About 30, including: Celastrus angulatus - Chinese staff vine Celastrus australis - Australian staff vine Celastrus dispermus - Orange boxwood Celastrus pyracanthus - South african staff vine Celastrus orbiculatus - Oriental staff vine Celastrus scandens - American staff vine
The staff vines, also known as staff trees, genus Celastrus, comprise about 30 species of shrubs and vines. They have a wide distribution in eastern Asia, Australasia, Africa and the Americas. The leaves are alternate and simple ovoid, typically 5-20 cm long. The flowers are small, white, pink or greenish, and borne in long panicles; the fruit is a red three-valved berry. The fruit are eaten by frugivorous birds, which disperse the seeds in their droppings. All parts of the plants are poisonous to humans if eaten.
In North America, they are sometimes known as "bittersweet", presumably a result of confusion with the unrelated Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara) by early colonists. C. orbiculatus is a serious invasive weed in much of eastern North America.
A garden she created there to nurture Vine Elementary students became a killing ground; an 11-year-old boy and his mother stabbed to death the garden's owner.
Such commitment among teachers and staff is at the heart of Vine Elementary, in one of Cincinnati's poorest neighborhoods.
Vine's principal Greg Hook recently received the Cincinnatus Association's James Jacobs Public Education Award for 1998, given yearly to an outstanding principal in the Cincinnati Public Schools district.
[From Staff, 3, a badge of office.] (Mil.) An establishment of officers in various departments attached to an army, to a section of an army, or to the commander of an army.
Jacob's staff (Surv.), a single straight rod or staff, pointed and iron-shod at the bottom, for penetrating the ground, and having a socket joint at the top, used, instead of a tripod, for supporting a compass.
Staff angle (Arch.), a square rod of wood standing flush with the wall on each of its sides, at the external angles of plastering, to prevent their being damaged.
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