118 sapindace^:. (soapberry family.) 



7 (rarely 6 or 8) : filaments long and slender, often unequal. Style 1 : ovary 

 3 -celled, with 2 ovules in each, only one of which, or one in each cell, forms a 

 seed. Seed very large, with a thick and shining coat, and a large and round 

 pale scar, Avithout albumen. Cotyledons very thick and fleshy, their contiguous 

 faces more or less united, remaining under ground in germination : plumule 2- 

 leaved : radicle curved. — Trees or shrubs. Leaves opposite, digitate : leaflets 

 serrate, straight-veined, like a Chestnut-leaf. Flowers in a terminal thyrsus or 

 dense panicle, often polygamous, the greater portion with imperfect pistils and 

 6terile. Pedicels jointed. Seeds farinaceous, but imbued with a bitter and 

 narcotic principle. (The ancient name of some Oak or other mast-bearing 

 tree.) 



§ 1. iESCULUS proper. Fruit covered with prickles when young. 



1. JE. HippocAstanum, L. (Common Horse-chestnut.) Corolla 

 spreading, white spotted with purple and yellow, of 5 petals ; stamens declined ; 

 leaflets 7. — Commonly planted. (Adv. from Asia via Eu.) 



2. 2E. glabra, Willd. (Fetid or Ohio Buckeye.) Stamens curved, 

 longer than the pale yellow corolla of 4 upright petals ; leaflets 5. — River- 

 banks, W. Penn. and Virginia to Michigan and Kentucky. June. — A large 

 tree ; the bark exhaling an unpleasant odor, as in the rest of the genus. Flow- 

 ers small, not showy. 



§ 2. PAVIA, Boerhaave. Fruit smooth: pejals 4, conniving ; the 2 upper smaller 

 and longer than the others, with a small and rounded blade on a very long claw. 



3. JE. flava, Ait. (Sweet Buckeye.) Stamens included in the yellow 

 corolla; calyx oUong-campanulute ; leaflets 5, sometimes 7, glabrous, or often 

 minutely downy underneath. — Rich woods, Virginia to Ohio, Indiana, and 

 southward. May. A large tree or a shrub. 



Var. purpurascens. Flowers (both calyx and corolla) tinged with flesh- 

 color or dull purple; leaflets commonly downy beneath. (M. discolor, Pursh.) 



— From West Virginia southward and westward. 



4. iE. Pavia, L. (Red Buckeye.) Stamens not longer than the co- 

 rolla, which is bright red, as well as the tubular calyx ; leaflets glabrous or soft- 

 downy beneath. — Fertile valleys, Virginia, Kentucky, and southward. May. 



— A shrub or small tree. 



3. ACER, Tourn. Maple. 



Flowers polygamo-dioecious. Calyx colored, 5- (rarely 4 - 12-) lobed or parted. 

 Petals either none, or as many as the lobes of the calyx, equal, with short claws 

 if any, inserted on the margin of the lobed disk, which is either perigynous or 

 hypogynous. Stamens 3-12. Ovary 2-celled, with a pair of ovules in each : 

 styles 2, long and slender, united only below, stigmatic down the inside. From 

 the back of each ovary grows a wing, converting the fruit into two 1 -seeded, at 

 length separable samaras or keys. Seed without albumen. Embryo variously 

 coiled or folded, with large and thin cotyledons. — Trees, or sometimes shrubs, 

 with opposite palmately-lobed leaves, and small flowers. Pedicels not jointed. 

 (The classical name, from the Celtic ac, hard.) 



