480 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
tannin, has astringent and febrifugal properties, and may be 
used to dye yellow; and the fruit is saponaceous, and is eaten 
by sheep and deer, and, when boiled, is used to fatten cattle 
and fowls. In Turkey and Germany, it is employed in veteri- 
nary medicine, whence the name horse-chesinut and the specific 
name hippocdsianum given it by Tournefort. Of the Amer- 
ican species, one, the Ohio Buckeye, . gidbra, resembles the 
cultivated in its prickly fruit. It is a small tree with a rough 
bark which exhales a disagreeable odor. Of the others, which 
are distinguished by the smoothness of their fruits, the Sweet 
Buckeye of the Western and Southern States, 4. fidva, with 
yellow flowers, is found from four to eighty feet high and with 
a trunk sometimes four feet in diameter. The others, 4. par- 
viflora, Californica, pdvia, and their varieties, are shrubs or 
small trees. 
FAMILY XXX. THE MAPLE FAMILY. ACERA‘CEZ. SJussiav. 
This family, which contains two or three genera besides the 
maple, consists of trees or tall shrubs, with opposite leaves 
without stipules. The flowers, springing from the axil of the 
leaves or buds, are either perfect, or contain pistils or stamens 
only. On the tall trees, they are usually in corymbs; on the 
smaller plants, as on the Moose wood, they hang in a beautiful 
raceme, like a bunch of currants. 
Early in the season, from a bud in which they overlie each 
other like tiles, usually 5, sometimes 4 to 9, sepals expand, 
within which and alternate to them are the same number of 
petals, and usually 8 distinct stamens. Jn the centre is a 2- 
lobed ovary, with 1 style and 2 stigmas. The fruit, called 
a samara, consists of two parts, united, with broad, nerved 
Wings, each part containing 1 cell and 1 or 2 seeds. These are 
erect, without albumen, containing a curved embryo, with 
wrinkled, leaf-like cotyledons, and an inferior radicle. 
In no part of the world are the maples of greater importance 
than in New England. The excellence of the wood as fuel, 
