170 FRAXINUS ORNUS 



calyx and alternate with its segments, strap- shaped, acute, wavy, 

 widely spreading, creamy white, deciduous. Stamens 2, hypogy- 

 nous, alternating with the petals, filaments when fully grown 

 nearly as long as petals, spreading, white, anthers dorsifixed, 

 apiculate, at first ovoid and pale, after dehiscence brown, linear 

 and twisted. Ovary ovoid, compressed, smooth, tapering into 

 the style, 2 -celled, with two pendulous ovules in each cell ; 

 stigma with two large papillose lobes opposite the cells of the 

 ovary. Fruit (a samara) abundantly produced, pendulous, dry, 

 indehiscent, scarcely an inch long, and about ^ inch wide, com- 

 pressed, with a terminal, flat, obovate-linear blunt wing. Seed 

 solitary, pendulous, occupying the whole fruit-cavity, the other 

 three ovules abortive but remaining attached to the side of the 

 ripe seed ; embryo straight in the axis of the endosperm, radicle 

 superior, long, cotyledons flat. 



Habitat. A native chiefly of South-eastern Europe and Asia 

 Minor, and extending, in the Mediterranean region, westward to 

 Corsica and Eastern Spain. From its graceful appearance it is 

 also planted in most European countries as -an ornamental tree, 

 producing its abundant flowers in early summer. It was first 

 introduced to England by Dr. Uvedale, of Enfield, about 1710, 

 and is now frequently cultivated in gardens. The cultivation of 

 the Manna Ash for commercial purposes is carried on in Sicily, 

 where regular plantations have been formed. 



There is great variation in the form of the leaflets, and it is 

 not unfrequent to find each one of the basal pair split up into 

 two. Fraxinus rotundifolia, Lam., the leaves of which are figured 

 in Hayne xiii, t. 12, from specimens in the St. Petersburg Herba- 

 rium, appears to be a form, with more rounded leaves (or perhaps 

 a young state), and not to constitute a distinct species. 



Bertolini, Fl. Ital., i, p. 52; Boissier, Fl. Orient., iv, p. 39; DO. 

 Prod., viii, p. 274 ; Hanbury, in Pharm. Journ., 1870, p. 326. 



Official Part and Name. MANNA ; a concrete saccharine exuda- 

 tion from the stem of Fraxinus Ornus, Linn, and Fraxinus 

 rotundifolia, DG. obtained by making incisions in the stems of 



