy, and still less appropriately, Woodbine. 

 Leaves turning bright crimson in autumn. 



ORDER 28. RHAMNACEJE. (BUCKTHORN FAMILY.) 



Shrubs or small trees, with simple leaves, small and regular flowers (some- 

 times apetalous), with the 4 or 5 perigynous stamens as many as the valvate 

 sepals and alternate with them, accordingly opposite the petals ! Drupe or 

 pod with only one erect seed in each cell, not arilled. Petals folded in- 

 wards in the bud, hooded or concave, inserted along with the stamens 

 into the edge of the fleshy disk which lines the short tube of the calyx 

 and sometimes unites it to the lower part of the 2 - 5-celled ovary. 

 8 



