FOREST TREES. 



221 



Leaves smooth, coriacious,obovate-oblong, obtuse or emarginate, 

 crenate. Fertile flowers, solitary or in pairs, with long stems ; 

 sterile ones very minute in cylindrical spikes. Fruit, a capsule 

 of three, one-celled, one-seeded, two-valved carpels. Described 

 under the generic name of Excoecaria in Chapman's Flora of 

 the South, Nuttall's Sylva, etc. A tree thirty to forty feet high, 

 with yellowish-white, hard, and close-grained wood. In South 

 Florida. 



SHEPHERDiA, Nutt. — RoMU Bevvy, 



A genus of only three species, all found in the United States, 

 and in the more northern regions. They are small trees or 

 shrubs, with dioecious flowers, the sterile with a four-pointed 

 calyx, the fertile, with an urn-shaped, four-cleft calyx ; the 

 fertile flowers much the smallest. Fruit small, red, yellow or 

 scurfy. Only one species that grows to a hight of twenty feet. 



Slieplierdia argentea^ Nutt. — Buffalo BeiTy, Kabbit Berry. — 

 Leaves oblong, ovate, silvery on both sides ; male flowers in 

 clusters, the calyx yellow inside, but silvery on the outside ; 

 female flowers very minute, scarcely noticeable on the plant 

 without close inspection, as they are of a dull gray color. 

 Fruit collected into clusters, sometimes in such abundance as 

 to entirely surround the smaller branches, bright scarlet, re- 

 sembling small currants ; juicy sub-acid and pleasant flavored. 

 Excellent jelly is made from the fruit, and some persons think 

 it superior to currant jelly. A handsome small tree, with 

 grayish rough bark and hard wood. The branchlets are termi- 

 nated by a sharp thorn, and for this, and other reasons, this 

 species has been recommended for hedges in cold northern 

 localities. As the two sexes of flowers are on different plants, it is 

 necessary to at least have one of each growing near together in 

 order to obtain fruit, and I do not know of any way of deter- 

 mining the sex of the plants except by waiting until they come 

 into bloom, then each should be labelled if they are to be trans- 

 planted or set out for fruit, but one staminate will suflice for a 

 half dozen pistillate plants, if set near together. The trees are 

 readily pi'opagated from seed. Native of Northern New Mexico 

 and through the Rocky Mountain regions, northward to British 

 America. The two other native species are low shrubs, S. Can- 

 adensis, Nutt. , is a low, scurfy shrub, with ovate leaves, and yel- 

 lowish-red insipid fruit, found from Vermont, westward to the 

 Pacific Ocean. >S^. rotundifolia, Parry, with small, crowded 



