472 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
lowish green border. Stamens 5, erect, opposite the petals, 
inserted at the base of the ovary, which is reddish and conical, 
surmounted by a roundish stigma without a style. Fruit in 
terminal or axillary panicles, or opposite the leaves. The 
stalks successively dividing by threes, at equal angles. The 
berries become dark blue or nearly black, when mature; at 
the same period, the fruit-stalks and tendrils assume a rich 
crimson or red color. 
The great variety of rich colors,—shades of scarlet, crimson, 
and purple,—which the leaves and stems of this plant assume, 
and the situations in which we see it, climbing up the trunks and 
spreading along the branches of trees, covering walls and heaps 
of stones, forming natural festoons from tree to tree, or trained 
on the sides and along the piazzas of dwelling houses, make it 
one of the most conspicuous ornaments of the autumnal months. 
Often, in October, it may be seen mingling its scarlet and orange 
leaves, thirty or forty feet from the ground, with the green 
leaves of the still unchanged tree on which it has climbed. 
FAMILY XXXI. THE BUCKTHORN FAMILY. RHAMNA‘CEZ. 
JUSSIEU. 
Found every where except in the polar regions, but chiefly 
in the hotter parts of the United States, Europe and Asia, and 
the northern parts of Africa. 
The inner bark and fruit of the Buckthorns, as well as of 
most plants in this family, have active cathartic powers, and 
sorne of them are also emetic and astringent. The young shoots 
and leaves of one species, R. alatérnus, dye wool of a yellow 
color. The bark and berries of another, R. tinctdrius, are val- 
ued as dyes. ‘The Avignon berry, the fruit of R. infectorius, is 
used to give its yellow color to Morocco leather. A similar dye 
is obtained from several other species, natives of the shores of 
the Mediterranean. With preparations of iron, some of them 
give a good black. The aromatic leaves of a species of Sage- 
retia, S. thee ‘zans, are used by the poor in China as a substitute 
