CELASTRACE^E 621 



valves; seeds sometimes gibbous on the dorsal side, broad and rounded above, nar- 

 rowed below, %' long, with a thin light chestnut-brown wrinkled coat and a thin 

 scarlet aril. 



A tree, rarely 20-25 high, with a trunk 4'-6' in diameter, spreading branches, 

 and slender terete branchlets dark purple-brown at first, becoming lighter colored 

 in the second season, often covered with small crowded lenticels, and marked by 

 prominent leaf-scars; more often a shrub, 6-10 tall. Winter-buds |' long, acute, 

 with narrow purple apiculate scales scarious on the margins and covered by a glau- 

 cous bloom. Bark thin, ashy gray, and covered by thin minute scales. Wood 

 heavy, hard, very close-grained, white tinged with orange. 



Distribution. Borders of woods in rich soil; western New York to Nebraska, 

 southeastern South Dakota and eastern Kansas, and in the valley of the upper Mis- 

 souri River, Montana, and southward to northern Florida, southern Arkansas, and 

 the Indian Territory; arborescent only in southern Arkansas and eastern Texas. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornament of gardens in the eastern United States 

 and in Europe. 



2. GYMINDA, Sarg. 



Trees or shrubs, with pale quadrangular branchlets and minute acuminate buds. 

 Leaves opposite, short-petiolate, .oblong-obovate, rounded and sometimes emarginate 

 at the apex, entire or remotely crenulate-serrate above the middle, with revolute 

 thickened margins, feather- veined, coriaceous, persistent; stipules minute, acuminate, 

 membranaceous, caducous. Flowers unisexual, pedicellate, in axillary pedunculate 

 few-flowered dichotomously branched cymes bibracteolate at the apex ; calyx minute, 

 4-lobed, persistent, with a short urceolate tube and rounded lobes; disk fleshy, fill- 

 ing the tube of the calyx, cup-shaped, slightly 4-lobed; petals entire, obovate, white, 

 rounded at the apex, reflexed, much longer than the lobes of the calyx; stamens 4, 

 opposite the sepals, inserted in the lobes of the disk, exserted, in the pistillate flower; 

 filaments slender, subulate, incurved; anthers oblong; ovary 2-celled, oblong, sessile, 

 confluent with the disk, crowned with a large 2-lobed sessile stigma, rudimentary 

 and deeply cleft in the staminate flower; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of 

 the cell; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, 2-celled, 1 or 2-seeded, 

 black or dark blue, oval or obovate, crowned with the remnants of the persistent 

 stigma, often 1-celled by abortion; flesh thin; stone thick, crustaceous. Seed oblong, 

 suspended; seed-coat membranaceous; albumen thin, fleshy; embryo axile; cotyle- 

 dons ovate, foliaceous; radicle superior, next the hilum. 



(ivininda with a single species is distributed from southern Florida to Trinidad 

 and southern Mexico, and is represented in Central America by what is perhaps a 

 second species. 



The generic name is formed by transposing the first three letters of Myginda, to 

 which this plant had been referred. 



1. Gyminda Grisebachii, Sarg. 



Leaves l'-2' long, f'-l' broad, pale yellow-green. Flowers produced on shoots 

 of the year from April to June. Fruit ripening in November, ^' long. 



A tree, sometimes 20-2o high, with a trunk rarely more than 6' in diameter, and 

 branchlets becoming terete during their third season and covered with thin slightly 

 grooved roughened bright red-brown bark. Bark of the trunk thin, brown tinged 

 with red, separating into thin minute scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, 



