Rhus. LEGUMINOS^. 



Ill 



surface of dense foliage as smooth and uniform as that of the best trained hedge. According to 

 Nuttall the smooth gray bark exudes in small (luantities a very astriiigt-nt gum°resin. Tlie fr«-sli 

 red berries are described by Palmer as coated with an icy-looking white substance, which is pleas- 

 antly acid and used by the Indians to make a cooling drink. 



§ 4. Floivers perfect or -polygamous, in aviple terminal or axillary compound paniclts : 

 fruit small, glabrous : leaves simple, coriaceous. — LiinajiA, Jjeiitb, & Hook. 

 {Lithrcea, Miers. Rhus § Malosma, Nutt.) 



4. R. laurina, Nutt. A large evergreen much-branched and very leafy shrub, 

 exhaling an aromatic odor, glabrous : leaves lauceolate, acute, mucronate, rounded 

 at base, glaucous, entire, 2 or 3 inches long, on slender petioles : panicles dense, 2 

 to 4 inches long : flowers yellowish, a line long, or less : fruit whitish (?), ovate, H 

 lines long, beaked by the stout styles. — Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 219. Lithrcea laurina, 

 Walp. ; Torrey, Pacif. E. Eep. iv. 73, & Bot. Mex. Bound. 44, t. 7. 



From Santa Barbara to San Diego, in the valleys ; Guadalupe Island, Palmer. Ac(;ording to 

 Dr. Torrey "the thin pulp of the dry fruit consists chiefly of a white waxy mateiial, soluble in 

 strong alcohol, which seems to be almost entirely cerine." The seeds are said to yield a pungent 

 oil. 



Order XXXI. LEGUMINOS-ffil. 



The single and simple free pistil, becoming a legume in friut, and the alternate 

 leaves with stipules (to which in the proper Pulse family are added the papiliona- 

 ceous corolla and 10 diadelphous or monadelphous or rarely distinct stamens) mark 

 this order, one of the largest and next to Graminece the most important of the vege- 

 table kingdom. It comprises the following suborders. 



Suborder I. PAPILTONACILE. 



Flower irregular. Calyx mostly 5-cleft or 5-toothed, the tube or cup extending 

 beyond the perigynous disk which lines its bottom and bears tlie petals and sta- 

 mens. Corolla of 5 petals (rarely fewer), imbricated in the bud ; one (the standard) 

 superior (next the axis of inflorescence), larger and always external, covering in the 

 bud the two lateral ones (wings), and these covering the inferior pair, which to- 

 gether form the keel, being commonly united or at least coherent by their lower 

 edges ; the claAvs of all five usually distinct. Stamens and pistil enclosed in the 

 keel. Filaments 10, seldom 5, rarely separate around the pistil, coimnonly united 

 from the base upward into a sheath enclosing the ovary, which is either entire 

 (monadelphous) or open on the upper side, the 10th or upper stamen being free 

 from the others qr becoming so (diadelphous) : anthers 2-celled. Ovary with sev- 

 eral, few, or rarely solitary amphitropous or sometimes anatropous ovules on the 

 single parietal placenta : style generally inflexed or incurved : stigma simple, ter- 

 minal or nearly so. Legume normally one-celled and two-valved, sometimes falsely 

 2-celled or divided lengthwise by an intrusion of the dorsal suture, or else several- 

 celled transversely by constrictions or articulations, not rarely indehiscent. Seed 

 destitute of albumen, or occasionally with a layer of it. Embryo otherwise filling 

 the seed : cotyledons broad, thick or thickish : radicle almost always accumbently 

 inflexed. Leaves simple or simply compound ; the earliest pair or jwirs often oppo- 

 site ; the others almost always alternate. Leaflets mostly eiitir.". s.iiiiftiines deii- 



