128 PENTANDRIA, MONOGYNtA. 



Climbing Celastrus. Wax Work, ' 



A climbing plant frequently reaching the tops of trees, twen- 

 ty or thirty feet high. Flowers yellowish white, small. Ber- 

 ries a bright orange-red. Said to possess medicinal virtues. In 

 hedges and among small trees and shrubs on rocky ground. 

 Frequent near Mendenhall's tavern on the east bank of the 

 Schuylkill, not far from the falls along the fences ; and in the 

 stony and hilly copices back of Fowelton, abundant. Ij . May, 

 June. 



121. COMANDRA. Nuttall, Gen. Am. PI. vol. 1, p. 157. 

 (Saiitalacece, R. Brown.) 



C alloc angular, tubular-campanulate, coales- 

 cing with an internal 5 -toothed, glandu- 

 lous disk. Petals 5, ovate, ingrafted upon 

 the margin of the calix, persistent. Anthers 

 attached to the petals by a tuft of filaments ! 

 Germ 3-seeded, immersed in the glandu- 

 lous disk. Capsule valveless, 1 -seeded, 

 coated by the base of the calix. 



Perennial, root ligneous, stem herbaceous; leaves simple, 

 alternate, stipides none ; radical gemmaceous scales numerous, 

 persistent; flowers in a corymbulose terminal panicle. — Nuit. 



umbeiiata. 1. C. stem round and erect, sending out 2 or 3 

 infertile branches below the panicle. Leaves 

 approximating, erect, oblong-ovate, obtuse, 

 smooth, reflected on the margin, and reticu- 

 lately veined. Panicle short, ramuli axillary, 

 corymbulose, corymbs about 5-flowered, with 4 

 involucrate bractes, uppermost peduncles fewer 

 flowered. Calix uniting with the glandulous 

 and nectariferous germinal disk : disk 5-tooth- 

 ed, obtuse. Petals 5, calycine, often 4 and 6, 

 with the same number of stamina, ovate, acute, 

 persistent, growing to the margin of the calix, 

 white, internally villous (seen through a lens), 

 before expansion parallel. Stamina seated at 

 the base of the petals, alternating with the den- 

 tures of the glandulous disk ; filaments subulate, 



