fraxinus APOCYNACE.E 439 



bumen, or exalbumenous. Cotyledons flat, or plano-convex. 



1 FRAXINUS Tourn. L. Gen. n. 1160. 



Trees with rather light tough wood, chiefly opposite and odd- 

 pinnate leaves, and small flowers in panicles, appearing with or 

 before the leaves from separate buds. Flowers dioecious or poly- 

 gamous, sometimes perfect. Calyx very small, 4-cleft or irregu- 

 larly toothed or entire or wanting. Petals, when present, 4, 

 induplicate-valvate in the bud, either separate or united in pairs 

 at the very base, often wanting. Stamens 2, sometimes 3 or 4. 

 Ovary 2-celled, with a pair of ovules at the summit of each cell. 

 Stigma 2-lobed. Fruit an entire dry indehiscent samara, with 

 the wing mainly terminal, and suspended seeds. 



F. Oregana Nutt. Sylv. iii, 59, t. 99. (Oregon Ash.) A tree 20-100 

 feet high and 1-4 feet in diameter: leaves and young branchlets villous- 

 pubeacent; leaflets 5-7, lanceolate-oblong to oval, usually acuminate, entire 

 or nearly so, 2-4 inches long, veiny, the upper surface soon glabrous : 

 flowers dioecious ; all with a minute calyx and no petals; staminate panicles 

 dense, with oblong anthers; pistillate in ample, at length rather loose 

 panicles: fruit with nearly clavate and slightly compressed body, the mar- 

 gined edges gradually widened upward into the oblanceolate, wing, an 

 inch or more long. By streams and swales, California to Brit. Columbia. 



Order LX APOCYNACEJE Lindl. Nat. Syst. ed. 2, 299. 



Perennial herbs, shrubs or trees with mostly acrid milky 

 juice, opposite, verticillate, or alternate entire leaves without 

 stipules, and perfect regular 5-merous flowers. Calyx free, or 

 in ours adherent to the very base of the ovaries. Corolla 

 convolute and often twisted in the bud. Stamens 5, borne on 

 the corolla and alternate with its lobes : anthers 2-celled, dis- 

 posed to cohere with the stigma: pollen-grains simple, often 

 glutinous. Ovary of 2 distinct carpels with the styles or stig 

 mas united, or 1-celled with 2 parietal placentae, or 2-celled. 

 Ovules few to numerous, anatropous or amphitropous. Seeds 

 often bearing a coma. Embryo large, in sparing albumen. 



1 APOCYNUM Tourn. L. Gen. n. 305 



Perennial herbs with branching stems, opposite mucronate 

 tipped leaves and small white or rose-colored flowers in terminal 

 and axillary small cymes. Calyx 5-parted, its short tube co- 

 herent by the disk with the base of the ovaries. Corolla cam- 

 panulate, 5-cleft, toward the base bearing a triangular scale-like 

 appendage opposite each lobe. Stamens borne on the base of 

 the corolla : filaments very ahort : anthers of firm texture, sagit- 

 tate, conniving around the solid stigma, to a ring of which the 

 broad summit of the connective adheres. Proper style none. 

 Ovaries two, ovoid, in fruit becoming a pair of long slender folli- 

 cles. Glands 5, around the base of the ovaries. 



A. androssemifolium L. Sp. 213, Stem erect with divergent branch- 



