OLEACE.E 775 



prominent veins arcuate near the margins and connected by conspicuous reticulate 

 veinlets. Flowers dioecious, appearing at the end of May or early in June with the 

 unfolding of the leaves, in short compact panicles from buds in the axils of leaves 

 of the previous year covered by broadly ovate rusty-tomentose scales rounded at 

 the apex; calyx cup-shaped, light green, larger and more deeply divided in the 

 pistillate than in the staininate flower; anthers oblong, apiculate, and borne on short 

 slender filaments; ovary gradually narrowed into a short style deeply divided into 



2 stigmatic lobes. Fruit ripening in the summer or early autumn, in dense clusters 

 4'-5' long, spatulate-oblong, surrounded at the base by the persistent calyx, with a 

 terminal wing acute, rounded, or emarginate at the apex, tipped with the remnants 

 of the style, \'-% wide, and about as long as the terete nearly clavate conspicuously 

 rayed marginless body. 



A tree, 30-40 high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 8' in diameter, stout often 

 spreading branches usually forming a round-topped handsome head, and slender 

 terete branchlets coated when they first appear with pale pubescence or with thick 

 white tomentum, and in their first winter red-brown or ashy gray, glabrous or 

 tomentose, often covered with a glaucous bloom and marked by small pale lenti- 

 cels and by semiorbicular slightly obcordate leaf-scars displaying a central lunate 

 row of fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds terminal, acute, \' long, with 



3 pairs of broadly ovate pointed scales coated with thick rufous tomentum, the inner 

 scales when fully grown ' long, strap-shaped, and rounded at the apex. Bark of 

 the trunk '-' thick, gray slightly tinged with red, and deeply divided into broad 

 flat broken ridges separating on the surface into small thin scales. Wood heavy, 

 rather soft, not strong, close-grained, light brown, with thick lighter colored sap- 

 wood; used locally for axe-handles and in the manufacture of wagons. 



Distribution. Usually in the neighborhood of streams, in elevated canons; 

 mountains of western Texas through southern New Mexico and Arizona to southern 

 Nevada, and to the Panamint Mountains and the shores of Owen's Lake, south- 

 eastern California. 



15. Fraxinus coriacea, Wats. 



Leaves usually about 6' long, with stout grooved pubescent petioles, and mostly 

 5 ovate or oblong leaflets, acute, acuminate, or rounded at the apex, broadly cuneate 

 or rounded at the base, coarsely repand-serrate, long-petiolulate, coated as they 

 appear with long pale hairs most abundant on the lower surface, and at maturity 

 coriaceous, dark green and glabrous on the upper, pale and glabrous or pubescent 

 on the lower surface, 2'-3' long and l'-2' wide, on leading shoots sometimes reduced 

 to single long-stalked leaflets, or 3-foliolate, with a large terminal leaflet and small 

 lateral leaflets. Flowers dioecious, appearing about the middle of April with or 

 before the unfolding of the leaves, in short compact panicles from buds in the axils 

 of leaves of the previous year and covered by broadly ovate scales rounded and 

 often short-pointed at the apex and rusty-tomentose on the outer surface; calyx 

 cup-shaped, large and more deeply divided in the pistillate than in the staminate 

 flower; anthers oblong, nearly sessile ; ovary abruptly narrowed into the slender 

 style slightly divided into 2 stigmatic lobes. Fruit ripening late in the autumn, in 

 narrow clusters 2'-3' in length, slender, oblong, f'-l' long, with a terminal wing 

 rounded and often emarginate at the apex, about \' wide, and as long as the terete 

 mnrginless body. 



A tree, occasionally 30 high, with a trunk 12'-16' in diameter, stout spreading 



