664 



The Soapberries 



These trees have bitter bark, roimd or angled twigs, alternate pinnately com- 

 pound leaves without stipules, entire-margined leaflets, and very small regular 

 clustered dioecious or polygamous flowers, the clusters borne at the ends of branches. 

 The calyx is composed of 4 or 5 sepals; there are 4 or 5 petals alternate with the 

 sepals, in some species with 2 appendages at the base; the stamens vary from 

 4 to 10, those of the staminate flowers much longer than those of the pistillate 

 ones; the filaments are very slender or filiform, often hairy, the anthers short; the 

 ovary is from 2-celled to 4-ceIled, and 2-lobed to 4-lobed, with i ovule in each 

 cavity; the style is short, the stigma with as many lobes as the ovary. The fruit 

 is a smooth fleshy berry, with firm translucent pulp, containing a large seed, 

 which has a tuft of hairs at its base. 



The North American species may be distinguished as follows : 



Leaflets obtuse or acutish, not acuminate; rachis winged. 

 Leaflets acuminate; rachis wingless or merely margined. 



Petals lanceolate; Florida tree. 



Petals ovate; western tree. 



1. 5. Saponaria. 



2. S. marginaius. 



3. 5. Drummondii. 



I. SUMAC-LEAVED SOAPBERRY— Sapindus Saponaria Linnaeus 



This small tree inhabits southern Florida, the West Indies, and northern South 

 America. It attains a maximum height of about 15 meters, with a trunk about 



5 dm. thick; the branches 

 are upright, the leaves 

 evergreen. 



The thick bark is light 

 gray outside, falling off in 

 large, thin scales and ex- 

 posing the darker inner 

 layers. The young twigs 

 are at first angular and 

 green, finely hairy, becom- 

 ing roimd, light brown, 

 and smooth. The leaves 

 are short-stalked, 2 dm. 

 long or less, hairy when 

 young, and have from 2 to 

 4 pairs of stalkless leaflets 

 with or without a terminal 

 Fig. 616. — Sumac-leaved Soapberry. one; the leaf-Stalk and 



leaf-rachis are broadly winged, the leaves thus somewhat resembling those of some 

 sumacs; the leaflets are firm in texture, oblong, elliptic or somewhat obovate, 

 blunt or bluntish, 3 to 12 cm. long, narrowed at the base, bright green, smooth 

 and shining on the upper side when mature, paler green, strongly netted veined 



