SAPINDACEAE. 251 



SAPINDACEAE. Buckeye Family. 



Deciduous trees or shrubs with opposite compound leaves, no stipules, and 

 slightly irregular flowers. Ovary superior, 3-celled with 2 ovules in each cell, 

 commonly but one ovule maturing. Endosperm none. 



1. AESCULUS L. Horse Chestnut. 



Leaves palmately compound with serrate leaflets. Flowers showy, ill- 

 scented, on jointed pedicels in a terminal cylindrical thyrse, of two sorts, 

 perfect (fertile) with long thick styles and sterile with short styles; fertile 

 flowers few near top of thyrse. Calyx tubular, unequally cleft. Petals 4 or 

 5, slightly unequal, clawed. Stamens 5 to 7, becoming successively much 

 exserted and often unequal. Fruit a large 3-valved capsule releasing one 

 large polished seed. (Latin name of an Italian oak with edible acorns.) 



1 A. californica (Spach) Nutt. Buckeye. A low tree (commonly 10 

 to 15 ft. high) with a rounded or depressed crown of greater breadth; leaflets 

 5 to 7, oblong-lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, acute or acuminate, 3 to 5 in. long; 

 thyrse 4 to 6 in. long; petals 6 or 7 lines long, the elliptic or ovate limb 

 rotately spreading; axis of the thyrse at length naked and pendulous, bearing 

 one pear-like pod or sometimes 2 to 9; seed 1 to 2 in. in diameter. 



Low dry hills or canon sides: Coast Eanges and Sierra Nevada. A beau- 

 tiful tree when laden in June with its profusion of white flowers. Leaves 

 and seeds regarded as poisonous to cattle. 



Staphylea bolanderi Gray, the Bladder-nut of the Sierra Nevada, is a 

 shrub with 3-foliolate leaves and a 3-celled 3-horned inflated pod \y 2 in. long. 



RHAMNACEAE. Buckthorn Family. 



Shrubs or small trees with simple leaves and mostly caducous stipules. 

 Flowers small, regular, commonly in little umbels, the umbels often aggregated 

 in racemes or panicles. Calyx-lobes, petals and stamens 5 (or 4). Calyx-tube 

 lined with a disk, the petals and stamens inserted on the edge of the disk 

 and alternate with the calyx-lobes. Petals commonly clawed, sometimes 

 wanting. Ovary 3 (or 2) -celled, free from or adnate by the disk to the base of 

 the calyx. Style simple or 3-cleft. Fruit a berry or capsule. 



Fruit fleshy, berry-like; calyx free from ovary 1. Rhamnus. 



Fruit dry, capsular; calyx adnate to base of ovary 2. Ceanothus. 



1. RHAMNUS L. Buckthorn. 

 Shrubs with alternate leaves. Flowers small, greenish, perfect or polygamous, 

 in axillary clusters. Calyx with 4 or 5 short lobes or teeth. Petals very 

 small, hooded and without claws, or none. Stamens 4 or 5 ; filaments short. 

 Ovary ovoid, free. Fruit berry-like, containing 2 or 3 separate seed-like nutlets 

 of bony or cartilaginous texture. (The ancient Greek name.) 



Deciduous shrubs; flowers complete; leaves thinnish, 3 to 6 in. long....l. R. pursJiiana. 

 Evergreen shrubs; leaves thickish, l l / 2 to 2 J / 2 in. long. 



Petals present ; berry black 2. R. californica. 



Petals none or very minute; berry red R. crocea. 



1. R. purshiana DC. Cascara Sagrapa. Small tree or shrub 8 to 20 ft. 

 high; leaves in a tuft at end of branchlets, thinnish, deciduous, elliptic-oblong, 

 obtuse or slightly cordate at base, obtuse or abruptly blunt-pointed at apex, 

 serrulate, mostly 3 to 6 in. long; petioles tomentulous; flowers 5-merous; berry 

 black, with 3 (or 2) nutlets. 



Mendocino and Humboldt cos. and northward to Washington. In Sonoma 

 and Mendocino cos. are transition bodies which suggest a shading into the 



