3. SÝMPLOCOS, Jacq. Sweet-Leaf.
Calyx 5-cleft, the tube coherent with the lower part of the 3-celled ovary. Petals 5, imbricated in the bud, lightly united at base. Stamens very numerous, in 5 clusters, one cohering with the base of each petal; filaments slender; anthers very short. Fruit drupe-like or dry, mostly 1-celled and 1-seeded.—Shrubs or small trees, the leaves commonly turning yellowish in drying, and furnishing a yellow dye. Flowers in axillary clusters or racemes, yellow. (Name σύμπλοκος, connected, from the union of the stamens.)
1. S. tinctòria, L'Her. (Horse-Sugar, &c.) Leaves elongated-oblong, acute, obscurely toothed, thickish, almost persistent, minutely pubescent and pale beneath (3–5´ long); flowers 6–14, in close and bracted clusters, odorous.—Rich ground, Del. to Fla. and La. April.—Leaves sweet, greedily eaten by cattle.
Order 65. OLEÀCEÆ. (Olive Family.)
Trees or shrubs, with opposite and pinnate or simple leaves, a 4-cleft (or sometimes obsolete) calyx, a regular 4-cleft or nearly or quite 4-petalous corolla, sometimes apetalous; the stamens only 2 (rarely or accidentally 3 or 4); the ovary 2-celled, with 2 (rarely more) ovules in each cell.—Seeds anatropous, with a large straight embryo in hard fleshy albumen, or without albumen.—The Olive is the type of the true Oleaceæ, to which belongs the Lilac (Syringa), etc.; and the Jessamine (Jasminum) represents another division of the order.
Tribe I. FRAXINEÆ. Fruit dry, indehisccnt, winged, a samara. Leaves pinnate.
1. Fraxinus. Flowers diœcious, mostly apetalous, sometimes also without calyx.
Tribe II. OLEINEÆ. Fruit, a drupe, or rarely a berry. Leaves simple.
2. Forestiera. Flowers apetalous, diœcious or polygamous, from a scaly catkin-like bud. Stamens 2–4.
3. Chionanthus. Flowers complete, sometimes polygamous. Calyx and corolla 4-merous, the latter with long and linear divisions.