50 



FAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 



Oarolinmni. 



conic and Catskill Mountains, and in Cattaraugus 



County, N. Y. ; it also extends southward along the 



Alleghany Mountains to northern Alabama. 



The Carolina buckthorn, or Indian 

 Carolina . 



Buckthorn, cherry, IS a thornless shrub or small 



Rkamnus tree which grows from 12 to 35 



feet high. The somewhat elliptical 

 leaves are from three to five inches long, 

 wavy, indistinctly toothed, strongly 

 veined, and nearly smooth, if one ex- 

 cepts the woolly stem. The glob- 

 ular, berrylike fruit, at first 

 crimson, is finally black when ripe 

 in September. The Indian cherry 

 is found in wet grounds from Long 

 Island, N. Y., and New Jersey to 

 Kentucky, eastern Nebraska, and eastern 

 Texas ; southward it extends to Florida. 

 In the Southern States it attains the 

 height and proportions of a tree. The 

 common buckthorn {Rhamnus eathartica) 

 is a native of Europe ; but Gray says it has 

 run wild in a few places here, and in this 

 condition is apt to form a small tree. The leaves 

 are minutely toothed, and som,etimes they grow (yppo- 

 site; the branchlets terminate in thorns, which fact 

 distinguishes it at once from its American relative. 



Caroliaa 

 Buckthorn, 



