572 



Baretta 



site pairs, thick and leathery, obovate to wedge-shaped or oblong, 3.5 to 6 cm, 



long, rounded or notched at the apex, 

 more or less revolute on the entire mar- 

 gin, tapering at the base into a short stout 

 stalk, prominently reticulated on both 

 surfaces, bright green and shining above, 

 paler beneath. The flowers are in 

 corymb-like cymes, their stout pedicels 

 sometimes slightly hairy; the small calyx 

 consists of 3 broad blunt sepals each 

 about 0.5 mm. long; petals also 3, yel- 

 lowish, oval or oblong, 2 to 3 mm. long; 

 stamens 3, their anthers shorter than the 

 filaments. The ovoid capsules are 4 to 5 

 mm. long, rough-glandular and brown; 



Fig. 527. — Doctor's Club. 



seed black, shining and punctate. 



The wood is hard, close-grained, grayish yellow and heavy. 



II. BARETTA 



GENUS HBI.TF.TTA TULASNE 

 Species Helietta parvifloia Bentham 



SMOOTH evergreen shrub occurring on the bluflfs about Rio Grande, 



Texas, and southward into Mexico, where it becomes a tree 8 meters 



high, with a trunk 



diameter of 1.5 dm. 

 It is perhaps never more than a 

 shrub in Texas. 



The trunk is erect and slen- 

 der, its branches also erect, or 

 nearly so. The bark is 3 mm. 

 thick, dark brown, scaly, the 

 inner bark yellowish. The twigs 

 are round, slightly hairy, becom- 

 ing smooth, brown, the small 

 leaf scars roundish. The leaves 

 are opposite, trifoliolate, the 3 

 leaflets sessile on the grooved 

 leaf-stalk; the leaflets are leath- 

 ery, spatulate to obovate or ob- 

 long, I to 4 cm. long, blunt or notched at the apex, tapering to the sessile base, 

 usually entire, the terminal one usually largest; they are yellowish green and shin- 



FiG. 528. — Baretta. 



