232 PBACTICAL rOKESTBT. 



X. Amerlcanom, Mill. — Northern Prickly Ash. — ^Leaves com- 

 posed of four or five pairs of leaflets, and an odd one ; ovate- 

 oblong, downy when young. Flowers minute, yellowish- 

 green, appearing with the leaves. Fruit small, in clusters, red, 

 and ripe in autumn, very pungent tasted, and often used as a 

 medicine, sometimes for tooth-ache, hence one of the common 

 names of this shrub. A large shrub, ten or more feet high, 

 with prickly branches and smooth grayish bark. In rocky 

 woods, often along roadsides. Middle and Northern States. 



xiMENiA, Plumier. — Hog Plum. 



A genus of a few species of small evergreen trees, mostly 

 tropical, with thorny branches, producing handsome plum-like 

 edible fruit. We have only one species. 



Ximcnia Americana, Linn. — Hog-Plum, Mountain Plum. — 

 Leaves two inches long, oblong-obtuse, short petioled ; pedun- 

 cles two to four flowered. Flowers small, yeUow. Fruit yel- 

 lowish, round, as large as a plum, edible. Nut round and 

 white. A small tree with yellow wood. Key West, Florida, 

 and through the West Indies. 



ziSTPHus, Juss. — Jujube. 



A genus of some flf ty species, mainly in Egypt and Southern 

 Asia. The Z. jujube is widely distributed throughout Southern 

 Europe and Northern Africa, and its dried fruit well known in 

 commerce. The species in general are spiny shrubs or small 

 trees belonging to the Rhamnacce or Buckthorn Family, and 

 often bearing edible fruit. The genus is represented with us by 

 two species, neither of any especial value. One in Southern 

 California, the Z. Parryi, Torrey, growing about fifteen feet 

 high, and another, the Z. obtusifolius, Gray, in Western Texas 

 and New Mexico, is sometimes a small tree, twenty feet high, 

 but more frequently a shrub. 



