556 CELASTRACEAE (STAFF TREE FAMILY) 



CELASTRACEAE (Staff Tree Family) 



Shrubs with simple leaves, and small regular flovers, the sepals and the 

 petals both imbricated in the bud, the i or 5 perigynous stamens as many as 

 the petals and alternate with them, inserted on a disk which fills the bottom 

 of the calyx and sometimes covers the ovary. Seeds arilled. Ovule anatropous ; 

 styles united iato one. Fruit 2-5-celled, free from the calyx. Embryo large, 

 ' in fleshy albumen ; cotyledons broad and thin. Stipules minute and fugacious. 

 Pedicels jointed. 



* Leaves opposite ; flowers in axillary cymes or solitary. 



1. Evonymus. Erect shrabs. Leaves deciduous. Fruit 3-5-lobed, 8-5-valved. Aril red. 



2. Pachistima. Dwarf evergreen shrub. Flowers very small. Fruit oblong, 2-yal7ed. Aril 



white. 



* * Leaves alternate ; flowers in terminal racemes. 



3. Celastrus. A shrubby climber. Fruit globose, orange, 3-valved, Aril scarlet. 



1. Ev6kYMUS [Tourn.] L. Spindle Tree 



Flowers perfect. Sepals 4 or 5, united at the base, forming a short and fiat 

 calyx. Petals 4-5, rounded, spreading. Stamens short, borne on the edge or 

 face of a broad and flat 4— ')-angled disk, which coheres with the calyx and is 

 stretched over the ovary, adhering to it more or less. Style short or none. 

 Pod 3-5-lobed, 3-5-valved, loculioidal. Seeds 1-4 in each cell, inclosed in a 

 red aril. — Shrubs, with 4r-sided branchlets, opposite serrate leaves, and loose 

 pedunculate cymes of small flowers on axillary peduncles. (Name from €5, 

 good, and 6voim, name, but used ironically, the plants having had the bad 

 reputation of poisoning cattle.) 



1. E. atropurpureus Jacq. (Burning Bush, Waahoo.) Tree-like shrub, 

 2-4 m. high ; leaves petioled, oval-oblong, pointed ; parts of the dark-purple 

 flower commonly in fours; pods smooth, deeply lobed. — N. Y. to Wise, Neb.; 

 southw. and westw.; also cultivated, and locally establishing itself northeastw. 

 June.. — Ornamental in autumn, its copious crimson fruit drooping on long 

 peduncles. 



2. E. ECROPAius L., the European Spindle Tree, with similar foliage 

 but less numerous greenish or yelloxoish-white flowers, occasionally escapes from 

 cultivation in the Atlantic States. (Introd. from Eu.) 



,., 3. E. americanus L. (Strawberry Bush.) Shrub, low, upright or strag- 

 ' gling, 1-2 m. high ; leaves almost sessile, thickish, bright green, ovate to oblong- 

 lanceolate, acute or pointed ; parts of the greenish-purple flowers mostly in 5's ; 

 petals distinctly clawed ; pods rough-warty, depressed, crimson when ripe ; the 

 aril and dissepiments scarlet. — Wooded river-banks, N. Y. to 111., Fla. and 

 Tex. June. 



4. E. obovitus Nutt. Trailing, with rooting branches ; flowering stems 3-6 

 dm. high ; leaves thin and dull, obovate or oblong, obtuse; petals without 

 distinct claie. {E. americanus, \aT. T. & G.) — Low or wet places, w. Ont. to 

 Pa., Ky , and 111.; commoner than the preceding. 



2. PACHfSTIMA Raf. 



Flowers perfect. Sepals and petals 4. Stamens 4, on the edge of the broad 

 disk lining the calyx-tube. Ovary free ; style very short. Pod small, oblong, 

 2-oelled, loculicidally 2-valved. Seeds 1 or 2, inclosed in a white membrana- 

 ceous many-cleft aril. ^ — Low evergreen shrubs, with smooth serrulate coria- 

 ceous opposite leaves and very small green flowers solitary or fascicled in the 

 axils. (Name from wax'is, thick, and aTiy/ia, stigma.') 



