658 MISC. PUBLICATION 423, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



Key to the genera 



1 . Flowers in catkins, dioecious, apetalous 1 . Garrya. 



1. Flowers in flat-topped compound cymes, perfect, with petals 2. Cornus. 



1. GARRYA. SlLKTASSEL 



Large evergreen shrubs, the branchlets quadrangular; leaves op- 

 posite, simple, short-petioled, the blades thick, entire or nearly so; 

 flowers of both sexes in loose or dense catkinlike spikes, the staminate 

 ones in clusters of 3, the pistillate flowers solitary in the axils of the 

 bracts; calyx with tube adnate to the ovary, the limb reduced to 4 

 teeth or lobes in the staminate flowers, obsolete or nearly so in the 

 pistillate flowers; fruit berrylike, dry or juicy. 



Sometimes called quinine-bush and coffeeberry-bush. The leaves 

 are bitter, and an alkaloid, garryin, obtained from 1 or 2 species of the 

 genus, is used medicinally. The plants are sometimes browsed by 

 cattle and deer. Both of the Arizona species occur usually in the 

 chaparral association, on dry slopes and in canyons. 



Key to the species 



1. Inflorescences spiciform, dense (especially the pistillate ones); bracts not 

 leaflike, triangular, strongly connate; fruits ellipsoid-ovoid, acutish at 

 apex, densely whitish sericeous; leaf blades entire or nearly so, when 

 mature copiously grayish-sericeous to glabrate above, densely sericeous- 

 tomentose beneath, the larger ones commonly 5 cm. long or longer. 



1. G. FLAVESCENS. 



1. Inflorescences of both sexes loose; bracts leaflike, not triangular, connate only 

 at base; fruits globose, rounded at apex, when ripe glabrous or very nearly 

 so and dark blue with a slight bloom; leaf blades more or less callous- 

 denticulate, when mature glabrous or pulverulent on both faces (sometimes 

 very sparsely appressed-pubescent beneath with straight hairs') , the larger 

 ones commonly less than 5 cm. long 2. G. wrightii. 



1. Garrya flavescens S. Wats., Amer. Nat. 7: 301. 1873. 



Garrya mollis Greene, Leaflets 2: 86. 1910. 



Coconino, Mohave, Gila, Yavapai, and Yuma Counties, 2,500 to 

 7,200 feet, January to March, type of G. mollis from Oak Creek 

 Canyon, Coconino County {Pearson 339). Southern Utah and 

 Arizona to southern California. 



This shrub attains a height of at least 1.8 m. (6 feet). The leaves 

 are sometimes 25 cm. long. The bark is grayish green. 



2. Garrya wrightii Torr., U. S. Rpt. Expl. Miss. Pacif. 4: 136. 1856. 

 Coconino County to Greenlee, Cochise, Santa Cruz, and Pima 



Counties, 4,000 to 8,000 feet, dry slopes, July and August. Western 

 Texas to Arizona and northern Mexico. 

 The plant is sometimes 3 m. (10 feet) high. 



2. CORNUS. Dogwood 



Shrub, with purplish-red young bark; leaves opposite, the blades 

 ovate, entire, finely appressed-pubescent, whitish beneath; flowers 

 small; calyx limb of 4 minute teeth, the tube wholly adnate to the 

 ovary; petals 4, white; fruit a drupe, normally white when mature. 



