RHAMNACE^E 



719 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Fruit more or less fleshy. 



Fruit with a single stone; petals 0. 

 Sepals without crests. 



Leaves alternate; branches spinescent. 1. Condalia. 



Leaves nearly opposite; branches not spinescent. 2. Reynosia. 



Sepals crested; leaves mostly opposite. 3. Krugiodendron. 



Fruit with 2 or 3 nutlets; petals 4 or 5, or 0; leaves alternate. 4. Rhamnus. 



Fruit crustaceous, 3-lobed, separating into 3 longitudinally 2-valved nutlets. 



Sepals inflexed; petals narrowed into a long slender claw. 5. Ceanothus. 



Sepals spreading; petals sessile. 6. Colubrina. 



1. CONDALIA Cav. 



Trees or shrubs, with rigid spinescent branches and minute scaly buds. Leaves alter- 

 nate, subsessile, obovate or oblong, entire, feather-veined. Flowers axillary, solitary or 

 fascicled, greenish white, on short pedicels; calyx with a short broad-obconic tube and a 

 >-lobed limb, the lobes ovate, acute, membranaceous, spreading and persistent; disk fleshy, 

 flat, slightly 5-angled, surrounding the free base of the ovary; petals 0; stamens 5, inserted 

 on the free margin of the disk between the lobes of the calyx; filaments incurved, shorter 

 than the calyx-lobes; ovary 1-celled, conic, gradually narrowed into a short thick style; 

 stigma 3-lobed; ovule ascending from the base of the cell. Fruit ovoid or subglobose; flesh 

 thin; stone thick-walled, crustaceous. Seed compressed; seed-coat thin and smooth; 

 cotyledons oval, flat. 



Condalia with nine or ten species is confined to the New World and is distributed from 

 western Texas and southern California to Brazil and Argentina. Of the six species found 

 within the territory of the United States one is a small tree. 



The generic name commemorates that of Antonio Condal, a Spanish physician of the 

 eighteenth century sent to South America on a scientific mission in 1754. 



1. Condalia obovata Hook. Purple Haw. Log Wood. 



Leaves often fascicled on short spinescent lateral branchlets, spatulate to oblong-cune- 

 ate, mucronate, when they first appear pubescent, especially on the low^er surface, at 



Fig. 646 



maturity glabrous, rather thin, pale yellow-green, l'-l' long, and about |' wide, with a 

 conspicuous midrib and usually 3 pairs of prominent primary veins; unfolding in May and 



