AKALIACE^E 



705 



slender jointed pedicels, small, greenish white; calyx-tube coherent with the ovary, 

 the limb truncate, repand or minutely toothed, the teeth valvate in the bud; petals 

 imbricated in the bud, inserted by their broad bases on the margin of the disk, 

 ovate, obtuse or acute and slightly inflexed at the apex; stamens inserted on the 

 margin of the disk, alternate with the petals; filaments filiform; anthers oblong 

 or rarely ovate, attached on the back, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudi- 

 nally; ovary 2-5-celled; styles 2-5, in the fertile flower distinct and erect or slightly 

 united at the base, spreading and incurved above the middle, or incurved from the 

 base and sometimes inflexed at the apex, crowned with large capitate stigmas, in 

 the sterile flower short and united. Fruit fleshy, 2-5-seeded, laterally compressed 

 or 3-5-angled, crowned with the remnants of the style; nutlets 2-5, orbicular, ovate 

 or oblong, compressed, crustaceous, light reddish brown, 1-seeded. Seed compressed; 

 seed-coat thin, light brown, adnate to the thin fleshy albumen; cotyledons ovate- 

 oblong, as long as the straight radicle. 



Aralia with about thirty species is confined to North America and Asia. 



The generic name is of obscure meaning. 



1. Aralia spinosa, L. Hercules' Club. 



Leaves clustered at the ends of the branches, twice pinnate, 3-4 long, and 2^ 

 wide, with stout light brown petioles 18'-20' in length, clasping the stem with enlarged 

 bases and armed with slender prickles, or occasionally unarmed ; pinnae unequally 



pinnate, usually with 5 or 6 pairs of lateral leaflets and a long-stalked terminal 

 leaflet, and often furnished at the base with a pinnate or simple leaflet; leaflets 

 ovate, acute, dentate or crenate, wedge-shaped or more or less rounded at the base, 

 short-petiolulate, when they unfold lustrous, bronze-green, and slightly pilose on the 

 midribs and primary veins, and occasionally furnished with small prickles on the mid- 

 ribs, and at maturity membranaceous, dark green above, pale beneath, 2'-3' long, and 

 U' wide, with thin midribs and slender primary veins nearly parallel with their 

 margins, in the autumn turning light yellow before falling; stipules acute, about V 

 long, at first puberulous on the back and ciliate on the margins. Flowers appear- 

 ing in midsummer on long slender pubescent straw-colored pedicels, in many-flow- 

 ered umbels arranged in compound panicles, with light brown puberulous branches 



