STAFF-TREE FAMILY 
Fruit.—F leshy capsules, borne on long drooping peduncles deeply 
four-lobed, angled, smooth, purple, loculicidally three to five-valved, 
opening to discharge the seeds which are inclosed in a scarlet aril. 
Ripen in October and hang upon the branch unul midwinter. Co- 
tyledons broad and coriaceous. 
Burning Bush is a satisfactory name for this shrub, which 
retains its flame-colored fruit long after the leaves have fal- 
len and until the winter storms beat it to the ground. Hach 
separate seed-vessel develops a bright purple cover and open- 
ing discloses a seed clothed in scarlet. When these are 
borne in considerable numbers the bush is a conspicuous ob- 
ject upon the lawn or in the forest. 
The Indians called the plant Waahoo, and used the wood in 
the manufacture of arrows. Spindle-tree is a name brought 
over seas and looks backward to a time when spinning and 
weaving were done at home. The wood of the European 
species of Lwonymus being tough, close-grained and also 
reasonably easy to work, became the favorite wood for the 
making of spindles—whence the name. 
Luonymus is the old Greek name and signifies, of good 
repute. Now, as a matter of fact, this particular individual 
is a plant of bad repute, for the leaves, bark, and fruit are 
acrid and poisonous. One can comprehend its name only 
upon the theory of opposites, the principle upon which the 
Greeks acted when they named the Furies, the Eumenides, 
the well-wishers. 
The Burning Bush is not native to New England; it is a 
shrub in the middle and western states, and docs not attain 
the dignity of trechood until it appears in the bottom lands 
of Arkansas and adjoining regions. It is interesting to note 
that those trees which are distinctively native to our mid- 
continental valley, reach their greatest development in the 
southwest. On the banks of the Arkansas the ‘Tulip-tree 
reaches ifs one hundred and ninety feet, and there our little 
Burning Bush, a shrub in northern fields and lawns, becomes 
a tree twenty-five feet high with spreading branches. 
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