252 



CELASTRACE^. 



fascicles. Calyx cleft into mostly 5 segments. Petals as many or 

 none. Stamens 8 to 8 or 10, borne on the edge of a disk, or 

 hypogynous. Styles or stigmas 2, slender. Fruit a double samara, 

 the body of the carpels united at the base or inner face and long- 

 winged from the back or towards the apex. Samaras separable at 

 maturity, each 1-seeded. Cotyledons large and thin. Endosperm 

 none. (Latin, a/ier, sharp or hard, the wood anciently used for 

 making pikes or lances.) 



Flowers perfect; leaves simple, palmately lobed 1. A. macrophyllum 



Flowers dioecious; leaves trifoliolate; var. Californicum of 



2. A. Ntgundo. 



1. A. macrophyllum Pursh. Large-leaved Maple. Tree 15 to 

 25 ft. high; juice in young herbage milky; leaves simple, roundish in 

 outline, 7 in. broad or less, palmately parted into 5 broad mostly 

 3-lobed divisions; petioles about 3 in. long; racemes 2\ to 4 in. long; 

 flowers greenish or dull white; sepals elliptic, 2\ lines long, equaled 

 by the oblong petals; stamens 7 to 9, the filaments villous below; 

 body of samaras densely hispid, the wing 1 to \\ in. long and 6 to 8 

 lines wide. 



A not infrequent tree along Coast Range streams but solitary; it 

 also ascends ravines and climbs canon sides, appearing on the steepest 

 north walls; in such cases it sometimes forms small clumps but the 

 individuals are scarcely more than shrubs. Also in' the Sierra 

 Nevada. Mar. The wood is more valued than t lat of any other 

 deciduous tree of western America. 



A. glabrum Torr., Siena Maple, of the High Sierras, and A. v 

 circjnatum Pursh, Vine Maple, of northern California and north- 

 ward, have the flowers in loose umbel-like corymbs and the fruits 

 glabrous; in the former the filaments are glabrous, in the latter the 

 filaments are hairy with the wings of the samaras spreading at right 

 angles to the peduncle. 



2. A. Negundo L. var. Californicum Sargent. Box Elder. 

 Tree 20 to 50 ft. high; leaves pinnately trifoliolate, the leaflets serrate, 

 incised, or 2 or 3-lobed or -divided, or the segments becoming distinct 

 and obviously petioled, the central leaflets thus replaced by 3, or the 

 lateral leaflets by 2 or 3; flowers diceciou c ; calyx minute, 4 to 5-cleft; 

 petals and disk none; staminate flowers clustered on capillary pedicels, 

 the stamens 4 or 5 and hypogynous; pistillate flowers in drooping 

 slender racemes; fruit pubescent, 1 to \\ in. long; wing oblong, 

 crimson in young fruit. — (Negundo Californicum T. &. G.) 



Common along streams from San Bernardino northward: Contra 

 Costa Co.; Sonoma Co.; Sacramento River. Mar.-Apr. 



54 CELASTRACE/E. Staff-tree Family. 



Shrubs with simple leaves (in ours opposite). Flowers smaM, perfect, 

 regular, with jointed pedicels. Calyx 4 or 5-lobed or -parted. Petals 

 4 or 5. Stamens as many as the petals, alternate with them and 

 inserted on a very thick and conspicuous disk. Ovary 2 to 5-celled, 



