620 



TUBES OF NORTH AMERICA 



13. EYSENHAKDTIA H. B. K. 



Small glandular-punctate trees or shrubs, with slender terete branchlets. Leaves 

 alternate, equally pinnate, petiolate; leaflets oblong, mucronate or emarginate at apex, 

 short-petiolulate, numerous, stipellate; stipules subulate, caducous. Flowers short- 

 pedicellate, in long spicate racemes, terminal or axillary, w y ith subulate caducous bracts; 

 calyx-tube campanulate, conspicuously glandular-punctate, 5-toothed, the acute teeth 

 nearly equal, persistent; disk cupuliform, adnate to the base of the calyx-tube; corolla 

 subpapilionaceous; petals erect, free, nearly equal, oblong-spatulate, rounded at apex, un- 

 guiculate, creamy white; standard concave, slightly broader than the wing and keel-petals; 

 stamens 10, inserted with the petals, the superior stamen free, shorter than the others united 

 to above the middle into a tube; anthers uniform, oblong; ovary subsessile, contracted into 

 a long slender uncinate style geniculate and conspicuously glandular below the apex; 

 stigma introrse, oblique; ovules 2 or 3, rarely 4, attached to the inner angle of the ovary, 

 superposed. Legume small, oblong or linear-falcate, compressed, tipped with the rem- 

 nants of the style, indehiscent, pendent. Seeds usually solitary, rarely 2, oblong-reni- 

 form, without albumen; seed-coat coriaceous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; 

 cotyledons flat, fleshy; radicle superior, short and erect. 



Eysenhardtia is confined to the warmer parts of the New World, and is distributed 

 from western Texas and southern New Mexico and Arizona to southern Mexico, Lower 

 California, and Guatemala. Four species are distinguished; of these three species occur 

 within the territory of the United States, and in northern Mexico, and one species is found 

 only in Guatemala. Lignum nephriticum formerly celebrated in Europe for its reputed 

 medical properties and for the fluorescence of its infusion in spring water is the wood of 

 the shrubby Eysenhardtia polystachya Sarg. of western Texas and Mexico. 



Of the North American species one is a small tree. 



The generic name is in honor of Karl Wilhelm Eysenhardt (1794-1825), Professor of 

 Botany in the University of Konigsberg. 



1. Eysenhardtia orthocarpa S. Wats. 



Leaves 4'-5' long, with a pubescent rachis grooved on the upper side, 10-23 pairs of 

 leaflets, and small scarious deciduous stipules; leaflets oval, rounded or slightly emarginate 

 at apex, with a stout petiolule and minute scarious deciduous stipels, pale gray-green, 



Fig. 567 



glabrous or slightly puberulous on the upper surface, conspicuously glandular, with chest- 

 nut-brown glands, and pubescent especially on the prominent midrib on the lower surface, 



