Ptelea Apt era. 201 



antlv hispid character of its stems and foliage, will not render it a 

 favorite with florists. 



When seen growing luxuriantly on its native, dry and otherwise 

 almost barren hillsides in California, or in equally dry valleys, its 

 beaut}- is not likely to be easily overlooked. It extends eastward 

 through Colorado and New Mexico, and has gained a permanent 

 place in the catalogues of American seedsmen. 



PTELEA AFTER A. 

 (From Garden and Forest, iii. 332.) 



This plant, a native of Lower California, is interesting from the 

 structure of the fruit, which differs from that of the other species of 

 this small North American genus. In other Pteleas the indehiscent 

 fruit is surrounded bv a broad reticulate-veined wing, while in 

 Ptelea aptera it is turgid, nut-like and glandular, and quite wing- 

 less, or with a narrow rudimentary wing only. 



Ptelea aptera is a densely branched, pungently aromatic shrub, 

 with slender stems growing to a height of five to fifteen feet and 

 forming dense clusters. It is quite similar in habit and in general 

 appearance to the common Ptelea angustifolia of the southern and 

 southwestern States, and, except for the fruit, might be almost mis- 

 taken for that species. 



The fruit is broadly ovate, lenticular, and slightly keeled ; it is 

 wingless or nearly so, a quarter to half an inch long, and a quarter 

 of an inch broad ; slights emarginate at the base, tipped with the 

 remnants of the persistent stigmas, and conspicuously glandular. 

 It is two or rarely three-celled [more rarely four-celled]. The seeds 

 are oblong and corrugated, with a shining black testa. 



Ptelea aptera was discovered in January, 1883, on dry gravelly 

 slopes near the shore at Punta Banda, at the southern end of Todos 

 Santos Bay, by a party of botanists under the leadership of the late 

 Dr. C. C. Parry. Flowers and remnants of the fruit of the pre- 

 ceding year were found at this time. Dr. Parry read an excellent 

 account of the plant with diagnostic characters before the Daven- 

 port Academy of Sciences in December, 1883. This was afterward 

 published in the proceedings of the society (iv., 39), the ripe fruit, in 

 the meantime, having been collected by Mr. C. R. Orcutt, of San 

 Diego. Charles S. Sargent. 



