Flowers polygamo-diœcious. Calyx in the sterile flowers of 4--5 minute deciduous teeth, in the fertile ones obsolete. Petals 4--5, oblong-linear, spreading, distinct. Stamens 4--5; filaments slender. Drupe with 4--5 bony nutlets, light red.--A much-branched shrub, with ash-gray bark, alternate and oblong deciduous leaves on slender petioles, entire or slightly toothed, smooth. Flowers on long slender axillary peduncles, solitary or sparingly clustered. (Name said by the author to mean "flower with a filiform peduncle," therefore probably composed of νῆμα, _a thread_, πούς, _foot_, and ἄνθος, _flower_.) 1. N. fasciculàris, Raf. (N. Canadensis, _DC._)--Damp cold woods, from the mountains of Va. to Maine, Ind., Wisc., and northward. May. ORDER 26. CELASTRÀCEÆ. (STAFF-TREE FAMILY.) _Shrubs with simple leaves, and small regular flowers, the sepals and the petals both imbricated in the bud, the 4 or 5 perigynous stamens as many as the petals and alternate with them, inserted on a disk which fills the bottom of the calyx and sometimes covers the ovary. Seeds arilled._--Ovules one or few (erect or pendulous) in each cell, anatropous; styles united into one. Fruit 2--5-celled, free from the calyx. Embryo large, in fleshy albumen; cotyledons broad and thin. Stipules minute and fugacious. Pedicels jointed. [*] Leaves alternate. Flowers in terminal racemes. 1. Celastrus. A shrubby climber. Fruit globose, orange, 3-valved. Aril scarlet. [*][*] Leaves opposite. Flowers in axillary cymes or solitary. 2. Euonymus. Erect shrubs. Leaves deciduous. Fruit 3--5-lobed. 3--5-valved. Aril red. 3. Pachystima. Dwarf evergreen shrub. Flowers very small. Fruit oblong, 2-valved. Aril white. 1. CELÁSTRUS, L. STAFF-TREE. SHRUBBY BITTER-SWEET. Flowers polygamo-diœcious. Petals (crenulate) and stamens 5, inserted on the margin of a cup-shaped disk which lines the base of the calyx. Pod globose (orange-color and berry-like), 3-celled, 3-valved, loculicidal. Seeds 1 or 2 in each cell, erect, enclosed in a pulpy scarlet aril.--Leaves alternate. Flowers small, greenish, in raceme-like clusters terminating the branches. (An ancient Greek name for some evergreen, which our plant is not.) 1. C. scándens, L. (WAX-WORK. CLIMBING BITTER-SWEET.) Twining shrub; leaves ovate-oblong, finely serrate, pointed.--Along streams and thickets. June.--The opening orange-colored pods, displaying the scarlet covering of the seeds, are very ornamental in autumn. 2. EUÓNYMUS, Tourn. SPINDLE-TREE.