RHAMNACE^E 



725 



Distribution. Borders of streams on rich bottom-lands, and on limestone ridges; Vir- 

 ginia to western Florida and westward through the valley of the Ohio River to southern 



Fig. 651 



Iowa and southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, the valley of the Washita River, Okla- 

 homa (Ardman County), and to Kendall, Kerr and Uvalde Counties, western Texas; occa- 

 sionally tree-like in western Florida and Mississippi, and of its largest size only in southern 

 Arkansas and the adjacent portions of Texas; very abundant on the limestone barrens of 

 central Kentucky and Tennessee. 



3. Rhamnus Purshiana DC. Bearberry. Coffee-tree. 



Leaves deciduous, broad-elliptic, obtuse or bluntly pointed at apex, rounded or slightly 

 cordate at base, finely serrate, or often nearly entire, with undulate margins, thin, villose 

 with short hairs on the lower surface and on the veins above, l|'-7' long, l^'-2' wide, 

 conspicuously netted- veined, with a broad and prominent midrib and primary veins; turn- 

 ing pale yellow late in the autumn before falling; petioles stout, often pubescent, 5'-!' in 

 length; stipules membranaceous, acuminate. Flowers on slender pubescent pedicels '-!' 

 long, in axillary cymes on slender pubescent peduncles ^'-1' in length on shoots of the year; 

 calyx nearly campanulate, with 5 spreading acuminate lobes; petals 5, minute, ovate, 

 deeply notched at apex, and folded round the short stamens; stigma 2 or 3-lobed. Fruit 

 globose or broad-obovoid, black, $'-%' in diameter, slightly or not at all lobed, with thin 

 rather juicy flesh, and 2 or 3 obovoid nutlets usually \ f long, rounded on the back, flat- 

 tened on the inner surface, with 2 bony tooth-like enlargements at base, 1 on each side of 

 the large scar of the hilum, and a thin gray or pale yellow-green shell; seeds obtuse 

 at apex, rounded on the back* seed-coat thin and papery, yellow-brown on the outer sur- 

 face, bright Orange color on the inner surface like the cotyledons. 



A tree, 35-40 high, with a slender trunk often 18'-20' in diameter, separating 10-15 

 from the ground into numerous stout upright or sometimes nearly horizontal branches, 

 and slender branchlets coated at first with fine soft pubescence, pale yellow-green or reddish 

 brown, and pubescent, glabrous, or covered with scattered hairs in their second season and 

 then marked by the elevated oval horizontal leaf-scars; often shrubby and occasionally 

 prostrate. Winter-buds naked, hoary-tomentose. Bark of the trunk rarely more than \' 

 thick, dark brown to light brown or gray tinged with red, broken on the surface into short 

 thin scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, brown tinged with red, with thin lighter colored 

 sapwood. The bark possesses the drastic properties peculiar to that of other species of 

 the genus, and is a popular domestic remedy in Oregon and California, and under the name 

 of Cascara Sagrada has been admitted into the American materia medica. 



