BEAD-TREE FAMILY. 69 



3-6 iuchos long, unequal at base ; petioles 1-2 inches long. Floioers yellowish- white or 

 cream-colored . 



Rich woodlands and banks of streams ; along the mountains, from Canada to Georgia. 

 Fl. Latter end of June. Ff. Sept. -Oct. 



Obs. A variety of this species (var. pubescens, Gray,) has the often 

 thin leaves softly pubescent beneath. This form is common south and 

 west, as well as the White Basswood (T. Heteroph'ylla, Vent.), which has 

 very large leaves, sometimes 8 inches broad, silvery-white, with fine 

 down beneath. The wood of all the Lindens, commonly known as Bass- 

 wood, is light, soft and white, and is used for making boxes, bowls and 

 other domestic utensils, for the panels of wagons, bottoms of drawers, 

 &c. The inner bark, bast or bass, consists of long, tough fibres, and by 

 soaking in water, readily separates into layers. That of the European 

 species furnishes the matting, which forms an important item in the 

 products of Russia. It is much used by gardeners for protecting tender 

 plants from frost, and furnishes them the best material for tying up 

 shrubs, and for binding up the wound made in the operation of budding. 

 The gardeners of the Western States, it is said, obtain their supply of 

 bast from our American species. T. AMERICANA is sometimes planted 

 as a shade tree. Its branches are more spreading than those of the 

 European species, and its whole appearance is less symmetrical, more- 

 over, it is, like that, liable to be infested by insects. * 



ORDER XII. MELIA'CE^E. (BEAD-TREE FAMILY.) 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate, usually compound leaves destitute of stipules. Calyx of 

 3 - 5 sepals more or less connected. Petals 3-5. Stamens twice as many as the petals, 

 monadelphous, inserted outside of a hypogynous disk ; anthers sessile in the orifice of 

 the tube of filaments. Ovary several-celled, with 1-2 ovules in each cell ; styles and stiymos 

 mostly united into one. Fruit a drupe, berry, or capsule, often 1-celled by abortion, and 

 the cell 1 -seeded. Seeds with little or no albumen, and wingless. 



The genus which represents this Order is the only one belonging to it which is much 

 known in our country, and that is pretty much confined to the States south of the 

 Potomac. 



1. ME'LIA, L. PRIDE OF INDIA. 



[The Greek name of a species of Ash, which this tree resembles.] 



Calyx small, 5-cleft. Petals 5, linear-oblong, spreading. Stamen-tube 



10-cleft at summit, with 10 anthers in the orifice ; segments of the tube 



2-3-parted. Ovary seated on a slightly elevated disk ; style filiform ; 



stigma capitate, 5-angled. Drupe ovoid,, with a 5-celled bony nut ; cells 1- 



seeded. Embryo inclosed in thin fleshy albumen ; cotyledons flat, foliace- 



ous. Trees with odd-pinnate or bipinnate leaves. Flowers in axillary 



panicles. 



1. M. AZEDA'RACII, L. Leaves bipinnate ; leaflets somewhat in fives, 



obliquely ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, incised-dentate, smooth. 



Pride of India. Bead-tree. 



Ft. Arbre aux paten otres. Germ. Der Zederach. 



Stem 20-40 feet high, and 1-2 or 3 feet in diameter, with branches clustered at irreg- 

 ular intervals. Leaves deciduous ; leaflets 1-2 or 3 inches long, forming secondary inn- 



