30 TREES AND SHRUBS 



Order II. GNETALES 



EPHEDRA. L. Mormon Tea. Popotillo. Canatillo. 



Shrubs 5 feet high or less, much branched, with slender terete 

 green or yellow-green striate stems bearing scale-like reduced leaves 

 a few mm. long at the nodes and the unisexual flowers borne quite 

 profusely on separate plants; scales of the cones brown or greenish, 

 thin, scarious and numerous; stamens numerous in each ament, the 



ovulate cones with but 1 or 2 ovules in each, the mature seed envel- 

 oped in several thin scales, terete or variously angled, mostly dry. 



Leaf scales in 2's; branches opposite, greenish; 

 cone scales few. 

 Scales of fruit acutish; fruit sharply 3- 



angled. l. E. viridis. 



Scales of fruit rounded obtuse; fruit scarce- 

 ly angled. 2. E. antisyphilitica. 

 Leaf scales and branches in 3's; cone scales 

 numerous. 



Leaf scales 6 mm. long or less, merely 

 acute, not spiny; fruit scabrous, smaller 



than In No. 4. 3. E. torreyana. 



Leaf scales 8 to 10 mm. long, acerose; 

 branches yellowish green; fruit smooth, 

 10 to 13 mm. long. 4. E . trifurca. 



