The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States. Asa Gray
into the edge of the fleshy disk which lines the short tube of the calyx and sometimes unites it to the lower part of the 2–5-celled ovary. Ovules solitary, anatropous. Stigmas 2–5. Embryo large, with broad cotyledons, in sparing fleshy albumen.—Flowers often polygamous, sometimes diœcious. Leaves mostly alternate; stipules small or obsolete. Branches often thorny. (Slightly bitter and astringent; the fruit often mucilaginous, commonly rather nauseous or drastic.)
[*] Calyx and disk free from the ovary.
1. Berchemia. Petals sessile, entire, as long as the calyx. Drupe with thin flesh and a 2-celled bony putamen.
2. Rhamnus. Petals small, short-clawed, notched, or none. Drupe berry-like, with 2–4 separate seed-like nutlets.
[*][*] Calyx with the disk adherent to the base of the ovary.
3. Ceanothus. Petals long-clawed, hooded. Fruit dry, at length dehiscent.
1. BERCHÈMI, Necker. Supple-Jack.
Calyx with a very short and roundish tube; its lobes equalling the 5 oblong sessile acute petals, longer than the stamens. Disk very thick and flat, filling the calyx-tube and covering the ovary. Drupe oblong, with thin flesh and a bony 2-celled putamen.—Woody high-climbing twiners, with the pinnate veins of the leaves straight and parallel, the small greenish-white flowers in small panicles. (Name unexplained, probably personal.)
1. B. volùbilis, DC. Glabrous; leaves oblong-ovate, acute, scarcely serrulate; style short.—Damp soils, Va. to Ky. and Mo., and southward. June.—Ascending tall trees. Stems tough and very lithe, whence the popular name.
2. RHÁMNUS, Tourn. Buckthorn.
Calyx 4–5-cleft; the tube campanulate, lined with the disk. Petals small, short-clawed, notched at the end, wrapped around the short stamens, or sometimes none. Ovary free, 2–4-celled. Drupe berry-like (black), containing 2–4 separate seed-like nutlets, of cartilaginous texture.—Shrubs or small trees, with loosely pinnately veined leaves, and greenish polygamous or diœcious flowers, in axillary clusters. (The ancient Greek name.)
§ 1. RHAMNUS proper. Flowers usually diœcious; nutlets and seeds deeply grooved on the back; rhaphe dorsal; cotyledons foliaceous, the margins revolute.
[*] Calyx-lobes and stamens 5; petals wanting.
1. R. alnifòlia, L'Her. A low shrub; leaves oval, acute, serrate, nearly straight-veined; fruit 3-seeded.—Swamps, Maine to Penn., Neb., and northward. June.
[*][*] Calyx-lobes, petals, and stamens 4.
R. cathártica, L. (Common Buckthorn.) Leaves ovate, minutely serrate; fruit 3–4-seeded; branchlets thorny.—Cultivated for hedges; sparingly naturalized eastward. May, June. (Nat. from Eu.)
2. R. lanceolàta, Pursh. Leaves oblong-lanceolate and acute, or on flowering shoots oblong and obtuse, finely serrulate, smooth or minutely downy beneath; petals deeply notched; fruit 2-seeded.—Hills and river-banks, Penn. (Mercersburg, Green) to Ill., Tenn., and westward. May.—Shrub tall, not thorny; the yellowish-green flowers of two forms on distinct plants, both perfect; one with short pedicels clustered in the axils and with a short included style; the other with pedicels oftener solitary, the style longer and exserted.
§ 2. FRÁNGULA. Flowers perfect; nutlets and seeds not furrowed; cotyledons flat, thick; rhaphe lateral.
3. R. Caroliniàna, Walt. Thornless shrub or small tree; leaves (3–5´ long) oblong, obscurely serrulate, nearly glabrous, deciduous; flowers 5-merous, in one form umbelled, in another solitary in the axils, short peduncled; drupe globose, 3-seeded. (Frangula Caroliniana, Gray.)—Swamps and river banks, N. J., Va. to Ky., and southward. June.
3. CEANOTHUS, L. New Jersey Tea. Red-root.
Calyx 5-lobed, incurved; the lower part cohering with the thick disk to the ovary, the upper separating across in fruit. Petals hooded, spreading, on slender claws longer than the calyx. Filaments elongated. Fruit 3-lobed, dry and splitting into its 3 carpels when ripe. Seed as in § Frangula.—Shrubby plants; flowers in little umbel-like clusters, forming dense panicles or corymbs at the summit of naked flower-branches; calyx and pedicels colored like the petals. (An obscure name in Theophrastus, probably misspelled.)
1. C. Americànus, L. (New Jersey Tea.) Leaves ovate or oblong-ovate, 3-ribbed, serrate, more or less pubescent, often slightly heart-shaped at base; common peduncles elongated.—Dry woodlands. July.—Stems 1–3° high from a dark red root; branches downy. Flowers in pretty white clusters, on leafy shoots of the same year. The leaves were used for tea during the American Revolution.
2. C. ovàtus, Desf. Leaves narrowly oval or elliptical-lanceolate, finely glandular-serrate, glabrous or nearly so, as well as the short common peduncles. (C. ovalis, Bigel.)—Dry rocks, W. Vt. and Mass. to Minn., Ill., and southwestward; rare eastward. May.
Order 28. VITÀCEÆ. (Vine Family.)
Shrubs with watery juice, usually climbing by tendrils, with small regular flowers, a minute or truncated calyx, its limb mostly obsolete, and the stamens as many as the valvate petals and opposite them! Berry 2-celled, usually 4-seeded.—Petals 4–5, very deciduous, hypogynous or perigynous. Filaments slender; anthers introrse. Pistil with a short style or none, and a slightly 2-lobed stigma; ovary 2-celled, with 2 erect anatropous ovules from the base of each cell. Seeds bony, with a minute embryo at the base of the hard albumen, which is grooved on one side.—Stipules deciduous. Leaves alternate, palmately veined or compound; tendrils and flower-clusters opposite the leaves. Flowers small, greenish, commonly polygamous. (Young shoots, foliage, etc., acid.)
[*] Ovary surrounded by a nectariferous or glanduliferous disk; plants climbing by the coiling of naked-tipped tendrils.
1. Vitis. Corolla caducous without expanding. Hypogynous glands 5, alternate with the stamens. Fruit pulpy. Leaves simple.
2. Cissus. Corolla expanding. Disk cupular. Berry with scanty pulp, inedible. Leaves simple or pinnately compound.
[*][*] No distinct hypogynous disk; plants climbing by the adhesion of the dilated tips of the tendril-branches.
3. Ampelopsis. Corolla expanding. Leaves digitate.
1. VÌTIS, Tourn. Grape.
Flowers polygamo-diœcious (some plants with perfect flowers, others staminate with at most a rudimentary ovary), 5-merous. Calyx very short, usually with a nearly entire border or none at all. Petals separating only at base and falling off without expanding. Hypogynous disk of 5 nectariferous glands alternate with the stamens. Berry pulpy. Seeds pyriform, with beak-like base.—Plants climbing by the coiling of naked-tipped tendrils. Flowers in a compound thyrse, very fragrant; pedicels mostly umbellate-clustered. Leaves simple, rounded and heart-shaped. (The classical Latin name.)
§ 1. VITIS proper. Bark loose and shreddy; tendrils forked; nodes solid.
[+] A tendril (or inflorescence) opposite each leaf.
1. V. Labrúsca, L. (Northern Fox-Grape.) Branchlets and young leaves very woolly; leaves large, entire or deeply lobed, slightly dentate, continuing rusty-woolly beneath; fertile panicles compact; berries large.—Moist thickets, N. Eng. to the Alleghany Mountains, and south to S. Car. June. Fruit ripe in Sept. or Oct., dark purple or amber-color, with a tough musky pulp. Improved by cultivation, it has given rise to the Isabella, Catawba, Concord and other varieties.
[+][+] Tendrils intermittent (none opposite each third leaf).
[++] Leaves pubescent and floccose, especially beneath and when young.
2. V. æstivàlis, Michx. (Summer Grape.) Branchlets terete; leaves large, entire or more or less deeply and obtusely 3–5-lobed, with short broad teeth, very woolly