OLEACE.E 



of the lower Colorado River inland to Colorado County (shores of Eagle Lake), and 

 through Louisiana, central and southern Mississippi and Alabama to western Florida 

 (Branford, Suwanee County) and on the Savannah River, near Augusta, Richmond 

 County, Georgia; most abundant in Missouri, Arkansas and Texas; comparatively rare 

 east of the Mississippi River, but probably of its largest size in eastern Louisiana. 

 Occasionally cultivated; hardy in the Arnold Arboretum. 



3. CHIONANTHUS L. 



Trees or shrubs, with stout terete or slightly angled branchlets, thick pith, and buds with 

 numerous opposite scales. Leaves simple, conduplicate in the bud, deciduous. Flowers 

 dioecious or rarely polygamous, on elongated ebracteolate pedicels, in 3-flowered clusters 

 terminal on the slender opposite branches, of ample loose panicles, with foliaceous persist- 

 ent bracts, from separate buds in the axils of the upper leaves of the previous year; calyx 

 minute, deeply 4-parted, the divisions imbricated in the bud, persistent under the fruit; 

 corolla white, deeply divided into 4 or rarely 5 or 6 elongated linear lobes conduplicate- 

 val vate in the bud, united at base into a short tube, or rarely separate ; stamens 2, inserted on 

 the base of the corolla opposite the axis of the flower, or rarely 4 in the staminate flower, in- 

 cluded; filaments terete, short; anthers ovoid, attached on the back below the middle, apicu- 

 late by the elongation of the connective, 2-celled, the cells opening by longitudinal lateral 

 or subextrorse slits; ovary ovoid, abruptly contracted into a short columnar style; stigma 

 thick and fleshy, slightly 2-lobed; in the staminate flower of the Asiatic species reduced to a 

 minute subglobose body; ovules laterally attached near the apex of the cell; raphe ventral. 

 Fruit an ovoid or oblong, usually 1 or rarely 2 or 3-seeded thick-skinned drupe tipped with 

 the remnants of the style; flesh thin and dry, stone thick-walled, crustaceous. Seed filling 

 the cavity of the stone, ovoid; seed-coat chestnut-brown. 



Chionanthus inhabits the middle and southern United States with one species, and 

 northern and central China with another. 



The specific name, from x 1 ^ an d #"#os, is in allusion to the light and graceful clusters 

 of snow-white flowers. 



1. Chionanthus virginica L. Fringe-tree. Old Man's Beard. 



Leaves ovate or oblong, acuminate, short-pointed or sometimes rounded at apex, gradu- 

 ally narrowed and cuneate below, entire, with undulate margins, and coarsely reticulate- 



Fig. 758 



venulose, yellow-green and lustrous above, pubescent below, and ciliate on the margins 

 when they unfold, and at maturity 4'-8' long, '-4' wide, thick and firm, dark green on 



