FRAxiKus APOCYNACEAE" ' 439 



Seeds with a rather large embryo in firm fleshy albumen; or ex- 

 albumenous. Cotyledons flat, or plano-convex. 



1 FRAXINUS Tourn. L. Gen. n. 1160. 



Trees with rather light tough wood, chiefly opposite and odd- 

 pinnate leaves, and small flowers in panicles, appearing with or 

 before the leaves from separate buds. Flowers dioecious or poly- 

 gamous, sometimes perfect. Calyx very small, 4-cleft or irregu- 

 larly toothed or entire- or wanting. Petals, when present, 4, in- 

 duplicate-valvate in the bud, either separate or united in pairs 

 at the very base, often wanting. Stamens 2, sometimes 3 br 4. 

 Ovary 2-celled, with a pair of ovules at the summit of each cell. 

 Stigma 2-lobed. Fruit an entire dry indehiscent samara, with 

 the wing mainly terminal, and suspended seeds. 



F. Oregana Nutt. Sylv. iii, 59, t. 99. ( Oregon Ash.) A tree 20-100 

 feet high and 1-4 feet in diameter: leaves and young branchlets villous- 

 pubescent ; leaflets 5-7, lanceolate-oblong to oval, usually acuminate, entire 

 or nearly so, 2-4 inches long, veiny, the upper surface soon glabrous : 

 flowers dioecious ; all with a minute calyx and no petals, staminate panicles 

 dense, with oblong anthers ; pistillate in ample, at length rather loose 

 panicles ; fruit with nearly clavate and slightly compressed body, the mar- 

 gined edges gradually widened upward into the oblanceolate, wing, an 

 inch or more long. By streams and swales, California to Brit. Columbia. 



Order LX APOCYNACEAE Lindl. Nat. Syst. ed. 2, 399. 



Perennial herbs, shrubs or trees with mostly acrid milky juice, 

 opposite, verticillate, or alternate entire leaves without stipules, 

 and perfect regular 5-merous flowers. Calyx free, or in ours 

 adherent to the very base of the ovaries. Corolla convolute and 

 often twisted in the bud. Stamens 5, borne on the corolla and 

 alternate with its lobes :- anthers 2-celled, disposed to cohere with 

 the stigma: pollen-grains simple, often glutinous. Ovary of 2 

 distinct carpels with the styles or stigmas united, or 1-celled 

 with 2 parietal placenta, or 2-celled. Ovules few to numerous, 

 anatropous or amphitropous. Seeds often bearing a coma. Em- 

 bryo large, in sparing albumen. 



1 APOCYNUM Tourn. L. Gen. 305. '' 



Perennial herbs with branching stems, opposite mucronate ■ 

 tipped leaves and small white or rose-colored flowers in terminal 

 and axillary small cymes. Calyx 5-parted, its short tube co- 

 herent by the disk with the base of the ovaries. Corolla cam- 

 panulate, 5-cleft, toward the base bearing a triangular scale-like 

 appendage opposite each lobe. Stamens borne on the base of 

 the corolla: filaments very short: anthers of firm texture, sagit- 

 tate, conniving around the solid stigma, to a ring of which the 

 broad summit of the connective adheres. Proper style none. 

 Ovaries two, ovoid, in fruit becorning a pair of long slender folli- 

 cles. Glands 5, around the base of the ovaries. 



