Shrubs or small trees, with leaves furnishing a yellow dye.
S. tinctòria.
Sýmplocos tinctòria, L'Her. (Horse-sugar. Sweetleaf.) Leaves simple, alternate, thick, 3 to 5 in. long, elongate-oblong, acuminate, nearly entire, almost persistent, pale beneath, with minute pubescence, sweet-tasting. Flowers 6 to 14, in close-bracted, axillary clusters, 5-parted, sweet-scented, yellow; in early spring. Fruit a dry drupe, ovoid, ½ in. long. A shrub or small tree, 10 to 20 ft. high. Delaware and south.
Order XXIX. OLEÀCEÆ. (Olive Family.)
An order of trees and shrubs, mainly of temperate regions.
Genus 60. FRÁXINUS.
Trees with petioled, opposite, odd-pinnate leaves (one cultivated variety has simple leaves). Flowers often inconspicuous, in large panicles before the leaves in spring. Fruit single-winged at one end (samara or key-fruit), in large clusters; ripe in autumn. Some trees, owing to the flowers being staminate, produce no fruit. Wood light-colored, tough, very distinctly marked by the annual layers. The leaves appear late in the spring, and fall early in the autumn.
