CELASTRACE^E 



619 



Distribution. Central and western New York, southward along the Alleghany 

 Mountains to northern Alabama; arborescent only on the banks of streams flowing 

 from the Blue Ridge in North and South Carolina. 



XXXII. CELASTRACEJE. 



Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and opposite or alternate simple per- 

 sistent or deciduous leaves with or without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect, 

 polygamous or dioecious, pedicellate in axillary clusters ; calyx 4-5-lobed, the 

 lobes imbricated in the bud ; petals 4 or 5, imbricated in the bud ; stamens 4 

 or 5 ; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally ; ovary 2-5- 

 celled; ovules 2 or solitary in each cell (6 in Canotia), anatropous, or sub- 

 horizontal (in Canotia). Fruit a capsule or drupe. Seed with copious albu- 

 men ; embryo axile. 



A family of about thirty-eight genera widely distributed over the tropical 

 and warm temperate parts of the world, with four arborescent representatives 

 in the United States. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Parts of the flower in 4's. 



Leaves opposite, deciduous ; flowers polygamous ; fruit a fleshy 3-5-celled capsule ; seed 

 surrounded by a colored aril. 1. Evonymus. 



Leaves alternate, persistent ; flowers dioecious ; fruit a drupe ; seed without an aril. 



Leaves often crenately serrate above the middle ;* stipules minute, caducous ; fruit 



usually 1-seeded ; branchlets quadrangular. 2. Gyminda. 



Leaves entire ; stipules ; fruit 2-seeded ; branchlets terete. 3. Schaefferia. 



Parts of the flower in 5's, leaves ; flowers perfect ; fruit a woody 5-celled capsule, the 



valves 2-lobed at the apex. 4. Canotia. 



1. EVONYMUS, L. 



Small generally glabrous trees or shrubs, with usually square branchlets, bitter 

 drastic bark, slender obtuse or acuminate winter-buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves 

 opposite, petiolate, entire, crenate or dentate; stipules minute, caducous. Flowers 

 perfect or polygamo-dioecious, in dichotomous axillary usually few-flowered cymes; 

 calyx 4-lobed (in the North American arborescent species) ; disk thick and fleshy, 



