GINSENG FAMILY 



F/o7L'e>s. — July, August. Perfect or polygamo-moncecious, cream 

 uliite, borne in man\-riowered umbels arranged in compoi;nd pani- 

 cles, forniini; a ternrinal racemose cluster, three tofourteet in length 

 which rises, solitary or two or three together. abo\ e the spreadmg 

 leaves, liracts and bractlets lanceolate, acute, persistent. 



Ca/i'-v. — Caly.x tube coherent with the ovary, minutely tive- 

 toot.ied. 



Coi'olla. — Petals live, white, inserted on margin of the disk, acute, 

 slightly intlexed at the ape.\, imbricate in bud. 



^/aiiitiis. — Five, inserted on maigin of the disk, alternate with the 

 petals ; filaments thread-like ; anthers oblong, attached on the 

 back, introrse, two-celled : cells opening longitudinally. 



liitil. — 0\ary inferior, five-celled; styles five, connivent ; stig- 

 mas capitate. 



Fruil. — ISerry-like diupe, globular, black, one-fourth of an inch 

 long, fi\e-angled, crowned with the blackened styles. Flesh thin, 

 dark. 



The habit of growth and general appearance of the Her- 

 cules' Club are unique. It is usually found as a group of 

 unbrancheil stems, rising to the height of twelve to twenty 

 feet, which bear upon their summits a crowded cluster of 

 doublv compound leaves, thus giving to each stem a certain 

 tropical palm-like ap]iearance. This slender, swaying, palm- 

 like character is in tlie north only true of the young plants, 

 for after a single stem has buffeted the storms of many win- 

 ters it becomes a scrubbv, deformed, little tree wdiose great 

 leaves can scarcely cover its ugliness even in summer. In 

 the south it is said to reach the height of fifty feet, still re- 

 taining its palm-like aspect. 



The young stem is stout, thickly covered with sharp spines 

 and foi- the uKjst part branchless or slightly branching, so that 

 when denuded of its leaves it looks very like a club, ^vhence 

 its common name Hercules' Club. The leaves are the largest 

 produced by any tree of our flora, although the casual observer 

 might not think so, as the leaflets are but two to three inches 

 long. The leaves, however, are so compound, in this case 

 doublv pinnate and sometimes pinnate again, that when one 

 measures from the swollen base of the prickly petiole to the 

 apex of the farthest leaflet the tape frequently records three 

 feet and the spread of the pinna? from side to side is often 



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