DESCRIPTION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
51 
yellow when ripe, and when frosted sweet and luscious. 
Over the State ; loves to take possession of ruined farm lands. 
OLEACEiE. (Olive Family.) 
Eraxinus Americana, L. White Ash. Large timber-tree with 
rather light tough wood. Branchlets and petioles glabrous, 
leaves opposite and odd- pinnate, leaflets 7-9, from ovate to 
oblong-lanceolate, mostly acuminate, entire or sparsely ser- 
rate or denticulate, 3-5' long, pale or whitish and often pu- 
bescent beneath. Flowers dioecious, apetalous, in dense pan- 
icles, which are developed from separate buds from upper 
axils of the preceding year. Fruit entire, dry, indehiscent,. 
winged only from the upper part of the terete body. FI. 
April. The bark is used. 
Ligustrum vulgare, L. Privet. This shrub is planted for or- 
namental hedges, and springs up sometimes from seeds 
transported by animals. It shows no tendency to spread. It 
grows 6-10° high ; leaves opposite and entire, oblong or 
lanceolate. Flowers small and white, disposed in thyrse- 
like panicles at the ends of the young branches. They have 
a cup- shaped deciduous 4-toothed calyx and a funnel-shaped 
4-lobed corolla, and the fruit is a globular bluish-black 
berry. FI. May. The leaves are collected. 
Chionanthus Virginica, L. Fringe-tree. Shrub or small tree. 
One tree, growing on the foot of the mountains, at Cowan, I 
measured to be 10' diameter 4° above the ground, by perfectly 
regular form of crown. The leaves are deciduous, opposite, 
entire, oval or oblong, 3-6' long. Flowers in loose, compound 
panicles from the uppermost axils of the leaves of the preced- 
ing year. Calyx 4-cleft, persistent. Corolla of 4 long and 
linear petals, which are plane in the bud with slightly indu- 
plicate margins, and united only at the base. Stamens 2, 
rarely 3, short. Style short. The drooping loose panicles of 
an inch long flowers are very beautiful. Fruit bluish-black, 
oval, J' long. It is very frequently found in cultivation, but 
grows wild over the State, along streams and in moist places.. 
Fl. April. The bark of the root is collected. 
