STAFF-TREE FAMILY. Celastracex 



STAFF-TREE FAMILY. Celastracece. 



Shrubs with simple opposite or alternate leaves, and 

 small regular, generally perfect flowers with 4-5 petals 

 and as many stamens inserted on a disc set at the base of 

 the ovary (or sometimes merged into it) and at the bot- 

 tom of the calyx. Fruit a pod with 2-5 cells. Insect 

 visitors commonly bees. 



A twining, shrubby vine common on old 

 Sr^wlef B!1 " stone walls and roadside thickets, and 

 Waxwork sometimes climbing trees to a height of 

 Celastrus twenty or more feet. The light green 



scandens leaves are smooth and ovate or ovate- 



whtt" l8h oblong, finely toothed, and acute at the 

 June tip 5 tne y g w alternately and somewhat 



in ranks owing to the twisting of the stem. 

 The tiny flowers are greenish white, and grouped in a 

 loose, spikelike terminal cluster ; the five minute petals 

 are finely toothed along the edge, and the five stamens 

 are inserted on a cup-shaped disc, in the manner ex- 

 plained above. The flowers are succeeded in September 

 by the beautiful orange fruit, a globular berry in loose 

 clusters, but properly speaking a capsule whose orange 

 shell divides into three parts, bends backward, and ex- 

 poses the pulpy scarlet envelop of the seed within. The 

 fruit is charmingly decorative, and if it is picked and 

 placed in a warm room before the shells open, it will ex- 

 pand and remain in a perfect condition thoughout the 

 winter. Climbing 6-25 feet. Along roadsides, sti-eams, 

 etc., from Me., south to N. Car., among the mountains, 

 and west to the Daks., Kan., Oklahoma, and N. Mex 

 Rare in the White Mountain region of N. H. 



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