BORRAGINACE^ 781 



LVII. BORRAGINACE.SJ. 



Scabrous-pubescent trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and terete branchlets. 

 Leaves simple, alternate or subverticillate, penniveined, persistent or tardily 

 deciduous, without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect, in terminal or axillary 

 dichotomous often scorpioid-branched cymes ; calyx usually 5-lobed, persistent 

 under the fruit ; corolla hypogynous, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud ; 

 stamens 5, inserted on the tube of the corolla opposite its lobes ; filaments fili- 

 form ; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally ; pistil of 2 

 carpels; ovary undivided (in the arborescent genera of the United States), 

 sessile on the hypogynous inconspicuous disk, more or less completely 4-celled ; 

 style single, 2-branched or parted toward the apex ; stigmas clavate or capitate ; 

 ovule solitary in each cell. Fruit drupaceous (in the arborescent genera of the 

 United States), tipped with the remnants of the style, with 2-4 nutlets or 

 cells. Seeds ascending ; seed-coat membranaceous. 



The Borage family with eighty-five genera, mostly of herbaceous plants, is 

 widely distributed and most abundant in temperate regions, especially in the 

 Mediterranean basin and central Asia. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Branches of the style 2-branched ; fruit partly or entirely inclosed in the enlarged calyx. 



1. Cordia. 

 Branches of the style not branched ; fruit not inclosed in the calyx. 



Calyx valvately splitting into 5 minute teeth ; fruit with 2-4 1-seeded nutlets. 



2. Bourreria. 



Calyx 5-parted or cleft, the divisions imbricated in the bud ; fruit with 2 2-seeded nutlets. 



3. Ehretia. 

 1. CORDIA, L. 



Trees or shrubs, with petiolate entire persistent leaves and naked buds. Flowers iu 

 terminal scorpioid-branched cymes; calyx tubular or campanulate, conspicuously 

 many-ribbed or rayed, the teeth valvate in the bud; corolla funnel form; anthers 

 ovate-oblong 1 ; ovary 4-celled; style slender, elongated, 2-branched above the middle, 

 the branches 2-parted, their division stigmatic to the base; ovule ascending, laterally 

 attached below the middle to the inner angle of the cell, suborthotropous; micropyle 

 superior. Fruit entirely or partly inclosed in the thickened calyx; flesh dry and 

 corky or sweet and juicy; stone thick- walled, hard and bony, 1-4-celled, usually 1 

 or 2-seeded. Seeds without albumen; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyle- 

 dons thick and fleshy or membranaceous, longitudinally plicate or corrugated, much 

 shorter than the superior radicle turned toward the hilum. 



Cordia with nearly two hundred species inhabits the tropical and warm extratrop- 

 ical regions of the two hemispheres, the largest number of species being American. 

 Of the four species found within the territory of the United States two are trees. 

 Some of the species are valuable timber-trees, and others are cultivated for their 

 edible fruits. 



The generic name is in honor of Valerius Cordus (1515-1544), the German writer 

 on pharmacy and botany. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Corolla orange or flame color ; fruit inclosed in the smooth glabrous thickened ivory-white 



calvx ; leaves ovate. 1- C. Sebestena (D). 



