236 OLEACE^E. (OLIVE FAMILY.) 



ORDER 47. OLEACE^E. (OLIVE FAMILY.) 



Trees or shrubs, rarely almost herbaceous, with mostly opposite and 

 pinnate or simple leaves, usually a 4-cleft (or sometimes obsolete) calyx, 

 a regular 4-cleft or nearly or quite 4-petalous corolla, sometimes apeta- 

 lous ; the stamens generally 2, rarely 3 or 4 ; the ovary 2-celled, with 

 one or two pairs of ovules in each cell. 



* Fruit entire, dry, indehiscent, winged (a samara): seed suspended : leaves pinnate. 



1. Fraximis. Flowers dioecious or polygamous, sometimes perfect. Calyx very small, 



4-cleft or irregularly toothed, or entire, or wanting. Petals none, or 4 and either 

 separate or united in pairs at the very base. Fruit by abortion mostly 1-celled and 

 1-seeded ; the wing mainly terminal. 



* * Fruit fleshy and indehiscent (a drupe), not lobed : seed suspended or pendulous : 



leaves simple. 



2. Forestiera. Flowers apetalous, dioecious or polygamous. Calyx minute, 4-parted or 



toothed, sometimes wanting. Drupe 1-seeded. 



* * * Fruit a didyinous or 2-parted at length membranaceous capsule, circumscissile at or 



near the middle : seeds ascending or erect : leaves mostly alternate and entire. 



3. Menodora. Calyx 5 to 15-cleft, persistent; the lobes mostly linear. Corolla from 



rotate to salverform ; limb 5 to 6-parted. Ovary emarginate, with 4 ovules in each 

 celL Seeds usually a pair in each cell, large, with a thickened and spongy outer coat. 



1. FRAXINUS, Tourn. ASH. 



Trees, with rather light tougli wood, petioled odd-pinnate leaves of 3 to 15 

 toothed or entire leaflets, and small flowers in crowded panicles, which in ours 

 are from the axils of last year's leaves. The oblong seed fills the cell of the 

 samara or key-fruit. Ours are apetalous and dioecious, with a minute calyx 

 or none, and the fruit winged only from the summit or upper part of the 

 terete body, which tapers gradually from summit to base and is more or less 

 margined upward by the decurrent wing. 



1. F. pubescens, Lam. (RED ASH.) Tree of middle or large size : 

 inner face of the outer bark of the branches red or cinnamon-color when fresh : 

 young parts velvety-pubescent, commonly permanently so : leaflets 1 to 9, from 

 ovate to oblong-lanceolate, mostly acuminate, entire or sparsely serrate or 

 denticulate, the lower face pale or whitish, and with the petioles more or less pubes- 

 cent: fruit 1-J to 2 inches long; its body more than half the length of the 

 linear or spatulate wing. From Dakota to Canada and southward ; quite 

 rare within our range. 



2. F. viridis, Michx. f. (GREEN ASH.) Small or middle-sized tree, 

 glabrous : leaflets 5 to 9, like the last, but smaller, sometimes more sharply 

 serrate and bright green both sides, or barely pale beneath : fruit nearly as in 

 the last or with a rather more decurrent wing. From Dakota and Canada 

 to Florida and Texas. 



2. FORESTIERA, Poir. 



Shrubs, with inconspicuous flowers, in early spring, from imbricated-scaly 

 axillary buds, and small dark-colored drupes. Fascicles or panicles very 



