Hop Tree , (ptelea trifoliata), an American shrub of the rue family (rutacece), also called shrubby trefoil. It is a tall shrub, forming if kept trimmed to a single stem a tree 30 or 40 ft. high, and is found from Pennsylvania southward and westward. The leaves are trifoliate with ovate, pointed leaflets, which are downy when young; the flowers, borne in cymes at the ends of the new shoots, are small, greenish, and inconspicuous; they are polygamous - staminate, pistillate, and perfect ones occurring on the same plant; each has three to five sepals and petals, and in the staminate and perfect ones as many stamens; ovary one with a short style; the fruit is two-celled and two-seeded, being surrounded by a broad wing and resembling very much the fruit of the elm; the name ptelea is the Greek for elm, applied to this plant on account of the similarity of the two in their fruit. The flowers have an unpleasant odor, as do the leaves when bruised. As an ornamental shrub the hop tree has the merit of being exceedingly neat in appearance, is not subject to the attacks of insects, and from the peculiar character of its compound leaves makes a marked contrast with other shrubs and trees; it has the demerit of tardiness in the spring, its branches remaining bare long after all other shrubs are clothed with foliage; the large clusters of winged fruit give it an attractive appearance late in the season.

The fruit is intensely and even nauseously bitter, and, though often used as a substitute for hops, is entirely without the aromatic principle which qualifies the bitterness of the true hop. As many vegetable bitters have the property of preventing alcoholic fermentation from passing into the acetous, no doubt the fruit of this will answer the same purpose as hops in making yeast. An infusion of the leaves and young shoots is said to possess anthelmintic properties.

Hop Tree (Ptelea trifoliata).