TIMES of high ornamental and timber value. Leaves com pound (except in Cercis), alternate, deciduous. Flowers sweet pea-like, or regular. Fruit, a pod.
The family Leguminosm, to which our pod-bearing trees belong, is one of vast size and economic importance, and of world-wide distribution. There are nearly 450 genera and over 7,000 species. Peas, beans, lentils, clover — all plants that bear simple, 2-valved pods after the flowers — are in cluded. By this sign they are easily recognizable when in
fruit. Besides foodstuffs, the pod-bearers yield rubber, balsams, oils, dyestuffs, good timber, and a long list of orna mental plants. The grass family, which includes the chief forage and grazing plants, the grains and sugar cane, is the only one that ranks higher than the pod-bearers in service to human family.