84. 
NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
The only known species of this genus is G. dioica,’ the Nicker 
Tree or Kentucky Coffee Tree (Chicot de Canada), a large unarmed 
tree with alternate pinnately-decompound leaves. 
The common 
rachis bears first a pair of petiolulate leaflets, and above this secondary 
Gleditschia ferox. 
Fie. 54. 
Fruit (). 
Fia. 55. 
Longitudinal 
section of fruit. 
pletely and irregularly dehiscent. 
ribs also charged with leaflets, borne 
on stalks of the third order. On the 
midrib, as on the secondary ones, the 
arrangement is paripinnate, the ends of 
the ribs aborting and being reduced 
to a thin sterile filament which withers 
early. Both secondary and tertiary 
ribs have each one a stipellary tongue at 
the articulated base, and the leaf itself 
has also ill-developed pectinate lateral 
stipules at the base.’ The flowers are 
in simple or ramified terminal racemes. 
Gleditschia® (Fr., Févier) has a tur- 
binate or campanulate receptacle, from 
three to five sepals, as many petals, 
and a variable number of stamens in 
two pentamerous or incomplete verticils. 
The ovary contains either two ovules 
or an indefinite number, and the ter- 
minal style ends in an irregularly- 
swollen simple or bifid head, sometimes 
reflexed, and covered with large stigma- 
tic papilla. The fruit is a large straight 
flattened pod, tapering at both ex- 
tremities and indehiscent, or incom- 
The outside of the pericarp 
the cotyledons are often somewhat folded on 
themselves, and their bases form a sheath around 
the radicle. The seed-coat is triple. Outside is 
a thin smooth, softish membrane. The second 
coat is a thick horny layer, on whose surface is 
seen the raphe. The albumen often becomes a 
light ink colonr. It is unequal, sending oblique 
projections into the depressions of the embryo. 
1 @. canadensis Lamx., loc. cit. ; Syppl., ii. 
229.—Micux., Fl. Bor.-Amer., ii. 241, t. 51.— 
A. Gray, Man., 109.— Guilandina dioica L., 
Spec., 546. 
2 Axillary to each leaf are two superposed 
buds. ‘The lower and younger, though hidden 
by the dilated base of the petiole, is not com- 
pletely enveloped by it. 
3 L., Gen, nu. 1159 (Gleditsia), — ADANs., 
Fam. des Pt, ii. 319.—J., Gen., 346.—GERTN., 
Fruct., ii. 311, t. 146. — Porr., Dict., 641, 
Suppl, ii.641; IU, t. 857—DC., Mém. Légum., 
i.t.22; Prodr,, ii. 479.—Spacu, Suit. d Buffon, 
i. 90.—Ewp.., Gen., u.6756.—B. H., Gen., 568, 
1002, n. 313, 
