88 SOAPBERRY FAMILY. 



Represented both as to native and cultivated plants by two 

 genera : 



1. CELASTRUS. Flowers polygamous or dicecious. Petals and stamens 5, on the 



edge of a concave disk which lines the bottom of the calyx. Filaments and 

 style rathen slender. Pod globular, berry-like, but dry. ' Leaves alternate. 



2. KUONYMUS. Flowers perfect, flat; the calyx-lobes and petals (4 or 5) widely 



spreading. Stamens mostly with short filaments or almost sessile anthers, 

 borne on the surface of a flat disk which more or less conceals or covers 

 the ovary. Pod 3-6-lobed, generally bright-colored. Leaves opposite: 

 branchlets 4-sided. 



1. CELASTRUS, STAFF-TREE. (Old Greek name, of obscure mean- 

 ing and application.) » 



C. SCdiUdens, Climbing Bitter-sweet or ■Wax-work. A twining 

 high-climbing shrub, smooth, with thin ovate-oblong and pointed finely serrate 

 leaves, racemes of greenish-white flowers (in early summer) terminating the 

 branches, the petals serrate or- crenate-toothed, and orange-colored berry-like 

 pods in autumn, which open and display the seeds enclosed in their scarlet 

 pulpy aril : wild in low grounds, and planted for the showy fruit. 



2. EUONYMUS, SPINDLE-TREE. (Old Greek name, means o/^ood 

 repute.) Shrubs not twining, with dull-colored inconspicuous flowers, in small 

 cymes on axillary peduncles, produced in early summer ; the pods in autunin 

 ornamental, especially when they open and display the seeds enveloped in 

 their scarlet pulpy aril. 



* Leaves deciduous, Jineii/ serrate : style short or nearly none. 

 •*-- North American species : anthers sessile or nearly so. 



E. atrqpurpiireus, Burning-bdsh or Spindle-tkee. Tall shrub, wild 

 from New York W. & S., and commonly planted ; with ovaJ or oblong petioled 

 leaves, flowers with rounded dark dull-purple petals (generally 4), and smooth 

 deeply 4-lobed red fruit, hanging on slender peduncles. 



E. Americ&nus, American Strawberry-bush. Low shrub, wild 

 from New York W. & S., and sometimes cult. ; with thickish ovate or lance- 

 ovate almost sessile leaves, usually 5 greenish-purple rounded petals, and rough- 

 warty somewhat 3-lobed fruit, crimson when ripe. Var. obovXtus, with 

 thinner and dull obovate or oblong leaves, has long and spreading or trailing 

 and rooting branches. 



■<- ■<- Exotic : anthers raised on evident filaments. 



E. Europeeus, European Spindle-tree. Occasionally planted, but 

 inferior to the foregoing ; a rather low slirub, with lance-ovate or oblong short- 

 petioled leaves, about 3-flowered peduncles, 4 greenish oblong petals, and a 

 smooth 4-Iobed red fruit, the aril orange-color. 



* * Leaves evergreen, serrulate : filaments and style rather slender. 

 E. Jap6nieus, Japan S. Planted S. under the name of Chinese Box, 

 there hardy, but is a greenhouse plant N. ; has obovate shining and bright 

 green leaves (also a form with white or yellowish variegation),' several-flowered 

 peduncles, 4 obovate whitish petals, and smooth globular pods. 



35. SAPINDACEiE, SOAPBERRY FAMILY. 



Trees, shrubs, or one or two herbaceous climbers, mostly with 

 compound or lobed leaves, and unsymmetrical flowers, the stamens 

 sometimes twice as many as the petals or lobes of the calyx, but 

 commonly rather fewer, when of equal number alternate with the 

 petals ; these imbricated in the bud, inserted on a disk in the bottom 

 of fhe calyx and often coherent witli it : ovary 2 - 3-celled, sometimes 

 2 - 3-lobed, with 1 - 3 (or in Staphylea several) ovules in each cell. 

 The common plants belong to the three following suborders. 



