H4 



THE MULBERRY FAMILY, 



OSAGE ORANGE. 



Toxylon pomifermn. 



Bark : brown, ridged. Spines : about three inches long, straight, stout. Leaves : 

 ovate, or ovate-lanceolate, long pointed at the apex and rounded, or sub-cordate 

 at the base, pinnately-veined; entire ; bright green and glabrous at maturity. 

 Flowers : dioecious ; axillary ; the staminate ones growing in racemes; the pistillate 

 ones in rounded heads, /''ruit : growing in a large, yellowish and globular ball. 



A very beautiful tree is the osage orange when it stands alone and its ripe 



o-olden balls of fruit gleam through its vividly green and lustrous leaves as 



though they were so many large oranges. Sometimes it is thus seen in the 



east where in rich soil it has sprung up spontaneously. And hardly less 



attractive is it when growing through its natural range as a hedge plant. So 



thick and abundant is then its foliage that it seems as though a bird could 



hardly slip through its meshes. It is in fact said by ones that " claim to 



know," that it is used as a hedge about fruit gardens for the very purpose of 



keeping out these unscrupulous marauders ; its long spines greatly impeding 



their passage through the thickets. The hedges are not very high, but to 



ask why the birds do not fly over them would be perhaps too suspicious a 



question. The plant belongs to a monotypic genus. Its bright orange 



wood is hard and durable, while the root's bark is gathered by the country 



people and made yearly into a yellow dye. 



THE niSTLETOE FAHILY. 



Loranthacece. 

 A laf'ge group mostly tropical of parasitic herbs, or shrubs with 

 o-reen colouring matter and^vhich choose as hosts ivoody plants. Leaves : 

 sifnple ; opposite ; evergreen in our species. Floivers : regular, very va- 

 riable in groivth and habit. Fruit : a round, fleshy berry eftclosi?ig a soli- 

 tary seed. 



AMERICAN niSTLETOE. 

 Phoradendron flavescejis. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Mistletoe. Greenish. Scentless. Florida to Friiit: August, 



Pen nsylva n ia. September. 



Flowers: insignificant; growing in axillary spikes. Berry: white; sessile. 

 Leaves : oblong, or oblong-lanceolate rounded at the apex and tapering at the base 



