Flora Medica

RHAMNACEJE.A tree about the size of an apple tree. Prickles absent, or in pairs,one of them being recurved. Leaves ovate, retuse, toothletted, quitesmooth as well as the branches. Flowers green, axillary, 3-5 together,on short stalks. Drupe oblong, the size of an olive, dull red, with asoft mealy pulp.BERCHEMIA.Calyx 5-cleft, with a hemispherical tube; segments erect.Petals 5, convolute. Stamens inclosed within the petals; anthersovate, 2-celled. Disk fleshy, annular, flattish.Ovary halfimmersed in the disk but free from it, 2-celled ;style short,bifid at the apex ; stigmas convex. Fruit drupaceous, with abony 2-celled nut. Seed-coat fibrous, closely adhering aboveand on the side next the axis to the putamen, free below andon the outer side. Erect or climbing shrubs. Leaves alternate,many-nerved nerves : oblique, almost simple, pretty closeto each other. Flowers in short corymbs or umbels from theaxils of the upper leaves, or nearly sessile and fascicled alongslender leafless branches, which form a terminal panicle.W. and A.324-. B. volubilis DC.prodr. ii. 22. (Enoplia volubilis/?. av. 332. Rhamnus volubilis Linn, suppl. 152. Jacq. ic. t. 336.In Carolina and Virginia.A twining shrub, with a stem not thicker than a quill. Leaveselliptical, stalked, rounded at the base, rounded and acuminate at thepoint, smooth on each side, shining on the upper side, with strongparallel pinnated veins. Flowers small, in short terminal racemes.Calyx greenish ; petals white. Drupe oblong, black, 1-celled. Rootsprescribed in cachectic disorders ;said to be"antisiphilitic.CEANOTHUS.Calyx 5-cleft, campanulate, cut round after flowering, with thebase permanent and adhering to the fruit. Petals hooded,with long spreading claws. Fruit dry, 3-celled, loculicidal, withpapery valves; cells 1 -seeded. Spineless shrubs.325. C. americanus Linn.sp.pl. 284. Bot. Mag.t. 1479.Millie. I. 57. ii.DC.prodr. 31. United States of America.A small bush. Leaves ovate, acuminate, serrated, 3-nerved, downyon the under side. Flowers white in long thyrses with a downy axis.;Fruit bluntly 3-cornered. An infusion of the twigs has been named asuseful, on account of its astringency, to stop gonorrhoeal discharges ;its root is said to be antisiphilitic.RHAMNUS.Calyx urceolate, 4-cleft. Petals either wanting or 5 ; eithernearly flat, or slightly convolute and emarginate at the apex.166