Division II. Dicotyledons (part 6)

A tree, with copious watery juice, smooth gray bark, slender slightly zigzag terete branchlets without a terminal bud, fibrous roots, and naked axillary buds 4 together, superposed, flattened by mutual pressure into an acuminate cone, and inclosed collectively in the hollow base of the petiole, the largest and upper one only developing, the lowest minute and rudimentary. Leaves unequally pinnate, petiolate, with a stout terete petiole abruptly enlarged at base, 7—11-foliolate, deciduous; leaflets usually alternate, broadly oval, the terminal one rhombic-ovate, contracted at apex into a short broad point, cuneate at base, entire, petiolulate, without stipels, covered at first like the young shoots with fine silvery pubescence, and on the midrib with lustrous brown tomentum, at maturity thin, glabrous, dark yellow-green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, the midrib and numerous primary veins conspicuous, light yellow below; stipules 0. Flowers on slender puberulous pedicels, bibracteolate near the middle, with scarious caducous bractlets, in long gracefully nodding stalked terminal panicles, the lower branches racemose, and often springing from the axils of 1-flowered pedicels, the main axis slightly zigzag, and, like the branches, covered at first with a glaucous bloom and slightly pilose; bracts lanceolate, scarious, pale, caducous; calyx cylindric-campanulate, enlarged on the upper side, and obliquely obconic at base, puberulous, 5-toothed, the teeth imbricated in the bud, nearly equal, short and obtuse, the 2 upper slightly united; disk cupuliform, adnate to the interior of the calyx-tube; corolla papilionaceous; petals white, unguiculate; standard nearly orbicular, entire or slightly emarginate, reflexed above the middle, barely longer than the straight oblong wing-petals, slightly biauriculate at the base of the blade, marked on the inner surface with a pale yellow blotch; keel-petals free, oblong, nearly straight, obtuse, slightly subcordate or biauriculate at base; stamens 10, free; filaments filiform, slightly incurved near the apex, glabrous; anthers versatile; ovary linear, stipitate, bright red, villose with long pale hairs, contracted into a long slender glabrous slightly incurved subulate style; stigma terminal, minute; ovules numerous, suspended from the inner angle of the ovary, superposed. Legume glabrous, short-stalked, linear-compressed, the upper margin slightly thickened, tipped with the remnants of the persistent style, 4—6-seeded, ultimately dehiscent, the valves thin and membranaceous. Seeds short-oblong, compressed, attached by a slender funicle; without albumen; seed-coat thin, membranaceous, dark brown; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons fleshy, oblong, flat; radicle short, inflexed.

Four species are now known. One inhabits the southern United States, two occur in western China and one in Japan.

Cladrastis, from κλάδος and θραυστός, relates to the brittleness of the branches.

1. Cladrastis lutea K. Koch. Yellow Wood. Virgilia.

Leaves 8′-12′ in length, with leaflets 3′—4′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, the terminal leaflet rather shorter than the others and 3′—3½′ wide; turning bright clear yellow rather late in the autumn some time before falling. Flowers appearing about the middle of June, slightly fragrant, in panicles 12′—14′ long and 5′—6′ wide. Fruit fully grown by the middle of August, ripening in September and soon falling.

A tree, sometimes 50°-60° high, with a trunk 1½°—2° or exceptionally 4° in diameter, usually divided 6°—7° from the ground into 2 or 3 stems, slender wide-spreading more or less pendulous brittle branches forming a wide graceful head, and zigzag branchlets clothed with pubescence when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, during their first season light brown tinged more or less with green, very smooth and lustrous, and covered by numerous darker colored lenticels, bright red-brown in their first winter and marked by large elevated leaf-scars surrounding the buds, and dark dull brown the following year. Bark of the trunk ⅛′—¼′ thick, with a silvery gray or light brown surface and rather darker colored than that of the branches. Wood heavy, very hard, strong and close-grained, with a smooth satiny surface, bright clear yellow changing to light brown on exposure, with thin nearly white sapwood; used for fuel, occasionally for gun-stocks, and yielding a clear yellow dye.

Distribution. Limestone cliffs and ridges generally in rich soil, and often overhanging the banks of mountain streams; Cherokee County, North Carolina, and the western slopes of the high mountains of eastern Tennessee; central Tennessee and Kentucky; near Florence, Lauderdale County, and cliffs of the Warrior River, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama; Forsythe, Taney County, and Eagle Rock, Barry County, Missouri; rare and local; most abundant in the neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, and in Missouri.

Often planted in the eastern United States as an ornamental tree, and hardy as far north as New England; and rarely in western and southern Europe; usually only flowering in alternate years.

13. Eysenhardtia H. B. K.

Small glandular-punctate trees or shrubs, with slender terete branchlets. Leaves alternate, equally pinnate, petiolate; leaflets oblong, mucronate or emarginate at apex, short-petiolulate, numerous, stipellate; stipules subulate, caducous. Flowers short-pedicellate, in long spicate racemes, terminal or axillary, with subulate caducous bracts; calyx-tube campanulate, conspicuously glandular-punctate, 5-toothed, the acute teeth nearly equal, persistent; disk cupuliform, adnate to the base of the calyx-tube; corolla subpapilionaceous; petals erect, free, nearly equal, oblong-spatulate, rounded at apex, unguiculate, creamy white; standard concave, slightly broader than the wing and keel-petals; stamens 10, inserted with the petals, the superior stamen free, shorter than the others united to above the middle into a tube; anthers uniform, oblong; ovary subsessile, contracted into a long slender uncinate style geniculate and conspicuously glandular below the apex; stigma introrse, oblique; ovules 2 or 3, rarely 4, attached to the inner angle of the ovary, superposed. Legume small, oblong or linear-falcate, compressed, tipped with the remnants of the style, indehiscent, pendent. Seeds usually solitary, rarely 2, oblong-reniform, without albumen; seed-coat coriaceous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons flat, fleshy; radicle superior, short and erect.

Eysenhardtia is confined to the warmer parts of the New World, and is distributed from western Texas and southern New Mexico and Arizona to southern Mexico, Lower California, and Guatemala. Four species are distinguished; of these three species occur within the territory of the United States, and in northern Mexico, and one species is found only in Guatemala. Lignum nephriticum formerly celebrated in Europe for its reputed medical properties and for the fluorescence of its infusion in spring water is the wood of the shrubby Eysenhardtia polystachya Sarg. of western Texas and Mexico.

Of the North American species one is a small tree.

The generic name is in honor of Karl Wilhelm Eysenhardt (1794—1825), Professor of Botany in the University of Königsberg.

1. Eysenhardtia orthocarpa S. Wats.

Leaves 4′—5′ long, with a pubescent rachis grooved on the upper side, 10—23 pairs of leaflets, and small scarious deciduous stipules; leaflets oval, rounded or slightly emarginate at apex, with a stout petiolule and minute scarious deciduous stipels, pale gray-green, glabrous or slightly puberulous on the upper surface, conspicuously glandular, with chestnut-brown glands, and pubescent especially on the prominent midrib on the lower surface, reticulate-veined, ½′—⅔′ long, ⅛′—¼′ wide, with thickened slightly revolute margins. Flowers opening in May, nearly ½′ long, on slender pubescent pedicels, in axillary pubescent spikes 3′—4′ long; calyx many-ribbed, pubescent, conspicuously glandular, half as long as the white petals ciliate on the margins, and of nearly equal size and shape. Fruit ½′ long, pendent, nearly straight or slightly falcate, thickened on the edges, with usually a single seed near the apex; seed compressed, light reddish brown, ¼′ long.

A tree, occasionally 18°—20° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, separating 3° or 4° above the ground into a number of slender branches, and branchlets coated when they first appear with ashy gray pubescence disappearing during the second year, and then reddish brown and roughened by numerous glandular excrescences; or more often a low rigid shrub. Bark of the trunk about /16′ thick, light gray, and broken into large plate-like scales, exfoliating on the surface into thin layers. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, light reddish brown, with thin clear yellow sapwood of 7 or 8 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Dry gravelly soil, on arid slopes and dry ridges; valley of the upper Guadalupe River, western Texas, to the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita Mountains, southern Arizona, and southward into northern Mexico; arborescent in the United States only near the summit of the Santa Catalina Mountains.

14. Dalea L.

Glandular-punctate herbs, small shrubs, or rarely trees. Leaves alternate, unequally pinnate, or simple in the arborescent species; stipules generally minute, subulate, deciduous. Flowers in racemes, their bracts membranaceous or setaceous, broad, concave above, glandular-dentate; calyx 5-toothed or lobed, persistent, the divisions nearly equal; corolla papilionaceous; petals unguiculate; standard cordate, free, inserted in the bottom of the tubular disk connate to the calyx-tube, rather shorter than the wing- and keel-petals, the claws adnate to and jointed upon the staminal tube; stamens 10, sometimes 9 through the suppression of the superior stamen, united into a tube cleft above and cup-shaped toward the base; anthers uniform, often surmounted by a gland; ovary sessile or short-stalked, contracted into a slender subulate style, with a minute terminal stigma; ovules 4—6 attached to the inner angle of the ovary, superposed. Legume ovoid, sometimes conspicuously ribbed, more or less inclosed in the calyx, membranaceous, indehiscent, 1-seeded; seed reniform, without albumen; testa coriaceous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons broad and flat; radicle superior, accumbently reflexed.

Dalea is confined to the New World, where it is distributed from the central, western, and southwestern regions of the United States through Mexico and Central America to Peru, Chile, and the Galapagos Islands; usually herbs or low undershrubs, one species of the United States occasionally assumes the habit and attains the size of a small tree.

The generic name is in honor of Samuel Dale (1659—1739), an English botanist and writer on the materia medica.

1. Dalea spinosa A. Gray. Smoke Tree.

Leaves few, simple, irregularly scattered near the base of the spinose branchlets, cuneate or linear-oblong, sessile or nearly sessile, marked by few large glands, especially on the entire wavy margins, hoary-pubescent, ¾′—1′ long, ⅛′—½′ wide, with a broad midrib and three pairs of lateral ribs, on vigorous young shoots or seedling plants remotely and coarsely serrate; remaining only for a few weeks on the branches; stipules minute, ovate, acute, pubescent. Flowers ½′ long, appearing in June on short pedicels from the axils of minute bracts, in racemes 1′—1½′ long, their rachis slender, spinescent, hoary-pubescent; calyx-tube 10-ribbed, with usually 5 glands between the dorsal ribs, the lobes short, ovate, rounded or more or less ciliate on the margins, reflexed at maturity; petals dark violet blue, standard cordate, reflexed, furnished at base of the blade with two conspicuous glands, wing- and keel-petals attached to the staminal tube by their base only and nearly equal in size, rounded at apex, more or less irregularly lobed at base; ovary pubescent, glandular punctate. Fruit ovoid, pubescent, glandular, twice as long as the calyx, tipped with the remnants of the recurved style; seed ⅛′ long, pale brown irregularly marked with dark spots.

A tree, 18°—20° high, with a short stout contorted trunk sometimes 20′ in diameter and divided near the ground into several upright branches, and branchlets reduced to slender sharp spines coated with fine pubescence, bearing minute nearly triangular scarious caducous bracts, marked by occasional glandular fistules, and developed from stouter branches hoary-pubescent when young, becoming glabrous in their third year and covered with pale brown bark roughened with lenticels and as it exfoliates showing the pale green inner bark; more often a low rigid intricately branched shrub. Bark of the trunk dark gray-brown, nearly ¼′ thick, deeply furrowed, and roughened on the surface by small persistent scales. Wood light, soft, rather close-grained, walnut-brown in color, with nearly white sapwood of 12—15 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Valley of the lower Gila River, Arizona, through the Colorado Desert to San Felipe and Palm Springs, Riverside County, California, and southward into Sonora and Lower California.

15. Robinia L. Locust.

Trees or shrubs, with slender terete or slightly many-angled zigzag branchlets, without a terminal bud, minute naked subpetiolar depressed-globose axillary buds 3 or 4 together, superposed, protected collectively in a depression by a scale-like covering lined on the inner surface with a thick coat of tomentum and opening in early spring, its divisions persistent during the season on the base of the branchlet developed usually from the upper bud. Leaves unequally pinnate, petiolate, deciduous; leaflets entire, penniveined, stipellate, reticulate-venulose, petiolulate; stipules setaceous, becoming spinescent at maturity, persistent. Flowers on long pedicels, in short pendulous racemes from the axils of leaves of the year, with small acuminate caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx campanulate, 5-toothed or cut, the upper lobes shorter than the others, cohering for part of their length; corolla papilionaceous, petals shortly unguiculate, inserted on a tubular disk glandular on the inner surface and connate with the base of the calyx-tube; standard large, reflexed, barely longer than the wing- and keel-petals, naked on the inner surface, obcordate, reflexed; wings oblong-falcate, free; keel-petals incurved, obtuse, united below; stamens 10, inserted with the petals, the 9 inferior united into a tube often enlarged at base and cleft on the upper side, the superior stamen free at the base and connate in the middle with the staminal tube, or finally free; anthers ovoid; ovary inserted at the base of the calyx, linear-oblong, stipitate; style subulate, inflexed, bearded along the inner side near the apex, with a small terminal stigma; ovules numerous, suspended from the inner angle of the ovary, in two ranks, superposed. Legumes in drooping many-fruited racemes, many-seeded, linear, compressed, almost sessile, 2-valved, the seed-bearing suture narrow-winged; valves thin and membranaceous. Seed oblong-oblique, transverse, attached by a stout persistent incurved funicle enlarged at the point of attachment to the placenta; seed-coat thin, crustaceous; albumen thin, membranaceous; cotyledons oval, fleshy; radicle short, much reflexed, accumbent.

Robinia with seven or eight species is confined to the United States and Mexico; of the species found in the United States three are arborescent.

The generic name commemorates the botanical labors of Jean and Vespasien Robin, arborists and herbalists of the kings of France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Species of the United States.

Legume without glandular hairs; flowers white.

1. R. Pseudoacacia (A, C).

Legume glandular-hispid (in the arborescent form of No. 2); flowers rose color.

Glands not viscid.

2. R. neo-Mexicana (F, H).

Glands exuding a clammy sticky substance.

3. R. viscosa (A).

1. Robinia Pseudoacacia L. Locust. Acacia. Yellow Locust.

Leaves 8′—14′ long, with a slender puberulous petiole, and 7—19 leaflets; turning pale clear yellow late in the autumn just before falling; stipules ½′ long, linear, subulate, membranaceous, at first pubescent and tipped with small tufts of caducous brown hairs, becoming straight or slightly recurved spines persistent for many years and ultimately often more than 1′ in length; leaflets oval, rounded or slightly truncate and minutely apiculate at apex, when they unfold covered with caducous silvery pubescence, at maturity very thin, dull dark blue-green above, pale below, glabrous with the exception of the slight pubescence on the under side of the slender midrib, 1½′—2′ long and ½′—¾′ wide; petiolules stout, ⅛′—¼′ in length; stipules minute, linear, membranaceous, early deciduous. Flowers opening in May or early in June, filled with nectar, very fragrant, on slender pedicels ½′ long and dark red or red tinged with green, in loose puberulous racemes 4′—5′ long; calyx conspicuously gibbous on the upper side, ciliate on the margins, dark green blotched with red, especially on the upper side, the lower lobe acuminate and much longer than the nearly triangular lateral and upper lobes; petals pure white, with a large pale yellow blotch marking the inner surface of the standard. Fruit ripening late in the autumn, 3′—4′ long and ½′ wide, with bright red-brown valves, usually 4—8-seeded, mostly persistent until the end of winter or early spring; seeds /16′ long, dark orange-brown, with irregular darker markings.

A tree, 70°—80° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, small brittle usually erect branches forming a narrow oblong head, and slender terete or sometimes slightly many-angled branchlets marked by small pale scattered lenticels, coated at first with short appressed silvery white deciduous pubescence, pale green and puberulous during their first summer, becoming light reddish brown and glabrous or nearly glabrous toward autumn. Bark of the trunk 1′—1½′ thick, deeply furrowed, dark brown tinged with red, and covered by small square persistent scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard and strong, close-grained, very durable in contact with the ground, brown or rarely light green, with pale yellow sapwood of 2 or 3 layers of annual growth; formerly extensively used in shipbuilding, for all sorts of posts, in construction and turnery; preferred for treenails, and valued as fuel.

Distribution. Slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, central and southern Pennsylvania, to northern Georgia; in southern Illinois; now widely naturalized in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and perhaps indigenous as a low shrub in northeastern and western Arkansas and in Oklahoma; nowhere common; in the Appalachian forest growing singly or in small groups up to altitudes of 3500°; most abundant and of its largest size on the western slopes of the Alleghanies of West Virginia; often spreading by underground stems into broad thickets of small and often stunted trees.

Formerly much planted as an ornamental and timber tree in the eastern states; very frequently used in Europe, with numerous seminal varieties of peculiar foliage or habit, for the decoration of parks and gardens, and to shade the streets of cities.

2. Robinia neo-mexicana A. Gray. Locust.

In its typical form a shrub only a few feet high. The hairs on the fruit not glandular-hispid.

Distribution. Mountain cañons and plains, Grant County, New Mexico. Passing into

Robinia neo-mexicana var. luxurians Dieck.

Leaves 6′—12′ long, with a stout pubescent petiole, and 15—21 leaflets; stipules chartaceous, covered with long silky brown hairs, becoming at maturity stout slightly recurved flat brown or bright red spines sometimes 1′ or more long; leaflets elliptic-oblong, rounded or sometimes slightly emarginate at the mucronate apex, cuneate or sometimes rounded at base, 1½′ long, and 1′ broad, coated at first on the lower surface and on the margins with soft brown hairs, and silvery-pubescent on the upper surface, and at maturity thin, pale blue-green, conspicuously reticulate-veined, and glabrous with the exception of the slightly puberulous lower side of the slender midrib and stout petiolule; stipels membranaceous, ¼′ long, often recurved, sometimes persistent through the season. Flowers appearing in May, 1′ long, on slender pedicels ½′ in length and covered with stout glandular hairs, in short compact many-flowered glandular-hispid long-stemmed racemes; corolla pale rose color or sometimes almost white (f. albiflora Kusche), with a broad standard and wing-petals. Fruit 3′—4′ long, about ⅓′ wide, glandular-hispid, with a narrow wing; seeds dark brown, slightly mottled, /16′ long.

A tree, sometimes 20°—25° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, and branchlets at first pale and coated with rusty brown glandular hairs increasing in length during the summer, and slightly puberulous, bright reddish brown, often covered with a glaucous bloom, and marked by a few small scattered pale lenticels during their first winter. Bark of the trunk thin, slightly furrowed, light brown, the surface separating into small plate-like scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, close-grained, yellow streaked with brown, with light yellow sapwood of 4 or 5 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Banks of mountain streams; valley of the Purgatory River, Colorado, through northern New Mexico and Arizona to southern Utah; on the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita Mountains, southern Arizona up to altitudes of 7000°; probably of its largest size near Trinidad, Las Animas County, Colorado.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states, and in western Europe.

× Robinia Holdtii Beiss, a hybrid of Robinia neo-mexicana var. luxurians and R. Pseudoacacia, has appeared in a Colorado nursery and is occasionally cultivated.

3. Robinia viscosa Vent. Clammy Locust.

Leaves 7′—12′ long, with a stout nearly terete dark glandular-hispid clammy petiole, and 13—21 leaflets; stipules subulate, chartaceous, often deciduous or developing into short slender spines; leaflets ovate, sometimes acuminate, mucronate, rounded or pointed at apex, and cuneate at base, when they unfold covered below with soft white pubescence, and slightly puberulous above, and at maturity dark green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale and pubescent on the lower surface, especially on the slender yellow midrib and primary veins and on the stout glandular-hispid petiolule, 1½′—2′ long and ⅔′ wide; stipels slender, deciduous. Flowers ⅔′ long, almost inodorous, appearing in June, on slender hairy pedicels from the axils of large lanceolate acuminate dark-red bracts contracted at apex into a long setaceous point exserted beyond the flower-buds and mostly deciduous before the flowers open, in short crowded glandular-hispid racemes; calyx dark red, coated on the outer surface and on the margins of the subulate lobes with long pale hairs; corolla pale rose or flesh color, with a narrow standard marked on the inner face by a pale yellow blotch, and broad wing-petals. Fruit narrow-winged, glandular-hispid, 2′—3½′ long; seeds ⅛′ long, dark reddish brown and mottled.

A tree, 30°—40° high, with a trunk 10′—12′ in diameter, slender spreading branches, and dark reddish brown branchlets covered with conspicuous dark glandular hairs exuding, like those on the petioles and legumes, a clammy, sticky substance, during the first winter bright red-brown, covered with small black lenticels and very sticky, becoming in their second year light brown and dry; or a shrub, often only 5°—6° tall. Bark of the trunk ⅛′ thick, smooth, dark brown tinged with red. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, brown, with light yellow sapwood of 2 or 3 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Mountains of North and South Carolina up to altitudes of 3000°, and now naturalized in many parts of the United States east of the Mississippi River and as far north as eastern Massachusetts.

Often planted as an ornament of parks and gardens in all countries with a temperate climate.

16. Olneya A. Gray.

A tree, with thin scaly bark, and stout terete hoary-canescent slightly angled branchlets armed with stout infrastipular spines. Leaves equally or unequally pinnate, hoary-canescent, persistent, 10—15-foliolulate, destitute of stipules and stipels, short-petiolate, often fascicled in earlier axils; leaflets oblong or obovate, entire, obtuse, often mucronate at apex, cuneate at base, rigid, short-petiolulate, reticulate-veined, with a broad conspicuous midrib. Flowers on stout pedicels rather longer than the calyx, in short axillary few-flowered hoary-canescent racemes, with acute minute bracts and bractlets deciduous before the expansion of the flowers; calyx hoary-canescent, the lobes ovate, obtuse, almost equal, the two upper lobes connate nearly throughout; disk cupuliform, adnate to the tube of the calyx; corolla papilionaceous; petals unguiculate, purple or violet, inserted on the disk; standard orbicular, deeply emarginate, reflexed, furnished at base of the blade with two infolded ear-shaped appendages covering 2 prominent callosites; wing-petals oblique, oblong, slightly auriculate at base of blade on the upper side, free, as long as the broad obtuse incurved keel-petals; stamens 10, the superior stamen free, filling the slit in the tube formed by the union of the others; filaments filiform; anthers of the same length, oblong, uniform; ovary sessile or slightly stipitate, pilose; style inflexed, bearded above the middle; stigma thick and fleshy, depressed-capitate; ovules numerous, suspended from the inner angle of the ovary, superposed. Legume oblique, compressed, glandular-hairy, light brown, 2-valved, often tipped with the remnants of the long persistent style, 1—5-seeded, the valves thick and coriaceous, becoming unequally and interruptedly convex at maturity. Seeds broad-ovoid, slightly angled on the ventral side, suspended by a short thick funicle, without albumen; seed-coat thin, membranaceous, bright chestnut-brown and lustrous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons thick and fleshy, accumbent on the short incurved radicle.

The genus is represented by a single species of southern Arizona, California, and northwestern Mexico.

Olneya is in memory of Stephen T. Olney (1812—1878), author of a catalogue of the plants of Rhode Island.

1. Olneya tesota A. Gray. Ironwood.

Leaves 1′—2½′ long, with leaflets ½′—¾′ in length, appearing in June and persistent until the following spring. Flowers unfolding with the leaves, nearly ½′ long. Fruit light brown, very glandular, fully grown at midsummer, ripening before the end of August, 2′—2½′ long.

A tree, sometimes 25°—30° high, with a short trunk occasionally 18′ in diameter and usually divided 4°—6° above the ground into a number of stout upright branches, and slender branchlets thickly coated at first with hoary-canescent pubescence disappearing early in their second year, and then pale green and more or less spotted and streaked with red, becoming pale brown in their third season, their spines straight or slightly curved, very sharp and rigid, ⅛′—¼′ long, and persistent at least during two years. Bark of the trunk thin, exfoliating in long longitudinal dark red-brown scales. Wood very heavy, hard and strong, although brittle, rich dark brown striped with red, with thin clear yellow sapwood; valued as fuel and sometimes manufactured into canes and other small objects.

Distribution. Sides of low depressions and arroyos in the desert; valley of the Colorado River south of the Mohave Mountains, California, to southwestern Arizona, and to Sonora and Lower California; most abundant and of its largest size in Sonora.

17. Erythrina L.

Trees or shrubs with erect terete stems and branches, often armed with recurved prickles, or rarely herbaceous. Leaves alternate, pinnately 3-foliolate; stipules small, the stipels gland-like. Flowers papilionaceous, showy, in pairs or fascicled on the rachis of axillary leafless racemes, or in terminal racemes furnished at base with leaf-like bracts; calyx oblique, truncate or 5-toothed; corolla usually scarlet; petals free; standard broad or elongated, erect or spreading, nearly sessile or raised on a long stalk; wing-petals small or wanting, longer or shorter than the keel-petals; stamens 10, united into a tube split on the upper side, the tenth and upper stamen separate or all 10 united; anthers uniform; ovary stipitate, 1-celled; styles subulate, incurved, naked; stigmas small, terminal; ovules numerous, amphitropous, the micropyle superior. Fruit a stipitate linear-falcate pod narrowed at ends, compressed or subterete, constricted or undulate between the seeds, 2-valved; seeds reniform, attached by an oblong basal hilum, exalbuminous.

From twenty-five to thirty species are recognized, all inhabitants of tropical and semitropical regions. In the gardens of warm countries several of the species are cultivated for the beauty of their large and brilliant flowers.

The name is from ἐρυθρός, in allusion to the color of the flowers.

1. Erythrina herbacea var. arborea Chapm.

Leaves persistent, usually 6′—8′ long, with a slender petiole and rachis occasionally armed with small recurved prickles; leaflets thin, deltoid to hastate, concave-cuneate at the broad base, the lateral lobes broad and rounded and much shorter than the elongated terminal lobe gradually narrowed and rounded at apex, thin, yellow-green, smooth and glabrous, 2¼′—3½′ long and 1½′—2¼′ wide; petiolules slender, about ¼′ in length, with minute gland-like stipels. Flowers 2′—2¼′ long on short slender pedicels, in narrow leafless racemes 8′—13′ long, the lower flowers fading before those at the apex of the raceme open; calyx dark red, truncate and ciliate at the mouth, ¼′ in length; corolla scarlet; the standard narrow, oblanceolate, gradually narrowed into the long base, about ¼′ long, closely infolded and then more or less falcate; wing-petals slightly longer than the calyx and longer than the keel-petals; stamens diadelphous. Fruit compressed, constricted between the seeds, apiculate at apex, from 4′—6′ long, gradually narrowed into a stout stipitate base often ¾′ in length; seeds compressed, bright scarlet, lustrous, /12′ long and about ⅙′ wide, with a dark hilum.

A tree, rarely 25°—30° high, with a tall trunk occasionally a foot in diameter, small erect and spreading branches, and slender yellow-green branchlets armed with short broad recurved spines; more often shrubby and, except in size and habit, not distinguishable from Erythrina herbacea L., an herb with slender spreading stems occasionally 3° long, and common in sandy soil from the coast region of North Carolina to Florida, western Mississippi and Louisiana, and in the valley of the lower Rio Grande, Texas. Bark thin red-brown marked by longitudinal rows of large circular elevated lenticle-like excrescences.

Distribution. Florida, coast region from Miami, Dade County, to the southern shores of Tampa Bay, and on the southern keys.

18. Ichthyomethia P. Brown.

Trees or shrubs with thin scaly bark and stout terete branchlets without a terminal bud. Leaves unequally pinnate, long-petiolate; leaflets opposite. Flowers papilionaceous, on slender pedicels enlarged at the end, bibracteolate, in lateral panicles, appearing before the leaves; bracts and bractlets minute, scarious; calyx campanulate, 2-lipped, the upper lip emarginate, the lower 3-lobed, persistent, the lobes imbricated in the bud, short and broad; petals inserted on an annular glandular disk adnate to the interior of the calyx-tube, unguiculate, white tinged with red, rarely yellowish white; stamens 10, the filament of the upper stamen free at base only, united above with the others into a long tube; anthers oblong, uniform, versatile; ovary sessile, contracted into a filiform incurved style, with a capitate stigma; ovules numerous, suspended from the inner angle of the ovary, 2-ranked. Legume linear, compressed, raised on a stalk longer than the calyx, slightly contracted between the numerous seeds, tomentose-canescent or glabrate, thin-walled, indehiscent, longitudinally 4-winged, the wings developed from the dorsal and ventral sutures, broad or narrow, continuous or interrupted by the abortion of some of the ovules, membranaceous, their margins undulate or irregularly cut; seeds oval, compressed, without albumen, laterally attached by a short thick funicle; seed-coat thin, crustaceous, red-brown, not lustrous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons plano-convex, oval, fleshy; radicle short, inflexed.

Seven or eight species are now recognized, inhabitants of tropical America where they are distributed from southern Florida, through the West Indies to southern Mexico and Guatemala. Piscidia from the bark of the roots of Ichthyomethia is sometimes used medicinally.

The generic name, from ἰχθύς and μέθυ, indicates the Carib use of one of the species.

1. Ichthyomethia piscipula A. S. Hitch. Jamaica Dogwood.

Leaves 4′—9′ long, 5—11-foliolate, with stout petioles; leaflets oval, obovate or broad-oblong, obtuse or short-acuminate at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, with thick pubescent petiolules, when they first appear coated like the petioles with rufous hairs, at maturity coriaceous, glabrous and dark green above, pale and more or less clothed below with rufous or canescent pubescence along the elevated conspicuous midrib, and numerous thin veins arching and united at the entire undulate thickened margins, or covered with soft pubescence below; deciduous in spring. Flowers opening in May, ¾′ long, on slender pedicels sometimes 1½′ in length, in canescent ovoid densely flowered or elongated thyrsoid panicles, with short 3—12-flowered branches, from the axils of the fallen leaves of the previous year; calyx canescent, 5-lobed; petals white tinged with red, the standard hoary-canescent on the outer surface, marked with a green blotch on the inner surface, its claw as long as the calyx; ovary sericeous. Fruit ripening in July and August, broad-winged, light brown, 3′—4′ long and 1′—1½′ across the wings.

A tree, 40°—50° high, with a trunk often 2°—3° in diameter, stout erect sometimes contorted branches forming an irregular head, and branches coated when they first appear with thick rufous pubescence disappearing during their first summer, becoming glabrous or glabrate, bright reddish brown, conspicuously marked by oblong longitudinal lenticels, and large elevated horizontal slightly obcordate leaf-scars marked by the ends of numerous small scattered fibro-vascular bundles. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, ⅛′—¼′ long, with thin hoary-pubescent scales. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, gray more or less blotched with olive and covered with small square scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, clear yellow-brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood, very durable in contact with the ground; largely used in Florida in boat-building, and for firewood and charcoal. In the West Indies the bark of the roots, young branches and powdered leaves were used by the Caribs to stupefy fish and facilitate their capture.

Distribution. One of the commonest of the tropical trees of Florida from the shores of Bay Biscayne to the southern keys, and on the west coast from the neighborhood of Peace Creek to Cape Sable; on many of the Antilles and in southern Mexico. Sterile branches collected by C. T. Simpson in the neighborhood of Cape Sable indicate that a second species occurs in Florida.

XXIV. Zygophyllaceæ.

Trees or shrubs, with hard resinous wood, and opposite pinnate leaves, with stipules. Flowers perfect, regular; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals as many as the calyx-lobes, imbricated in the bud, hypogynous; stamens twice as many as the petals, hypogynous; filaments distinct; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 5-celled; styles united, terminating in a minute 5-lobed or entire stigma; ovules numerous, suspended, anatropous; raphe ventral. Fruit capsular, angled or winged, separating at maturity into 5 indehiscent carpels. Seeds solitary or in pairs in each cell; seed-coat thick and fleshy; embryo straight or nearly so; cotyledons oval, foliaceous; radicle short, superior.

Of the fourteen genera of this family, mostly confined to the warmer parts of the northern hemisphere, one only, Guaiacum, has an arborescent representative in the United States.

1. Guaiacum L. Lignum-vitæ.

Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, and stout terete alternate branchlets often with swollen nodes. Leaves petiolate, abruptly pinnate, with 2—14 entire reticulate-veined leaflets, and minute mostly deciduous stipules. Flowers terminal, solitary or umbellate-fascicled, pedicellate, from the axils of minute deciduous bracts; calyx-lobes slightly united at base, unequal, deciduous; petals broad-obovate, more or less unguiculate; stamens inserted on the inconspicuous elevated disk opposite to and alternate with the petals; filaments filiform, naked or bearing at base on the inner surface a minute membranaceous scale; anthers oblong; ovary raised on a short thick stalk, obovoid or clavate, 5-lobed, contracted into a slender subulate acute style; ovules 8—10 in each cell, suspended in pairs from the inner angle. Fruit fleshy, 5-celled, smooth, coriaceous, narrowed at base into a short stem, with 5 wing-like angles, ventrally and sometimes dorsally dehiscent. Seeds suspended, ovoid; seed-coat easily separable from the hard bony nucleus closely invested with a thin indistinct tegumen.

Guaiacum is confined to the New World, and is distributed from southern Florida through the Antilles, Mexico, and Central America to the Andes of Peru. Seven or eight species are distinguished.

Guaiacum produces heavy close-grained wood, the cells of the heartwood filled with dark-colored resin. The lignum-vitæ of commerce, largely used for the sheaths of ship-blocks, mallets, skittle-balls, ten-pin balls, etc., is produced principally by Guaiacum officinale L., of the Antilles and South America, and by Guaiacum sanctum L. Guaiacum resin is a stimulating diaphoretic sometimes used in the treatment of gout and rheumatism.

The generic name is from the Carib Guaiaco or Guayacon, the aboriginal name of the Lignum-vitæ.

1. Guaiacum sanctum L.

Leaves 3′ or 4′ long, with 3 or 4 pairs of obliquely oblong or obovate mucronate subsessile leaflets, membranaceous, light green and puberulous below when they first appear, becoming subcoriaceous, glabrous, dark green and lustrous on both surfaces, 1′ long and nearly ½′ wide, persistent until the appearance of the new growth in March or early April of the following year; stipules acuminate, tipped with a short mucro, pubescent, ⅛′ long, usually caducous, but sometimes persistent during the season. Flowers ⅔′ in diameter, opening almost immediately after the appearance of the new growth, and continuing to open during several weeks, solitary on a slender pubescent pedicel shorter than the leaves and usually produced 3 or 4 together at the end of the branches from the axils of the upper leaves, their bracts acuminate, minute, the 2 lateral rather smaller than the others; calyx-lobes obovate, slightly pubescent, especially on the outer surface near the base, and smaller than the blue petals twisted below from left to right, and thus appearing to be obliquely inserted; filaments naked; ovary obovoid, prominently 5-angled, glabrous, contracted at base into a short stout stalk. Fruit broad-obovoid, ¾′ long, ½′ wide, bright orange color, opening at maturity by the splitting of the thick rather fleshy valves; seeds black, with a thick fleshy scarlet aril-like outer coat.

A gnarled round-headed tree, sometimes 25°—30° high, with a short stout trunk occasionally 2½°—3° in diameter, slender pendulous branches, and branchlets conspicuously enlarged at the nodes, slightly angled, pubescent when they first appear, becoming in their second year glabrous, nearly white, and roughened by numerous small excrescences. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ⅛′ thick, separating on the surface into thin white scales. Wood dark green or yellow-brown, with thin clear yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Keys of southern Florida from Key West eastward; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.

XXV. Malpigiaceæ.

Trees, shrubs or vines with opposite simple entire often stipulate persistent leaves; stipules deciduous or 0. Flowers usually perfect or dimorphous, on pedicels articulate near their base from the axils of a bract and furnished below the articulation with two bractlets, in terminal racemes, corymbs or umbels; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes generally imbricated in the bud, usually glandular; petals 5, convolute in the bud, unguiculate; disk inconspicuous; stamens usually 10; filaments generally united at base; anthers short, 2-celled, introrse; ovary of 3 rarely of 2 carpels more or less united into a 3-celled ovary; styles usually 3, distinct, rarely united; stigma terminal or sublateral, inconspicuous; ovule solitary, between orthotropous and anatropous, often uncinate, ascending on the pendulous funicle; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous or samaroid; seeds without albumen, suspended from below the apex of the cell; testa thin; embryo curved or coiled, rarely straight; cotyledons often unequal; radicle short, superior.

This family of nearly sixty genera is confined to tropical and subtropical America, with one arborescent species in the United States.

1. Byrsonima Rich.

Trees, or shrubs often scandent, with astringent bark and leaves; stipules usually connate, rarely partly connate or free. Flowers in terminal racemes; lobes of the calyx furnished on the back with two glands; petals unguiculate, their slender claws reflexed in anthesis, the limb concave, penniveined; stamens 10, filaments short, united and bearded at base; ovary 3-celled; styles 3, distinct, oblong or subulate, gradually narrowed into the acute stigma. Fruit a 3-celled drupe; endocarp bony or woody, angled; seeds ovoid to subglobose; embryo circinate, with slender coiled cotyledons; radicle oblong.

Byrsonima with nearly one hundred species is widely distributed in tropical America from southern Florida, where one species occurs, and the Bahama Islands through the West Indies, Mexico, Brazil and Bolivia.

The generic name is from βύρς, a hide, in allusion to the use of the bark in tanning.

1. Byrsonima lucida DC.

Leaves oblong-obovate, rounded or occasionally abruptly short-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, coriaceous, glabrous, dark green and lustrous above, paler, dull and reticulate-venulose beneath, 1′—1½′ long and ¼′—½′ wide, with thickened revolute margins, a slender midrib and obscure primary veins; petioles stout, ⅛′—¼′ in length; stipules free, minute, acute, deciduous. Flowers ¼′ in diameter, appearing throughout the year on slender puberulous pedicels ¼′ to nearly ½′ long from the axils of acuminate caducous bracts a third longer than their acuminate bractlets, in terminal 5—12-flowered erect racemes ¾′—1½′ in length; calyx cup-shaped, persistent under the fruit, with short nearly triangular lobes much shorter than the white petals turning yellow, pink or rose color; styles elongated and persistent on the fruit. Fruit subglobose, greenish, about ¼′ in diameter, the flesh thin and dry; stone woody, rugose, thick-walled, lustrous on the inner surface; seed ovoid, acute, filling the cavity of the stone, pale yellow.

A small tree, rarely 20° high with a trunk 10′ in diameter, covered with pale bark, spreading branches forming a flat-topped head and slender terete pale gray branchlets; more often a many-stemmed shrub.

Distribution. Florida, in sandy soil on the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on several of the southern keys; on the Bahamas and many of the Antilles; in Florida arborescent on Long Key in the Everglades, and on Big Pine Key.

XXVI. Rutaceæ.

Trees or shrubs, abounding in a pungent or bitter aromatic volatile oil, with simple or compound usually glandular-punctate leaves, without stipules or rarely with stipular spines. Flowers regular, perfect or unisexual, in paniculate or corymbose cymes; calyx 3—5-lobed, the lobes more or less united at base, imbricated in the bud; petals 3—5, imbricated in the bud; stamens as many or twice as many as the petals; filaments distinct or united below; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistils 1—4, separate or united into a compound ovary sessile or stipitate on a glandular disk; styles mostly united; ovules usually 2 in each cell of the ovary, pendulous, anatropous or amphitropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit of 2-valved carpels, a samara, drupe or capsule. Seeds solitary or several; seed-coat bony or crustaceous, furrowed or punctate; embryo axile in fleshy albumen; radicle short, superior.

Of this large family, widely distributed over the warm and temperate parts of the earth’s surface, four genera only have arborescent representatives in the United States. Citrus Aurantium L., the Bitter-sweet Orange, a native of Asia, has long been naturalized in the peninsula of Florida, where other species of this genus have escaped from cultivation and are now growing spontaneously.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Genera of the United States.

Fruit of 1—5, 2-valved 1-seeded carpels; flowers diœcious or polygamous.

1. Xanthoxylum.

Fruit of 3 or 4-winged indehiscent 1-seeded carpels; flowers perfect.

2. Helietta.

Fruit a winged samara; flowers polygamous.

3. Ptelea.

Fruit a 1-seeded drupe; flowers perfect or polygamous.

4. Amyris.

1. Xanthoxylum L.

Trees or shrubs, with acrid aromatic bark, pellucid aromatic-punctate fruit and foliage, scaly buds, and usually stipular spines. Leaves alternate, unequally or rarely equally pinnate; leaflets generally opposite, often oblique at the base, entire or crenulate. Flowers small, diœcious or polygamous, in axillary or terminal broad or contracted pedunculate cymes; calyx and petals hypogynous; disk small or obscure; stamens as many as the petals and alternate with them, hypogynous, effete, rudimentary or wanting in the female flower; filaments filiform or subulate; pistils 1—5, oblique, raised on the summit of a fleshy gynophore, connivent, sometimes slightly united below, rudimentary, simple or 2—5-parted in the sterile flower; ovaries 1-celled; styles short and slender, more or less united toward the summit; stigmas capitate; ovules collateral, pendulous from the inner angle of the cell. Fruit of 1—5 coriaceous or fleshy 1-seeded carpels, broad-obovoid, sessile or stipitate, ventrally dehiscent. Seed solitary oblong or globose, suspended on a slender funicle, often hanging from the carpel at maturity; seed-coat black, shining, conspicuously marked by the broad hilum; cotyledons oval or orbicular, foliaceous.

Xanthoxylum is widely distributed through tropical and extratropical regions and is most abundant in tropical America. It is represented in North America by one shrub and by four arborescent species of the southern states. The resin contained in the bark, especially in that of the roots, is a powerful stimulant and tonic occasionally used in medicine.

The generic name is from ξανθός and ξύλον.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Species of the United States.

Flowers in axillary contracted cymes; branches armed with stipular spines.

1. X. Fagara (D, E).

Flowers in terminal cymes.

Calyx-lobes and petals 5; leaves unequally pinnate.

Leaves deciduous; branches armed with stout spines.

2. X. clava-Herculis (C).

Leaves persistent; branches without spines.

3. X. flavum (D).

Calyx-lobes and petals 3; leaves equally pinnate, persistent.

4. X. coriaceum (D).

1. Xanthoxylum Fagara Sarg. Wild Lime.

Fagara Fagara Small.

Leaves persistent, 3′—4′ long, with a broad-winged jointed petiole, and 7—9 obovate leaflets rounded or emarginate at apex, minutely crenulate-toothed above the middle, sessile, ½′ long or less, coriaceous, glandular-punctate, bright green and lustrous, with minute hooked deciduous stipular prickles. Flowers on short pedicels from the axils of minute ovate obtuse deciduous bracts, in short axillary contracted cymes, appearing singly or in pairs from April until June, on branches of the previous year, from minute dark brown globular buds, the staminate and pistillate flowers on different trees; sepals 4, membranaceous, much shorter than the 4 ovate yellow-green petals; stamens 4, with slender exserted filaments, 0 in the pistillate flower; pistils 2, with ovate sessile ovaries gradually contracted into long slender subulate exserted styles united near apex and crowned with obliquely spreading stigmas, rudimentary in the staminate flower. Fruit ripening in September, obovoid, rusty brown and rugose, ⅛′—¼′ long; seed dark and lustrous.

A tree, occasionally 25°—30° high, with a slender often inclining trunk, fastigiate branches, and more or less zigzag slender dark gray branchlets armed with sharp hooked stipular spines; more frequently a tall or low shrub. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, the smooth light gray surface broken into small appressed persistent scales. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, brown tinged with red, with thin yellow sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Coast and islands of southern Florida, and Texas from Matagorda Bay to the Rio Grande and in San Saba, Bandera, and Brown Counties; one of the commonest of the south Florida plants, and arborescent on the rich hummock soil of Elliott’s Key and the shores of Bay Biscayne; in Texas generally shrubby; common in northern Mexico, and widely distributed through the Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central and South America to Brazil and Peru.

2. Xanthoxylum clava-Herculis L. Prickly Ash. Toothache-tree.

Fagara clava-Herculis Small.

Leaves 5′—8′ long, with a stout pubescent or glabrous spiny petiole, and 3—9 pairs of ovate or ovate-lanceolate sometimes slightly falcate subcoriaceous leaflets usually oblique at base, crenulate-serrate, sessile or short-stalked, 1′—2½′ long, green and lustrous above, paler and often somewhat pubescent below, especially when they unfold; persistent until late in the winter or until the appearance of the new leaves in the early spring. Flowers on slender pedicels ⅓′—¼′ long, from the axils of minute lanceolate deciduous bracts, in ample wide-branched cymes 4′—5′ long and 2′—3′ wide, appearing in very early spring, when the leaves are about half grown, the staminate and pistillate flowers on different individuals; sepals minute, membranaceous, persistent, barely one fourth the length of the oval green petals ⅛′—¼′ long; stamens 5, with slender filiform filaments, conspicuously exserted from the male flowers, rudimentary or wanting in the female flowers; pistils 3, rarely 2, with sessile ovaries and short styles crowned by a slightly 2-lobed stigma. Fruit ripening in May and June, in dense often nearly globose clusters; mature carpels obliquely ovoid, 1-seeded, chestnut-brown, ¼′ long, with a rugose or pitted surface; seeds hanging at maturity outside the carpels.

A round-headed tree, 25°—30°, or exceptionally 50° high, with a short trunk 12′—18′ in diameter, numerous branches spreading nearly at right angles, and stout branchlets covered when they first appear with brown pubescence, becoming glabrous and light gray in their second year, and marked by small glandular spots and by large elevated obcordate leaf-scars displaying a row of large fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and armed with stout straight or sometimes slightly curved sharp chestnut-brown spines ½′ or more long, with a flattened enlarged base; or often a low shrub. Winter-buds short, obtuse, dark brown or nearly black. Bark of the trunk barely /16′ thick, light gray, and roughened by corky tubercles, with ovoid dilated bases sometimes 1′ or more across and thick and rounded at apex. Wood light, soft, close-grained, and light brown, with yellow sapwood. The bark, which is collected in large quantities by negroes in the southern states, is used as a cure for toothache and in the treatment of rheumatism.

Distribution. Southeastern Virginia southward near the coast to the shores of Bay Biscayne and Bocagrande, Lee County, Florida, and westward through the Gulf states to northern Louisiana, southern Arkansas (near Arkadelphia, Clark County), and eastern Oklahoma, and through Texas to the valley of the Colorado River ranging northward to Tarrant and Dallas Counties; in the Atlantic states not abundant, and confined to the immediate neighborhood of the coast, growing in light sandy soil and often on the low bluffs of islands or on river banks; from the Gulf coast ranging farther inland, especially west of the Mississippi River; most abundant in eastern Texas, and of its largest size on the rich intervale lands of the streams flowing into the Trinity River. In western Texas a form occurs (var. fruticosum Gray), with short sometimes 3-foliolate more or less pubescent leaves, with small ovate or oblong blunt and conspicuous crenulate rather coriaceous leaflets; this is the common form of western Texas, growing usually as a low shrub.

3. Xanthoxylum flavum Vahl. Satinwood.

Fagara flava Kr. & Urb.

Leaves unequally pinnate, persistent, usually 6′—9′ long, with a stout glandular petiole enlarged at base, and usually 5, sometimes 3, or rarely 1 leaflet, unfolding in Florida during the month of June, and then densely covered with tomentum, and at maturity sparingly hairy on the petiole and on the midrib of the ovate-lanceolate or elliptic, obtuse, often slightly falcate leaflets, sometimes oblique at base, nearly sessile or long-stalked, 2′—3′ long, 1½′—2′ broad, entire or slightly crenulate, coriaceous, pale yellow-green and conspicuously marked by large pellucid glands. Flowers appearing in Florida in June, on a slender pubescent pedicel ¼′ or more long, in wide-spreading pubescent sessile cymes, the male and female on different trees; calyx-lobes 5, minute, acuminate, ciliate on the margins, barely one eighth of the length of the ovate greenish white petals reflexed when the flowers are fully expanded; stamens 5, with slender filaments much longer than the petals, 0 in the pistillate flower; pistils 2 or sometimes 1, with a stipitate obovate ovary and a short style with a spreading entire stigma, minute and depressed in the staminate flower. Fruit ripening in autumn and early winter and sometimes persistent until the spring of the following year; mature carpels obliquely obovoid, short-stalked, 1-seeded, pale chestnut-brown at maturity, about ⅓′ long, faintly marked by minute glands.

A round-headed tree, 30°—35° high, with a trunk 12′—18′ in diameter, and stout brittle branchlets coated at first with thick silky pubescence, becoming light gray, rugose, conspicuously marked by large triangular leaf-scars, and puberulous during their second and third years. Winter-buds narrow-acuminate, ½′ long, coated with short thick pale tomentum. Bark of the trunk ¼′ thick, with a smooth light gray surface divided by shallow furrows and broken into numerous short appressed scales. Wood very heavy, exceedingly hard, brittle, not strong, light orange-colored, with thin rather lighter colored sapwood; occasionally used in southern Florida in the manufacture of furniture, for the handles of tools, and other objects of domestic use.

Distribution. Florida, on the Marquesas Keys and on South Bahia Honda and Boca Chica Keys; on Bermuda, the Bahama Islands, San Domingo, and Porto Rico.

4. Xanthoxylum coriaceum A. Richard.

Fagara coriacea Kr. & Urb.

Leaves equally pinnate, persistent, 2′—3′ long, with a stout grooved petiole, and 6—8 oblong-obovate stalked coriaceous dark yellow-green lustrous leaflets rounded or rarely emarginate at apex, 1′—1¾′ long and ⅝′—¾′ wide, with much-thickened revolute entire margins, a stout midrib, slender obscure spreading primary veins, and reticulate veinlets. Flowers yellow, appearing in March on short stout pedicels, in densely flowered terminal cymes; sepals 3, minute, united below, free above, much shorter than the 3 oval or obovate petals rounded at apex; stamens 3; filaments about as long as the petals; anthers ovoid or oval; ovary 3-celled, globose-ovoid; styles thick, 3 (teste Urban). Fruit: mature fruit not seen.

A glabrous tree, sometimes 18°—20° high, with a slender stem, and stout red-brown branches unarmed in Florida specimens, or in the West Indies furnished with short recurved spines; more often shrubby.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Bay Biscayne and near Fort Lauderdale, Dade County; rare; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba.

2. Helietta Tul.

Trees or shrubs, with slender terete branchlets. Leaves opposite, long-petiolate, trifoliolate, persistent; leaflets sessile, obovate-oblong, obtuse, entire or crenate, subcoriaceous, grandular-punctate, the terminal the largest. Flowers regular, perfect, on slender bibracteolate pedicels, in terminal or axillary panicles; calyx 3 or 4-parted, the divisions imbricated in the bud, slightly united at base, persistent; petals 3 or 4, imbricated in the bud, hypogynous, oblong, concave, glandular-punctate, reflexed at maturity; stamens as many as the petals inserted under the disk; filaments shorter than the petals, slightly flattened, glabrous; anthers ovoid, cordate at base, attached on the back below the middle; disk free, cup-shaped, erect, subcorrugated, with a sinuate margin, 4-lobed, the lobes entire or crenate and opposite the petals; ovary minute, sessile, depressed, 3 or 4-lobed, glandular-verrucose or minutely pilose, the lateral lobes slightly compressed, 4-celled; styles united into a single slender column crowned by the globose 3—4-lobed stigma; ovules collateral, anatropous. Fruit obconic, composed of 3 or 4 dry woody 1-seeded indehiscent carpels with a cartilaginous endocarp and with a prominent horizontal wing, separating at maturity. Seed linear-oblong, seed-coat crustaceous, fragile, black; cotyledons straight, obtuse.

Helietta is distributed from the valley of the lower Rio Grande in Texas to Brazil and Paraguay. Four species are recognized, one species extending across the Rio Grande into western Texas.

The generic name is in honor of Lewis Théodore Hélie (1804—1867), a distinguished French physician.

1. Helietta parvifolia Benth.

Leaves 1½′—2′ long, with a stout slightly club-shaped petiole, at first puberulent, soon becoming glabrous, and oblong or narrow-obovate leaflets rounded or sometimes slightly emarginate at apex, gradually and regularly contracted at base, entire or slightly and remotely crenulate-serrate, yellow-green and lustrous above, paler below, conspicuously marked by black glandular dots, the terminal leaflet ½′—1½′ long, sometimes ½′ wide, and nearly twice as large as the others; persistent on the branches until early spring. Flowers appearing in April and May, on slender pedicels covered at first like the petioles and calyx with short dense pubescence, with minute acuminate early deciduous bracts, in dichotymously branched subsessile panicles on branchlets of the year from the axils of the upper leaves; petals 4, white, ovate, ⅛′ long, with scattered hairs on the outer surface, and thin scabrous margins, and four or five times longer than the 4 calyx-lobes; stamens 4; ovary 4-lobed, glandular-punctate like the slender style. Fruit ripening in October, oblong, ¼′—⅓′ long, with a rigid broad-ovate sometimes slightly falcate wing rounded at apex, ½′ long, and conspicuously reticulate-veined.

A slender tree, 20°—25° high, with a trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, rather erect branches forming a small irregular head, and slender pale branchlets covered with minute wart-like excrescences, slightly puberulous when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, and marked during their second year by small inconspicuous leaf-scars; or a low shrub. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, covered with dark brown closely appressed scales separating in large irregular patches and leaving when they fall a smooth pale yellow surface. Wood hard, very heavy, close-grained, light orange-brown, with rather lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Often forming thickets of considerable extent and abundant near Rio Grande, Starr County, Texas; mesas south of the lower Rio Grande; of its largest size and tree-like in habit on the limestone ridges of the Sierra Madre of Nuevo Leon.

3. Ptelea L.

Small unarmed trees or shrubs, with smooth bitter bark, slender terete branchlets, without terminal buds, small depressed lateral buds covered with pale tomentum, and nearly inclosed by the narrow obcordate leaf-scars marked by the ends of 2 or 3 small fibro-vascular bundles, and thick fleshy acrid roots. Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, without stipules, long-petiolate, usually trifoliolate, the leaflets conduplicate in the bud, ovate or oblong, entire or crenulate-serrate, punctate with pellucid dots. Flowers polygamous, on slender bracteolate pedicels, in terminal or compound cymes, greenish white; calyx 4 or 5-parted; petals 4 or 5, hypogynous; stamens 3 or 4, alternate with and as long as the petals, hypogynous, much shorter in the pistillate flower with imperfect or rudimentary anthers; filaments subulate, more or less pilose, especially toward the base; anthers ovoid or cordate; pistil raised on a short gynophore, abortive and nearly sessile in the staminate flower; ovary compressed, 2—3-celled; style short; stigma 2—3-lobed; ovules superposed, amphitropous, the upper ovule only fertilized. Fruit a 2 or 3-celled broad-winged indehiscent samara surrounded by a reticulate wing or rarely wingless. Seed oblong, acute at apex, rounded at base, ascending; seed-coat smooth or slightly wrinkled, coriaceous; cotyledons ovate-oblong.

Ptelea is confined to the United States and Mexico, where four or five species are known; of these one is a small tree. The bark and foliage of Ptelea is bitter and strong-scented and possesses tonic properties.

The generic name is from πτελέα, a classical name of the Elm-tree.

1. Ptelea trifoliata L. Hop-tree. Wafer Ash.

Leaves rarely 5-foliolate on vigorous shoots; leaflets sessile, ovate or oblong, pointed, the terminal leaflet generally larger and more gradually contracted at base than the others, entire or finely serrate, covered at first with short close pubescence, becoming glabrous and rather coriaceous at maturity, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 4′—6′ long, 2½′—3′ wide, with a prominent midrib and primary veins; turning clear yellow in the autumn before falling; petioles stout, thickened at base, 2½′—3′ in length. Flowers appearing in early spring on slender pubescent pedicels 1′—1½′ long, the pistillate and staminate flowers produced together, the staminate usually less numerous and falling soon after the opening of the anther-cells; calyx and petals pubescent; ovary puberulous. Fruit with a thin almost orbicular sometimes slightly obovate wing, nearly 1′ across, on a long slender reflexed pedicel, in dense drooping clusters remaining on the branches through the winter; seeds ⅓′ long, dark red-brown.

A round-headed tree, rarely 20°—25° high, with a straight slender trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, small spreading or erect branches, and slender branchlets covered at first with short fine pubescence, becoming glabrous, dark brown and lustrous, and marked by wart-like excrescences and by the conspicuous leaf-scars; more often a low spreading shrub. Winter-buds depressed, nearly round, pale or almost white. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, yellow-brown, with thin hardly distinguishable sapwood of 6—8 layers of annual growth. The bitter bark of the roots is sometimes used in the form of tinctures and fluid extracts as a tonic, and the fruit is occasionally employed domestically as a substitute for hops in brewing beer.

Distribution. Generally on rocky slopes near the borders of the forest, often in the shade of other trees; Long Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and westward through southwestern Ontario (Point Pelee) and southern Michigan to southern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, and southward to Georgia, Alabama, eastern Louisiana and through Missouri and Arkansas to southeastern Kansas, eastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas. A form with leaflets soft-pubescent on the lower surface (var. mollis T. & G.) occurs in the south Atlantic states from North Carolina to Florida.

Often planted as an ornament of parks and gardens.

4. Amyris L.

Glabrous glandular-punctate trees or shrubs, with balsamic resinous juices. Leaves opposite or rarely opposite and alternate, 3-foliolate, without stipules, persistent; leaflets opposite, petiolulate, entire or crenate. Flowers white, minute, on slender bibracteolate pedicels, usually in 3-flowered corymbs in terminal or axillary branched panicles; calyx 4-toothed, persistent; petals 4, hypogynous, much larger than the calyx-lobes, spreading at maturity; disk of the staminate flower inconspicuous, that of the pistillate and perfect flowers thickened and pulvinate; stamens 8, hypogynous, opposite and alternate with the petals; filaments filiform, exserted; anthers ovoid, attached on the back below the middle; ovary ellipsoid or ovoid, 1-celled, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style short, terminal, or wanting; stigma capitate; ovules collateral, suspended near the apex of the ovary, anatropous. Fruit a globose or ovoid aromatic drupe; stone 1-seeded by abortion, chartaceous. Seed pendulous, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy, glandular-punctate.

Amyris is confined to tropical America and northern Mexico. Of the twelve or fourteen species which have been distinguished two extend into the territory of the United States; one of these is a small West Indian tree common on the shores of southern Florida, and the other, Amyris parvifolia A. Gray, a Mexican shrub, grows in Texas near Corpus Christi, Neuces County, and near the mouth of the Rio Grande. Amyris is fragrant and yields a balsamic aromatic and stimulant resin, and heavy hard close-grained wood valuable as fuel and sometimes used in cabinet-making.

The generic name, from μύῤῥα, relates to the balsamic properties of the plants of this genus.

1. Amyris elemifera L. Torch Wood.

Leaves 3-foliolate, with slender petioles 1′—1½′ long, and broad-ovate or rounded obtuse acute or acuminate leaflets cuneate at base, or sometimes ovate-lanceolate or rhombic-lanceolate, entire or remotely crenulate, coriaceous, lustrous, dark yellow-green, conspicuously reticulate-veined, covered below with minute glandular dots, 1′—2½′ long, with slender petiolules, that of the terminal leaflet often 1′ or more long and twice as long as those of the lateral leaflets. Flowers in terminal pedunculate or nearly sessile panicles appearing in Florida from August to December. Fruit ripening in the spring, ovoid, often nearly ½′ long, black covered with a glaucous bloom, with thin flesh filled with an aromatic oil and of rather agreeable flavor.

A slender tree, 40°—50° high, with a trunk sometimes, although rarely, a foot in diameter, and slender terete branchlets covered with wart-like excrescences, at first light brown, becoming gray during their second season. Bark of the trunk thin, gray-brown, slightly furrowed and broken into short appressed scales. Winter-buds acute, flattened, ⅛′ long, with broad-ovate scales slightly keeled on the back. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, close-grained, very resinous, extremely durable, light orange color, with thin rather lighter colored sapwood of 12—15 layers of annual growth; often used as fuel.

Distribution. Florida, Mosquito Inlet, Volusia County, to the southern keys; common in the immediate neighborhood of the coast to the rich hummocks of the interior, and of its largest size on Umbrella Key; on the Bahama Islands and on many of the Antilles.

XXVII. Simaroubaceæ.

Trees or shrubs, with bitter juice. Leaves alternate, pinnate, persistent, without stipules. Flowers regular, diœcious; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 5, imbricated in the bud, hypogynous; stamens 10, inserted under the disk; pistil of 5 united carpels; ovary 5-celled; ovule solitary in each cell, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a drupe.

Of the thirty genera of this family, confined chiefly to the tropics and to the warmer parts of the northern hemisphere, three have arborescent representatives in the flora of North America. Ailanthus altissima Swing., the so-called Tree of Heaven, a native of northern China, has been largely planted as an ornament and shade tree in the eastern United States, and is now sparingly naturalized southward.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Genera of the United States.

Fruit a drupe or berry.

Ovary deeply 5-lobed; fruit drupaceous.

1. Simarouba. (D).

Ovary not lobed; fruit baccate.

2. Picramnia. (D).

Fruit a 3-winged samara.

3. Alvaradoa. (D).

1. Simarouba Aubl.

Trees, with resinous juice and tonic properties. Leaves long-petiolate, abruptly pinnate; leaflets usually alternate, long-petiolulate, conduplicate in the bud, entire, coriaceous, glabrous or slightly puberulous below, feather-veined. Flowers in elongated widely branched axillary and terminal panicles; disk cup-shaped, depressed in the sterile flower, pubescent; stamens as long as the petals, in the pistillate flower reduced to minute scales; filaments free, filiform, thickened toward the base, inserted on the back of a minute ciliate scale; anthers oblong, slightly emarginate, introrse, attached on the back below the middle, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary sessile on the disk, deeply lobed, the lobes opposite the petals, rudimentary, lobulate, minute or wanting in the staminate flower; styles united into a short column, with a 3—5-lobed spreading stigma. Fruit composed of 1—5 sessile spreading drupes; flesh thin; stone crustaceous. Seeds inverse, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy, the radicle very short, partly included between the cotyledons, superior.

Simarouba with four species is confined to tropical America, and is distributed from the coast of southern Florida to Brazil and Guatemala. The plants of this genus contain a small amount of resin, a volatile oil, and an exceedingly bitter principle, quasin, with tonic properties.

The generic name is formed from Simarouba, the Carib name of one of the species.

1. Simarouba glauca DC. Paradise-tree.

Leaves 6′—10′ long, glabrous, with a stout petiole 2′—3′ in length, and usually 6 pairs of opposite or alternate oblong-obovate or oval leaflets, rounded or slightly mucronate at apex, usually oblique at base, membranaceous and dark red when they first unfold, soon becoming coriaceous, dark green and very lustrous above, pale and glaucous below, 2′—3′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with revolute margins, a prominent midrib, remote conspicuous primary veins, and stout petiolules ¼′—⅓′ in length. Flowers appearing in early spring, ⅛′—¼′ long, on short stout club-shaped pedicels, in panicles 12′—18′ long, and 18′—24′ broad, with a stout pale glaucous stem and spreading branches from the axils of small acute scarious deciduous bracts; petals fleshy, oval, often acute, pale yellow, and four or five times as long as the glaucous calyx. Fruit nearly fully grown by the end of April and then bright scarlet, about 1′ long, ovoid, sometimes falcate, and slightly angled on the ventral suture, becoming dark purple when fully ripe; seeds papillose, orange-brown, about ¾′ long.

A round-headed tree, growing occasionally in Florida to the height of 50°, with a straight trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, slender spreading branches, and stout glabrous branchlets pale green when they first appear, becoming light brown before the end of the summer, rugose and conspicuously marked during their second season by the large oval leaf-scars. Bark of the trunk ½′—¾′ thick, light red-brown and broken on the surface into broad thick appressed scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown, with thick rather darker colored sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, from Cape Canaveral and the shores of Bay Biscayne to the southern keys; in Cuba, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Brazil.

2. Picramnia Sw.

Trees or shrubs, with bitter principles and slender terete branchlets. Leaves alternate, unequally pinnate, persistent, the leaflets subopposite to alternate, entire. Flowers diœcious, occasionally perfect, small, glomerate on long pendulous spikes or racemes opposite the leaves; calyx 3—5-parted, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 3—5, imbricated in the bud, rarely wanting; stamens 3—5, opposite the petals, inserted under the lobed depressed disk, in the pistillate flower reduced to linear scales or wanting; filaments naked; anthers 2-celled, introrse, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary inserted on the disk, 2 or 3-celled, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style 2 or 3-lobed, the lobes recurved and stigmatic on the inner surface, or crowned by a 2 or 3-lobed sessile stigma; ovules 2 in each cell, collateral, attached at the inner angle of the cell near its apex, anatropous; raphe narrow; micropyle superior. Fruit baccate, oblong to oblong-obovoid, 2 or by abortion 1-celled, the cells 1-seeded. Seeds filling the cavity of the cell, plano-convex, pendulous from the apex of the cell; hilum minute, apical, the raphe conspicuous; testa membranaceous, adherent to the exalbuminous undivided embryo; radicle superior, inconspicuous.

Picramnia, with about twenty species, is confined to the tropical and subtropical regions of the New World, one species extending into southern Florida. The bitter principle in the plants of this genus makes the bark of several of them useful in domestic remedies.

The generic name, from πικρός and θάμνος, is in reference to this bitter principle.

1. Picramnia pentandra Sw.

Leaves 8′—12′ long, 5—9-foliolate, with a slender rachis and petiole; leaflets ovate-oblong, abruptly acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, coriaceous, glabrous, dark green and lustrous above, 1½′—2½′ long and ¾′—1′ wide, with thickened slightly revolute margins, a prominent midrib, slender primary veins and thin reticulate veinlets; petiolules stout, /12′—⅙′ long, that of the terminal leaflet often ¾′ in length. Flowers green on short slender pedicels, in slender pubescent racemes 6′—8′ in length; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes oblong-ovate, acuminate, coated on the outer surface with pale hairs; petals 5, acuminate, hirsute, narrower and longer than the calyx-lobes; stamens 5 in the pistillate flower; filaments slender, glabrous, exserted; anthers short-oblong, obtuse; stigma sessile, 2 or 3-lobed. Fruit red becoming nearly black when fully ripe, ⅓′—½′ in length, about ¼′ in diameter; seeds light brown and lustrous.

A slender tree in Florida, occasionally 18°—20° high, with a straight trunk 4′ or 5′ in diameter, and slender light yellow-green or pale brown branchlets slightly pubescent during their first season; more often a shrub. Bark thin, close, yellowish brown.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Bay Biscayne to the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands and several of the Antilles, and in Colombia.

3. Alvaradoa Liebm.

Trees or shrubs, with bitter juices and slender terete pubescent branchlets. Leaves alternate, crowded at the end of the branches, unequally pinnate, long-petiolate, many-foliolulate, persistent; leaflets alternate, entire; stipules and stipels none. Flowers in many-flowered axillary or terminal racemes. Fruit a 2 or 3-winged samara, 3-celled below the middle, 2-celled above, crowned with remnants of the styles. Seed erect, compressed; testa membranaceous; albumen none; embryo oblong-compressed; cotyledons flat; radicle inferior, very short.

An anomalous genus, by several authors doubtfully referred to Sapindaceæ, but chiefly on account of its bitter properties now placed in Simaroubaceæ. It consists of three species; of these the widely distributed Alvaradoa amorphoides Liebmann, the type of the genus, occurs in southern Florida. The other species appear to be confined to the islands of Jamaica and Cuba.

1. Alvaradoa amorphoides Liebm.

Leaves 4′—12′ long, with 21—41 leaflets and slender petioles; leaflets oblong-obovate, obtuse or occasionally minutely mucronate at apex, gradually narrowed below into a short slender pubescent petiolule, slightly thickened and revolute on the margins, dark green above, pale pubescent below, ½′—¾′ long, about ¼′ wide, with a slender midrib and obscure primary veins. Flowers regular, minute, diœcious, on slender accrescent pubescent pedicels from the axils of ovate minute deciduous bracts, in many-flowered hoary-tomentose racemes 3′—4½′ long, the pistillate accrescent, becoming 4′—8′ in length; calyx campanulate, 5-parted, the lobes ovate, acute, hoary-tomentose on the outer surface; disk 5-lobed; staminate flowers appearing sessile in the bud; their pedicels only slightly accrescent; petals filiform; filaments slender, elongated, slightly villose toward the base, inserted between the lobes of the disk and alternate with the calyx-lobes; anthers introrse, 2-celled, united except at apex, opening longitudinally by marginal slits, their connective orbicular, conspicuous; pistillate flowers on short accrescent pedicels; petals 0 or very rarely present; stamens 0; ovary compressed, unequally 3-angled, villose-hirsute on the margins, 3-celled at base, with two small compressed empty cells, the third larger with two anatropous ovules; styles 2, subulate or recurved, often of unequal length, stigmatic above the middle. Fruit lanceolate, acuminate, narrowly 2-winged, ciliate on the margins with long spreading hairs, slightly tinged with red, ¾′ in length and about two-thirds as long as its slender hairy pedicel; seeds acute at ends, pale yellow, ¼′ long.

A slender tree, in Florida occasionally 30° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, and slender branchlets hoary-pubescent during their first year becoming dull red-brown, glabrous and marked by numerous small pale lenticels and by the large obovate obcordate scars of fallen leaves showing the ends of three conspicuous equidistant fibro-vascular bundles; in Florida more often a shrub.

Distribution. Florida, Everglade Keys (Timbo Hummock near Gozman’s Homestead, Caldwell’s Hummock and Long Key), Dade County; in the Bahama Islands, and in Cuba, southern Mexico, Central America and Argentina.

XXVIII. Burseraceæ.

Trees or shrubs, with resinous bark and wood. Leaves alternate, pinnate, without stipules. Flowers perfect or polygamous, in clustered racemes or panicles; calyx 4—5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, persistent; petals 4—5, imbricated in the bud, distinct or slightly united, deciduous; stamens twice as many as the petals, inserted under the annular or cup-shaped disk; filaments distinct, subulate; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistil of 2—5 united carpels; ovary 2—5-celled; styles united; stigma 2—5-lobed; ovules 2 in each cell, pendulous, collateral, anatropous; micropyle superior; raphe ventral. Fruit drupaceous. Seeds without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; embryo straight; cotyledons foliaceous; radicle short, superior.

Of the sixteen genera of this family, which is widely distributed through the tropics of the two hemispheres, one only, Bursera, occurs in the United States, reaching the shores of southern Florida with an arborescent species, and southern California and Arizona with another species.

1. Bursera Jacq.

Trees, with balsamic resinous juices. Leaves unequally pinnate; leaflets opposite, petiolulate, entire or subserrate, thin, or coriaceous. Flowers polygamous, small, on fascicled or rarely solitary pedicels, in short or elongated lateral simple or branched panicles; calyx minute, membranaceous; petals inserted on the base of an annular crenate disk, reflexed at maturity above the middle; stamens inserted on the base of the disk; anthers oblong, attached on the back above the base, usually effete in the pistillate flower; ovary sessile, ovoid, 3-celled, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style short; stigma capitate, obtuse, 3-lobed; ovules suspended below the apex from the central angle. Fruit with a valvate epicarp, globose or oblong-oblique, indistinctly 3-angled; flesh coriaceo-carnose, 2—3-valved; nutlets 1—3, usually solitary, adnate to a persistent fleshy axis, 1-celled, 1-seeded, covered with a thin membranaceous coat. Seed ovoid, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; hilum ventral, below the apex; embryo straight; cotyledons contortuplicate.

Bursera with about forty species is confined to southern Florida, the Antilles, the southwestern United States and to Mexico, and Central and South America.

The generic name is in honor of Joachim Burser (1593—1649), a German botanist and physician.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Species of the United States.

Leaves 5—7 rarely 3-foliolate, their rachis and petiole without wings; staminate flowers in elongated many-flowered racemes.

1. B. Simaruba (D).

Leaves usually 10—22-foliolate, their rachis and petiole wing-margined; staminate flowers in short, usually 3-flowered clusters.

2. B. microphylla (G, H).

1. Bursera Simaruba Sarg. Gumbo Limbo. West Indian Birch.

Leaves confined to the end of the branchlets, 6′—8′ long, 4′—8′ wide, with a long slender petiole, and usually 5, rarely 3 or 7 leaflets coriaceous at maturity, oblong-ovate, oblique at base, contracted at apex into a long or short point, 2½′—3′ long, 1½′—2′ broad, with stout petiolules often ½′ long; deciduous in early winter or occasionally persistent until the following spring. Flowers about /16′ in diameter, appearing before the leaves or as they unfold, on slender pedicels ⅓′—½′ long, in slender raceme-like panicles, those of the staminate plant 4′—5′ long or nearly twice as long as those of the pistillate plant; calyx-lobes and petals 5; petals ovate-lanceolate, acute, revolute on the margins, and nearly four times as long as the slender acute calyx-lobes; stamens of the staminate flower as long as the petals and in the pistillate flower not more than half as long, with smaller often effete anthers. Fruit in short raceme-like clusters, ¼′—⅓′ long, 3-angled, with a thick dark red outer coat, separating readily into 3 broad-ovate valves, and containing 1 or rarely 2 bony triangular nutlets rounded at base, pointed at apex, and covered with a thin membranaceous light pink coat; seeds 1 or 2, triangular, rose color.

A glabrous tree, 50°—60° high, with a trunk 2½°—3° in diameter, massive primary branches spreading nearly at right angles, and stout terete branchlets light gray during their first season, becoming during their second year reddish brown, covered with lenticular spots and conspicuously marked by large elevated obcordate yellow leaf-scars. Winter-buds short, rounded, obtuse, with broad-ovate dark red scales slightly scarious on the margins. Bark of the trunk and large branches 1′ thick, glandular dotted, separating freely into thin papery bright red-brown scales exposing in falling the dark red-brown or gray inner bark. Wood spongy, very light, exceedingly soft and weak, light brown, with thick sapwood, soon becoming discolored by decay. Pieces of the trunk and large branches set in the ground soon produce roots and grow rapidly into large trees. The aromatic resin obtained by incisions cut in the trunk was formerly used in the treatment of gout, and in the West Indies is manufactured into varnish. An infusion of the leaves is sometimes used in Florida as a substitute for tea.

Distribution. Florida, from Cape Canaveral to the southern keys, and on the west coast from Terra Ceia Island, Manatee County, Plagida, De Sota County, and Gasparilla Island southward; one of the largest and most common of the south Florida trees, and the only one which sheds its foliage during the autumn and winter; on most of the West Indian islands, in tropical Mexico, Guatemala, New Granada, and Venezuela.

2. Bursera microphylla A. Gray.

Leaves glabrous, deciduous, 1′—1¼′ long, with a slender narrowly winged rachis and petiole and usually 10—20 oblong or oblong-obovate leaflets rounded at apex, obliquely cuneate at base, sessile, about ¼′ long and /12′ wide. Flowers appearing in June before the leaves, ⅙′ long on slender pedicels from the axils of minute acuminate caducous bracts, in mostly 3-flowered clusters ¼′ in length; staminate, calyx-lobes ovate, acute; petals 5, lanceolate, acuminate, revolute on the margins, 3 or 4 times longer than the calyx-lobes, white; stamens shorter than the petals; pistillate flower not seen. Fruit ripening in October, ellipsoid or slightly obovoid, solitary, drooping on the thickened pedicel ⅕′ in length, 3-angled, ¼′ long, red, glabrous, splitting into three valves; nutlets usually ovoid, acute, narrow at base, thin walled, 3-angled, gray with a deep depression at base.

A tree, rarely 10°—12° high, with a short trunk 2½′—3′ in diameter, stout erect and spreading branches, forming a wide round-topped head, and slender glabrous red branchlets, roughened during their first year by the crowded scars of fallen leaves; more often a low shrub. Bark of the trunk pale yellow, separating into membranaceous scales, the outer layer thin and firm, the inner layer corky, reddish brown, ½′ thick. Wood hard, close-grained, pale yellow.

Distribution. Colorado Desert, between Fish Creek and Carriso Creek about twenty-five miles from the Mexican Boundary, on “banks of dry washes, in hard sterile soil covered with boulders” (E. H. Davis), Imperial County, California; near Maricopa, Pinal County, Arizona, and in Lower California and Sonora; reported as a tree only from California.

XXIX. Meliaceæ.

Trees or shrubs, with hard wood and alternate pinnate leaves, without stipules. Flowers in panicles, perfect, regular; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes contorted (in Swietenia) in the bud, persistent; petals 5, convolute in the bud; stamens inserted at the base of the disk; filaments united into a tube; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 3—5-celled, free, surrounded at base by an annular or cup-shaped disk; styles united, dilated into a 5-lobed stigma; ovules numerous in each cell, suspended, semianatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a capsule (in Swietenia) or drupe. Seeds often winged; embryo with leafy cotyledons.

A family with about forty genera chiefly confined to the tropics, with a single representative, Swietenia, in southern Florida. Melia Azedarach L., of this family, the China-tree or Pride of India, with drupaceous fruits, has long been cultivated in the southern states, where it now often grows spontaneously.

1. Swietenia Jacq.

Trees, with heavy dark red wood. Leaves abruptly pinnate, glabrous, long-petiolate, persistent; leaflets opposite, petiolulate, usually oblique at base. Flowers small, in axillary or subterminal panicles produced near the end of the branches; calyx minute; petals spreading; staminal tube urn-shaped, connate with the petals, 10-lobed, the lobes convolute in the bud; anthers 10, fixed by the back below the sinuses of the staminal tube, included; ovary ovoid, 5-celled, the cells opposite the petals; style erect, longer than the tube of the stamens; stigma discoid, 5-rayed. Fruit a 5-celled 5-valved capsule septicidally dehiscent from the base, the valves separating from a persistent 5-angled axis thickened toward the apex and 5-winged toward the base. Seeds suspended from near the summit of the axis, imbricated in 2 ranks, compressed, emarginate, produced above into a long membranaceous wing with the hilum at its apex and transversed by the raphe; embryo transverse; cotyledons conferruminate with each other and with the thin fleshy albumen; radicle short, papillæform.

Swietenia with five species is confined to tropical America from southern Florida where one species occurs, to Venezuela, western and southwestern Mexico, and the east coast of Central America.

The generic name is in honor of Baron von Swieten (1700—1772), the distinguished Dutch physician, founder of the Botanic Garden and of the Medical School at Vienna.

1. Swietenia mahagoni Jacq. Mahogany.

Leaves 4′—6′ long, with a slender glabrous petiole thickened at base and 3 or 4 pairs of ovate-lanceolate leaflets rounded at base on the upper side, narrow-cuneate or nearly straight on the lower side, entire, coriaceous, pale yellow-green or slightly rufous on the under surface, 3′—4′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, with a prominent reddish brown midrib, conspicuous reticulate veins, and a stout grooved petiolule ¼′ long. Flowers appearing in July and August on slender puberulous pedicels, bibracteolate near the middle, 1 or 2 together at the end of the branches of slender panicles in the axils of leaves of the year; calyx glabrous, cup-shaped, much shorter than the ovate elliptic petals ⅛′ long and slightly emarginate at apex. Fruit ripening in the autumn or early winter, long-stalked, ovoid, rounded at apex narrowed at base, 4′—5′ long and 2½′ broad, with thick dark brown valves rugose and pitted on the surface, its axis obovoid 3′ or 4′ long, 1′—1½′ thick, dark red-brown, marked near the apex by the dark scars left by the falling seeds; seeds ¾′ long, almost square, thickened at base and nearly one fourth as long as their ovate rugose red-brown wings rounded or truncate at apex and gradually contracted below.

A tree, in Florida rarely more than 40°—50° high or with a trunk exceeding 2° in diameter, and slender glabrous angled branchlets covered during their first season with pale red-brown bark, becoming lighter or gray faintly tinged with red and thickly covered with lenticels during their second year; much larger in the West Indies. Winter-buds about ⅛′ long, with broad-ovate minutely apiculate loosely imbricated light red scales. Bark of the trunk in Florida ½′—⅔′ thick, with a dark red-brown surface broken into short broad rather thick scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard and strong, close-grained, very durable, rich red-brown, becoming darker with age and exposure, with thin yellow sapwood of about 20 layers of annual growth; the most esteemed of all woods for cabinet-making, and also largely used in the interior finish of houses and railroad cars, and formerly in ship and boat-building. The bark is bitter and astringent and has been used as a substitute for quinine in the treatment of intermittent fevers.

Distribution. Florida, hummocks, shores of Bay Biscayne on the Everglade Keys and near Flamingo on White Water Bay, Dade County, on Elliotts Key, Key Largo and Upper Matacombe Key; rare and now nearly exterminated except in the region of Cape Sable; on the Bahama and many of the West Indian islands.

XXX. Euphorbiaceæ.

Trees, shrubs, or herbs, with acrid juice, and alternate stipular leaves. Flowers monœcious or diœcious; calyx 3—6-lobed or parted, the divisions imbricated in the bud, or wanting; corolla 0; stamens 2 or 3, or as many or twice as many as the calyx-lobes; anthers 2-celled, opening longitudinally; ovules 1 or 2 in each cell, suspended, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a drupe or capsule. Seeds albuminous; cotyledons flat, much longer than the superior radicle.

The Euphorbia family, widely distributed over tropical and temperate regions, with some one hundred and thirty genera and over three thousand species, is represented in the United States by three arborescent genera, with only five species, and by many shrubby herbaceous and annual plants.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Genera of the United States.

Fruit drupaceous.

Nutlets usually 1-celled and 1-seeded; stamens as many or twice as many as the calyx-lobes, free.

1. Drypetes.

Nutlets 6—8-celled and 6—8-seeded; stamens 2 or 3, united into a column.

2. Hippomane.

Fruit a 3-lobed capsule splitting into three 2-valved 1-seeded carpels.

1. Drypetes Vahl.

Trees or shrubs, with thick juice, and terete branchlets. Leaves involute in the bud, petiolate, penniveined, coriaceous, persistent; stipules minute, caducous. Flowers axillary, sessile or pedicellate, their pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, ebracteolate, the males in many-flowered clusters, the females solitary or in few-flowered clusters; calyx divided nearly to the base into 4 or 5 lobes rounded or acute at apex, deciduous or persistent under the fruit; stamens inserted under the margin of a flat or concave slightly lobed disk, 0 in the pistillate flower; filaments filiform; anthers ovoid, emarginate, attached on the back near the base, extrorse or introrse, 2-celled, the cells affixed to a broad oblong connective; ovary sessile, ovoid, 1 or rarely 2-celled, with 1 or 2 sessile or subsessile peltate or reniform stigmas, rudimentary or wanting in the staminate flower; ovules collateral, descending, attached to the central angle of the cell, operculate, with a hood-like body developed from the placenta. Fruit drupaceous, ovoid or subglobose, tipped with the withered remnants of the stigmas; flesh thick and corky or thin and crustaceous; stone thick or thin, bony or crustaceous, 1-celled and 1-seeded, or rarely 2-celled and 2-seeded. Seed filling the cavity of the nut; seed-coat crustaceous or membranaceous; embryo erect in thin fleshy albumen.

Drypetes is confined to the tropical regions of the New World, and is distributed from southern Florida through the West Indies to eastern Brazil. Of the eleven species now distinguished, two inhabit the coast-region of southern Florida.

The generic name, from δρύππα, relates to the character of the fruit.

Conspectus of the North American Species.

Calyx 5-lobed; stamens 8; ovary 1-celled; fruit oblong, ivory-white; outer coat thick and mealy; stone thick-walled.

1. D. diversifolia (D).

Calyx 4-lobed; stamens 4; ovary 2-celled; fruit subglobose, bright red; outer coat thin, crustaceous; stone thin-walled.

2. D. lateriflora (D).

1. Drypetes diversifolia Krug & Urb. White Wood.

Drypetes keyensis Krug & Urb.

Leaves appearing in early spring and falling during their second year, entire, oval or oblong, often more or less falcate, acute, acuminate, rounded or rarely emarginate at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, on young plants often spinose-dentate, when they unfold thin and membranaceous, light green or green tinged with red and pilose with scattered pale hairs, and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and lustrous, rather paler on the lower surface than on the upper surface, 3′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with a broad thick pale midrib raised and rounded on the upper side and obscure primary veins arcuate and united near the thick revolute cartilaginous margins and connected by conspicuous coarsely reticulated veinlets; petioles stout, yellow, grooved above, ½′ long; stipules nearly triangular, rather less than /16′ long, caducous. Flowers on pedicels rather shorter than the petioles, opening in early spring from the axils of leaves of the previous year, the staminate in many-flowered clusters, the pistillate usually solitary or occasionally in 2—3-flowered clusters; calyx yellow-green, hirsute on the outer surface, /16′ long, and divided nearly to the base into 5 ovate acute boat-shaped lobes deciduous from the fruit; stamens about 8, inserted on the borders of the slightly lobed pulvinate concave disk; filaments unequal in length, rather longer than the calyx-lobes and a little longer than the broad-ovoid emarginate pilose extrorse anthers, with broad ovate acute connectives; ovary sessile, hirsute, 1-celled, crowned with a broad sessile slightly stalked oblique pulvinate stigma, wanting in the staminate flower. Fruit ripening in the autumn, deciduous at maturity from its stout erect stalk much enlarged at apex and ⅓′ long, ovoid, 1′ long, ivory-white, with thick dry mealy flesh closely investing the light brown stone narrowed at base into a long point, with bony walls ⅛′ thick and penetrated longitudinally by large fibro-vascular bundle-channels; seed oblong, rounded at the ends, nearly ½′ long, covered with a thin membranaceous light brown coat marked by conspicuous veins radiating from the small hilum.

A tree, occasionally 30°—40° high, with a trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, stout usually erect branches forming an oblong round-topped head, and stout branchlets light green tinged with red and covered with pale scattered caducous hairs when they first appear, becoming ashy gray and roughened by numerous elevated circular pale lenticels and later by the large prominent orbicular leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 conspicuous fibro-vascular bundles. Winter-buds minute, obtuse, partly immersed in the bark and coated with brown resin. Bark of the trunk about ½′ thick, smooth, milky white and often marked by large irregular gray or pale brown patches. Wood heavy, hard, not strong, brittle, close-grained, and brown streaked with bright yellow, with thick yellow-brown sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, Flamingo near Cape Sable (C. T. Simpson), Cocoanut Grove (Miss O. Rodham), Dade County, on Key West, Key Largo, Elliotts, Lower Metacombe and Umbrella Keys. One of the rarest of the tropical trees of Florida; on the Bahamas.

2. Drypetes lateriflora Urb. Guiana Plum.

Leaves appearing in Florida in early spring and falling during their second year, oblong, acute or acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed at base, and entire, when they unfold thin and covered with scattered pale hairs, and at maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous, 3′—4′ long and ½′—1½′ wide, with a conspicuous light-colored midrib, rounded above, and pale obscure primary veins arcuate and united near the slightly thickened revolute margins and connected by slender reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, grooved, ¼′ in length. Flowers on pedicels shorter than the petioles, opening late in the autumn or in early winter on branches one or two years old, in the axils of leaves or from leafless nodes, in many or few-flowered clusters; calyx greenish white, hirsute on the outer surface, divided to the base into 4 ovate rounded lobes, persistent under the fruit; stamens 4, inserted under the margin and between the lobes of the flat tomentose disk; filaments slender, exserted; anthers introrse, emarginate, pilose, wanting in the pistillate flower; ovary ovoid, tomentose, 2-celled, with 2 nearly sessile oblique spreading cushion-like stigmas. Fruit ripening during the spring and early summer, subglobose, ⅓′ in diameter, tipped with the conspicuous blackened remnants of the stigmas, bright red, covered with soft pubescence, solitary or in clusters of 2 or 3, deciduous at maturity from its stout stalk enlarged at apex and ¼′ long; flesh thin and crustaceous, closely investing the thin-walled crustaceous stone; seed usually solitary by abortion, obovoid, gibbous, ⅛′ long, narrowed below, narrowed and marked at apex by the elevated pale hilum and on the inner surface of the seed-coat by the broad conspicuous raphe.

A tree, 20°—30° high, with a short trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, small erect branches, and slender branchlets, light green tinged with red when they first appear, becoming in their first winter ashy gray and marked by scattered pale lenticels, and at the end of their second year by the small elevated oval leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 fibro-vascular bundles. Winter-buds minute, acute or obtuse, chestnut-brown, and covered with pale hairs. Bark of the trunk about /16′ thick, light brown tinged with red, the generally smooth surface separating into small irregular scales. Wood heavy, hard, brittle, close-grained, rich dark brown, with thick yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, shores of Bay Biscayne, Dade County, and on many of the southern keys; common on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.

2. Hippomane L.

A glabrous tree, with thick acrid juice, scaly bark, and stout pithy branchlets marked by circular raised lenticels, and oblong or semiorbicular horizontal elevated leaf-scars displaying a row of obscure fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and nearly encircled at the nodes by ring-like scars left by the falling of the stipules. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, covered by many loosely imbricated long-pointed chestnut-brown scales. Leaves alternate, involute in the bud, tardily deciduous, broad-ovate, rounded and abruptly narrowed at apex into a broad point terminating in a slender mucro, rounded or subcordate at base, remotely crenulate-serrate with minute gland-tipped teeth, penniveined, long-petiolate, at first pilose with occasional long pale hairs, soon becoming glabrous, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark yellow-green and lustrous above, paler and dull below, with a stout light yellow midrib raised and rounded on the upper side, and slender primary veins remote, arcuate, and united at some distance from the margins and connected by conspicuous coarsely reticulate veinlets more prominent on the upper than on the lower side; their petioles elongated, slender, rigid, light yellow, rounded below, obscurely grooved above, marked at the apex by large orbicular dark red glands; stipules ovate-lanceolate, abruptly narrowed from a broad base, slightly laciniate near the apex, membranaceous, light chestnut-brown, caducous. Inflorescence terminal, spicate, appearing in early spring usually before the unfolding leaves, the stout fleshy rachis often bearing at the base acute sterile deciduous bracts, or 1 or 2 small leaves, the minute pistillate flowers solitary in their axils or in the axils of ovate acute lanceolate bracts furnished with 2 lateral glandular bractlets; staminate flowers minute, articulate on slender pedicels clustered in 8—15-flowered fascicles in the axils of simple bracts higher on the rachis and extending to its apex; calyx usually 3-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, that of the staminate flower yellow-green, membranaceous, divided below into 3 or sometimes into 2 acute lobes; calyx of the pistillate flower, ovoid, yellow-green, divided nearly to the base into 3 ovate acute concave divisions rounded on the back; stamens 2 or often 3, exserted, more or less connate by their filaments into a stout column, free and spreading at apex; anthers ovoid, light yellow, surmounted by the short prolonged connective, attached on the back below the middle, erect, extrorse; ovary 6—8-celled, narrowed at base, gradually contracted above into a short simple cylindric style separating into 6—8 long radiating flattened abruptly reflexed lobes stigmatic on the inner face; ovule solitary in each cell. Fruit drupaceous, pome-shaped, obscurely 6—8-lobed, raised on a thickened woody stem; skin thin, light yellow-green or yellow and red; flesh thick, lactescent, adherent to the thick-walled rugose deeply winged 6—8-celled, 6—8-seeded subglobose stone flattened at the ends, the cells divided throughout by thin dark radial plates, ultimately separable, penetrated near the summit by oblique canals filled by the funicles of the seeds. Seeds oblong-ovoid, marked by a minute slightly elevated hilum and on the ventral face by an obscure raphe; seed-coat membranaceous, separable into 2 layers, the outer dark, the inner thinner, light brown; embryo surrounded by thick fleshy albumen.

The genus is represented by a single species abounding in exceedingly poisonous caustic sap which produces cutaneous eruptions and when taken internally destroys the mucous membrane; formerly employed by the Caribs to poison arrows.

The generic name is from ἵππος and μανία, and was first used by the Greeks to distinguish some plant with properties excitant to horses.

1. Hippomane Mancinella L. Manchineel.

Leaves 3′—4′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, unfolding in early spring and persistent in Florida until the spring of the following year; petioles 2½′—4′ in length. Flowers opening in March before the leaves of the year; rachis of the inflorescence 4′—6′ long, dark purple, more or less covered with a glaucous bloom. Fruit ripening in the autumn or early winter and often persistent on the branches until after the appearance of the flowers of the following year, 1′—1½′ in diameter, light yellow-green, with a bright red cheek; seeds about ¼′ long.

A tree, in Florida rarely more than 12°—15° high, with a short trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, long spreading pendulous branches forming a handsome round-topped head; in the West Indies often 50°—60° tall, with a trunk occasionally 3° in diameter. Bark of the trunk ¼′—½′ thick, dark brown and broken on the surface into small thick appressed irregularly shaped scales; in the West Indies sometimes smooth, light gray or nearly white. Wood light and soft, close-grained, dark brown, with thick light brown or yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, sandy beaches and dry knolls in the immediate neighborhood of the ocean, shores of White Water Bay and on many of the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands, through the Antilles to the northern countries of South America, and to southern Mexico and the eastern and western coasts of Central America.

3. Gymnanthes Sw.

Glabrous trees or shrubs, with milky juice and slender terete branchlets. Leaves conduplicate in the bud, petiolate, entire or crenulate-serrate, coriaceous, penniveined, persistent; stipules membranaceous, minute, caducous. Flowers monœcious or rarely diœcious; inflorescence buds covered with closely imbricated chestnut-brown scales, lengthening in anthesis, bearing in the upper axils numerous 3-branched clusters of staminate flowers, their branches furnished with minute ovate bracts, and in the lower axils 2 or 3 long-stalked pistillate flowers; calyx of the staminate flower minute or 0; stamens 2 or rarely 3; filaments filiform, inserted on the slightly enlarged torus, free or slightly connate at base; anthers attached on the back below the middle, erect, ovoid, 2-celled, the cells parallel; calyx of the pistillate flower reduced to 3 bract-like scales; ovary ovoid, 3-celled, narrowed into 3 recurved styles free or slightly united at base, stigmatic on their inner face; ovule solitary in each cell. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule separating from the persistent axis into three 2-valved 1-seeded carpels dehiscent on the dorsal suture and partly dehiscent on the ventral suture. Seed ovoid or subglobose, strophiolate; seed-coat crustaceous; embryo erect in fleshy albumen.

Gymnanthes with about ten species is confined to the tropics of the New World and is distributed from southern Florida, where one species occurs, through the West Indies to Mexico and Brazil.

The generic name, from γυμνός and ἄνθος, relates to the structure of the naked flowers.

1. Gymnanthes lucida Sw. Crab Wood.

Leaves oblong-ovate or ovate-lanceolate, obscurely and remotely crenulate-serrate or often entire, when they unfold thin and membranaceous, deeply tinged with red, and glandular on the teeth with minute caducous dark glands, and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface and pale and dull on the lower surface, 2′—3′ long, ⅔′—1½′ wide, with a broad pale midrib raised and rounded on the upper side, obscure primary veins arcuate and united near the margins and connected by prominent coarsely reticulate veinlets; appearing in Florida in early spring and remaining on the branches through their second summer; petioles broad, slightly grooved, about ¼′ in length; stipules ovate, acute, light brown, clothed on the margins with long pale hairs, about /16′ long. Flowers: inflorescence buds appearing in Florida late in the autumn in the axils of leaves of the year and beginning to lengthen in spring, the inflorescence becoming 1½′—2′ long, with a slender glabrous angled rachis, the scales broad-ovate, pointed, concave, rounded and thickened at apex, puberulous and ciliate on the margins, those inclosing the male flowers connate with the flowers and persistent under the calyx, those subtending the female flowers at the base of the inflorescence and not raised on their peduncle. Fruit produced in Florida sparingly, ripening in the autumn, slightly obovoid, dark reddish brown or nearly black, ⅓′ in diameter, covered with thin dry flesh, and pendent on a slender stem 1′ or more in length; seeds ovoid.

A tree, occasionally 20°—30° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter and often irregularly ridged, the rounded ridges spreading near the surface of the ground into broad buttresses, slender erect branches forming a narrow open oblong head, and slender upright branchlets light green more or less deeply shaded with red when they first appear, becoming in their first winter light gray-brown faintly tinged with red and roughened by numerous oblong pale lenticels, ultimately ashy gray and marked at the end of their second year by the semiorbicular elevated leaf-scars displaying the ends of 4 fibro-vascular bundle-scars superposed in pairs. Winter-buds ovoid, obtuse, covered with chestnut-brown scales, about /16′ long. Bark of the trunk dark red-brown, about /16′ thick, separating into large thin scales, in falling displaying the light brown inner bark. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, rich dark brown streaked with yellow, with thick bright yellow sapwood; in Florida occasionally manufactured into canes, and used as fuel.

Distribution. Florida, common in low woods from the shores of Bay Biscayne to the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on many of the southern keys to those of the Marquesas group; on the Bahama Islands, and on many of the Antilles.

XXXI. Anacardiaceæ.

Trees or shrubs, with terete pithy branchlets, resinous juice, and alternate simple or pinnate leaves, without stipules, and scaly or naked buds. Flowers regular, minute, diœcious, polygamo-diœcious, or polygamo-monœcious; calyx-lobes and petals 5, imbricated in the bud or 0; stamens as many as the petals and alternate and inserted with them on the margin or under an hypogynous annular fleshy slightly 5-lobed disk; filaments filiform; anthers oblong, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 1-celled; styles 1—3; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of a slender funicle rising from the base of the cell, anatropous; micropyle superior; styles 3, united or spreading; stigmas terminal. Fruit drupaceous. Seed without albumen; seed-coat thin and membranaceous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons flat, accumbent on the short radicle.

The Sumach family with some sixty genera is mostly confined to the warmer parts of the earth’s surface and contains the Mango, Pistacia, and other important trees. In the flora of the United States four genera have arborescent representatives.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Genera of the United States.

Flowers without petals, and in the species of the United States, without a calyx.

1. Pistacia.

Flowers with a calyx and petals.

Flowers usually diœcious by abortion; styles lateral, spreading; pedicels of the abortive flowers becoming long and plumose at maturity; fruit compressed, very oblique; leaves simple, deciduous.

2. Cotinus.

Flowers mostly diœcious; styles terminal, short, united; stigma 3-lobed; fruit ovoid, glabrous; leaves unequally pinnate, persistent.

3. Metopium.

Flowers polygamo-diœcious or polygamo-monœcious; styles terminal, spreading; fruit usually globose, naked or clothed with acrid hairs; leaves unequally pinnate, trifoliolate or rarely simple, deciduous or rarely persistent.

4. Rhus.

1. Pistacia L.

Balsamic trees or shrubs. Leaves 3-foliolate or equally or unequally pinnate, petiolate, deciduous or persistent. Flowers small, diœcious, subtended by a bract and 2 branchlets, short pedicellate in panicles or racemes; calyx 1 or 2-lobed or in the pistillate flower 3—5-lobed, or 0; petals 0, stamens 3—5, 0 in the pistillate flower; filaments short, their base connate with the disk; anthers large; ovary subglobose or short-ovoid, rudimentary or 0 in the staminate flower; style 3-lobed, shorter than the 3 obovate-oblong or oblong stigmas. Drupe ovoid, oblique, compressed; exocarpa thin; the stone bony, 1-seeded; seed compressed; cotyledons thick plano-convex.

Pistacia with eight or nine species is confined to the valley of the lower Rio Grande, southern Mexico; the Canary Islands, the countries adjacent to the Mediterranean, and northern and central China, with one species growing on the northern banks of the Rio Grande in Texas.

The Pistacio-nuts of commerce, the green or yellow seeds of P. vera L. are largely used in confectionery, and some of the species are valued for the decoration of parks and gardens.

Pistacia from πιστ and ἄκεομαι, in reference to the healing properties of its resinous exudations.

1. Pistacia texana Swing.

Leaves persistent or tardily deciduous, 9—19-foliolate, with a slightly winged rachis pubescent above and a flattened narrow-winged petiole ½′—¾′ in length; leaflets spatulate, rounded and often mucronate at apex, gradually narrowed below into a deltoid or subcuneiform base, entire, more or less curved and unequilateral, wine-red when they unfold, and at maturity thin, dark green and sparingly pubescent along the midrib above, pale and glabrous below, nearly sessile or the terminal leaflet raised on a short petiolule, /12′—¾′ long and about ¼′ wide, with a slender midrib often near one side of the leaflet and reticulate veinlets. Flowers small, without a calyx, appearing just before or with the new leaves, in simple nearly glabrous panicles, their bracts and bractlets ciliate on the margins and wine-red at apex; staminate flowers more crowded than the pistillate, in compact panicles ¾′—1½′ long; anthers reddish yellow or wine color; pistillate flowers in loose panicles 1½′—2½′ in length; ovary ovoid or subglobose, two of the three styles with 2-lobed stigmas, the third with a 3-lobed stigma. Fruit oval, dark reddish brown and slightly glaucescent, about ¼′ long and ⅙′ broad, usually striate.

A small tree, occasionally 30° high with a short trunk 15′—18′ in diameter, with stout erect and spreading branches forming a head sometimes 30°—35° across, and slender slightly pubescent reddish branchlets becoming grayish brown by the end of their first year; more often a large shrub with numerous stout stems.

Distribution. Texas, limestone cliffs and the rocky bottoms of cañons periodically swept by floods, and in deep narrow ravines, along the lower Pecos River and in the neighborhood of its mouth, Valverde County; and in northeastern Mexico.

2. Cotinus L.

Small trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, small acute winter-buds, with numerous imbricated scales, fleshy roots, and strong-smelling juice. Leaves simple, petiolate, oval, obovate-oblong or nearly orbicular, glabrous or more or less pilose-pubescent, deciduous. Flowers regular, diœcious by abortion or rarely polygamo-diœcious, greenish yellow, on slender pedicels accrescent after the flowering period, mostly abortive and then becoming conspicuously tomentose-villose at maturity, in ample loose terminal or lateral pyramidal or thyrsoidal panicles, the branches from the axils of linear acute or spatulate deciduous bracts; calyx-lobes ovate-lanceolate, obtuse, persistent; disk coherent with the base of the calyx and surrounding the base of the ovary; petals oblong, acute, twice as long as the calyx, inserted under the free margin of the disk opposite its lobes, deciduous; stamens shorter than the petals, usually rudimentary or wanting in the pistillate flower; ovary sessile, obovoid, compressed, rudimentary in the staminate flower; styles 3, short and spreading from the lateral apex of the ovary; stigmas large, obtuse. Fruit oblong-oblique, compressed, glabrous, conspicuously reticulate-veined, light red-brown, bearing on the side near the middle the remnants of the persistent styles, the outer coat thin and dry; stone thick and bony.

Cotinus is widely distributed through southern Europe and the Himalayas to central China with a single species, and is represented in the southern United States by one species.

The Old World Cotinus coggygria Scop., the Smoke-tree of gardens, is often cultivated in the United States.

The generic name is from Κότινος, the classical name of a tree with red wood.

1. Cotinus americanus Nutt. Chittam Wood.

Leaves oval or obovate, rounded or sometimes slightly emarginate at apex, gradually contracted at base, and entire, with slightly wavy revolute margins, when they unfold light purple and covered below with fine silky white hairs, and at maturity dark green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, and puberulous along the under side of the broad midrib and primary veins, 4′—6′ long and 2′—3′ wide; turning in the autumn brilliant shades of orange and scarlet; petioles stout, ½′—¾′ in length. Flowers appearing late in April or early in May on pedicels ½′—¾′ long, and usually collected 3 or 4 together in loose umbels near the end of the principal branches of puberulous terminal slender long-branched few-flowered panicles 5′—6′ long and 2½′—3′ broad, the staminate and pistillate flowers on different individuals. Fruit produced very sparingly, about ⅛′ long, on stems 2′—3′ in length; the sterile pedicels becoming 1½′—2′ long at maturity and covered with short not very abundant rather inconspicuous pale purple or brown hairs; seed kidney-shaped, pale brown, about /16′ long.

A tree, 25°—35° high, with a straight trunk occasionally 12′—14′ in diameter, usually dividing 12°—14° from the ground into several erect stems separating into wide-spreading often slightly pendulous branches, and slender branchlets purple when they first appear, soon becoming green, bright red-brown and covered with small white lenticels and marked by large prominent leaf-scars during their first winter, and dark orange-colored in their second year. Winter-buds ⅛′ long, and covered with thin dark red-brown scales. Bark of the trunk ⅛′ thick, light gray, furrowed, and broken on the surface into thin oblong scales. Wood light, soft, rather coarse-grained, bright clear rich orange color, with thin nearly white sapwood; largely used locally for fence-posts and very durable in contact with the soil; yielding a clear orange-colored dye.

Distribution. Banks of the Ohio River, Owensboro, Daviess County, Kentucky (E. J. Palmer); on the Cheat Mountains, eastern Tennessee; near Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama; valley of White River in Stone and Taney Counties, southern Missouri; near Cotter, Baxter County, and Van Buren, Crawford County, Arkansas, and eastern Oklahoma; valleys of the upper Guadalupe and Medina Rivers, western Texas; usually only in small isolated groves or thickets scattered along the sides of rocky ravines or dry slopes; very abundant as a small shrub and spreading over many thousand acres of the mountain cañons, and high hillsides in the neighborhood of Spanish Pass, Kendall County, Texas.

Occasionally cultivated in the eastern United States and rarely in Europe; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.

3. Metopium P. Br.

Trees or shrubs, with naked buds, fleshy roots, and milky exceedingly caustic juice. Leaves unequally pinnate, persistent; leaflets coriaceous, lustrous, long-petiolulate. Flowers diœcious, yellow-green, on short stout pedicels, in narrow erect axillary clusters at the ends of the branches, with minute acute deciduous bracts and bractlets, the males and females on different trees; calyx-lobes semiorbicular, about half as long as the ovate obtuse petals; stamens 5, inserted under the margin of the disk; filaments shorter than the anthers, minute and rudimentary in the pistillate flower; ovary ovoid, sessile, minute in the staminate flower; style terminal, short, undivided; stigma 3-lobed. Fruit ovoid, compressed, smooth and glabrous, crowned with the remnants of the style; outer coat thick and resinous; stone crustaceous. Seed nearly quadrangular, compressed; seed-coat smooth, dark brown and opaque, the broad funicle covering its margin.

Metopium with two species is confined to southern Florida and the West Indies.

The generic name, from ὄπος, was the classical name of an African tree now unknown.

1. Metopium toxiferum Kr. & Urb. Poison Wood. Hog Gum.

Metopium Metopium Small.

Leaves clustered near the end of the branches, 9′—10′ long, with stout petioles swollen and enlarged at base, and 5—7 leaflets, or often 3-foliolate; unfolding in March and persistent until the following spring; leaflets ovate, rounded or usually contracted toward the acute or sometimes slightly emarginate apex, rounded or sometimes cordate or cuneate at base, 3′—4′ long, 2′—3′ broad, with thickened slightly revolute margins, a prominent midrib, primary veins spreading at right angles, and numerous reticulate veinlets; petiolules stout, ½′—1′ long, that of the terminal leaflet often twice as long as the others. Flowers about ⅛′ in diameter, in clusters as long or rather longer than the leaves; petals yellow-green, marked on the inner surface by dark longitudinal lines; stamens rather shorter than the petals. Fruit ripening in November and December, pendent in long graceful clusters, orange-colored, rather lustrous, ¾′ in length; seed about ¼′ long.

A tree, frequently 35°—40° high, with a short trunk sometimes 2° in diameter, stout spreading often pendulous branches forming a low broad head, and reddish brown branchlets marked by prominent leaf-scars and numerous orange-colored lenticels. Winter-buds ⅓′—½′ in length, with acuminate scales ciliate on the margin with rufous hairs. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, light reddish brown tinged with orange, often marked by dark spots caused by the exuding of the resinous gum, and separating into large thin plate-like scales displaying the bright orange color of the inner bark. Wood heavy, hard, not strong, rich dark brown streaked with red, with thick light brown or yellow sapwood of 25—30 layers of annual growth. The resinous gum obtained from incisions made in the bark is emetic, purgative, and diuretic.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Bay Biscayne, on the Everglade Keys, and on Coot Bay in the rear of Cape Sable, Dade County, and on the southern keys; very abundant; in the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, and Honduras.

4. Rhus L.

Trees or shrubs, with pithy branchlets, fleshy roots, and milky sometimes caustic or watery juice. Leaves unequally pinnate, or rarely simple. Flowers mostly diœcious, rarely polygamous, white or greenish white, in more or less compound axillary or terminal panicles, the staminate and pistillate usually produced on separate plants; calyx-lobes united at base only, generally persistent; disk surrounding the base of the free ovary, coherent with the base of the calyx; petals longer than the calyx-lobes, inserted under the margin of the disk, opposite its lobes, deciduous; stamens 5, inserted on the margin of the disk alternate with the petals; filaments longer than the anthers; ovary ovoid or subglobose, sessile; styles 3, terminal, free or slightly connate at base, rising from the centre of the ovary. Fruit usually globose, smooth or covered with hairs; outer coat thin and dry, more or less resinous; stone crustaceous or bony. Seed ovoid or reniform, commonly transverse; cotyledons foliaceous, generally transverse; radicle long, uncinate, laterally accumbent.

Rhus is widely distributed, with more than one hundred species, in the extra-tropical regions of the northern and southern hemispheres. In North America the genus is widely and generally distributed from Canada to southern Mexico and from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific Ocean, with sixteen or seventeen species within the territory of the United States. Of these, four obtain the habit of small trees. The acrid poisonous juice of Rhus vernicifera DC., of China, furnishes the black varnish used in China and Japan in the manufacture of lacquer, and other species are valued for the tannin contained in their leaves or for the wax obtained from their fruit.

The name of the genus is from Ῥοῦς, the classical name of the European Sumach.

Conspectus of North American Arborescent Species.

Flowers in terminal thyrsoid panicles; fruit globular, clothed with acrid hairs; leaves unequally pinnate, deciduous; Sumachs.

Branches and leaf-stalks densely velvety hairy; leaflets 11—31, pale on the lower surface; fruit covered with long hairs; buds inclosed in the enlarged base of the petioles; juice milky.

1. R. typhina (A, C).

Branches and leaf-stalks pubescent; rachis winged; leaflets 9—21, green on the lower surface; fruit pilose; buds not inclosed by the petioles; juice watery.

2. R. copallina (A, C).

Flowers in axillary slender panicles; fruit glabrous, white; leaves unequally pinnate, deciduous; leaflets 7—13.

3. R. vernix (A, C).

Flowers in short compact terminal panicled racemes; fruit pubescent; leaves ovate, entire or serrate, simple or rarely trifoliolate, persistent.

4. R. integrifolia (G).

1. Rhus typhina L. Staghorn Sumach.

Rhus hirta Sudw.

Leaves 16′—24′ long, with a stout petiole usually red on the upper side and covered with soft pale hairs, enlarged at base and surrounding and inclosing the bud developed in its axil, and 11—31 oblong often falcate rather remotely and sharply serrate or rarely laciniate long-pointed nearly sessile or short-stalked leaflets rounded or slightly heart-shaped at base, covered above like the petiole and young shoots when they first appear with red caducous hairs, bright yellow-green until half grown, and at maturity dark green and rather opaque on the upper surface, pale or often nearly white on the lower surface, glabrous with the exception of the short fine hairs on the under side of the stout midrib, and primary veins forked near the margins, opposite, or the lower leaflets slightly alternate, those of the 3 or 4 middle pairs considerably longer than those at the ends of the leaf, 2′—5′ long, and 1′—1½′ wide; turning in the autumn before falling bright scarlet with shades of crimson, purple, and orange. Flowers opening gradually and in succession in early summer, the pistillate a week or ten days later than the staminate, on slender pedicels from the axils of small acute pubescent bracts, in dense panicles, with a pubescent stem and branchlets, and acuminate bracts ½′ to nearly 2′ long and deciduous with the opening of the flowers; panicle of the staminate flowers 8′—12′ long and 5′—6′ broad, with wide-spreading branches and nearly one third larger than the more compact panicle of the pistillate plant; calyx-lobes acute, covered on the outer surface with long slender hairs, much shorter than the petals in the staminate flower, and almost as long in the pistillate flower; petals of the staminate flower yellow-green sometimes tinged with red, strap-shaped, rounded at apex, becoming reflexed above the middle at maturity; petals of the pistillate flower green, narrow and acuminate, with a thickened and slightly hooded apex, remaining erect; disk bright red and conspicuous; stamens slightly exserted, with slender filaments and large bright orange-colored anthers; ovary ovoid, pubescent, the 3 short styles slightly connate at base, with large capitate stigmas, in the staminate flower glabrous, much smaller, unusually rudimentary. Fruit fully grown and colored in August and ripening late in the autumn in dense panicles 6′—8′ long and 2′—3′ wide, depressed-globose, with a thin outer covering clothed with long acrid crimson hairs and a small pale brown bony stone; seed slightly reniform, orange-brown.

A tree, occasionally 35°—40° high, with copious white viscid juice turning black on exposure, a slender often slightly inclining trunk occasionally 12′—14′ in diameter, stout upright often contorted branches forming a low flat open head, and thick branchlets covered with long soft brown hairs gathered also in tufts in the axils of the leaflets, becoming glabrous after their third or fourth year, and in their second season marked by large narrow leaf-scars and by small orange-colored lenticels enlarging vertically and persistent for several years; more frequently a tall shrub, spreading by underground shoots into broad thickets. Winter-buds conic, thickly coated with long silky pale brown hairs, about ¼′ long. Bark of the trunk thin, dark brown, generally smooth, and occasionally separating into small square scales. Wood light, brittle, soft, coarse-grained, orange-colored, streaked with green, with thick nearly white sapwood. From the young shoots pipes are made for drawing the sap of the Sugar Maple. The bark, especially that of the roots, and the leaves are rich in tannin. A form with narrow deeply divided leaflets (f. dissecta Rehdr.) occasionally occurs.

Distribution. Usually on uplands in good soil, or less commonly on sterile gravelly banks and on the borders of streams and swamps, New Brunswick and through the valley of the St. Lawrence River to southern Ontario and westward to eastern North Dakota and eastern and northeastern Iowa, and southward through the northern states and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia and Mississippi; more abundant on the Atlantic seaboard than in the region west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the United States, and very commonly in central and northern Europe.

× Rhus hybrida Rehdr. a hybrid of R. typhina and R. glabra L. has been found in Massachusetts.

2. Rhus copallina L. Sumach.

Leaves 6′—8′ long, with a slender pubescent petiole and rachis more or less broadly wing-margined between the leaflets, the wings increasing in width toward the apex of the leaf, and 9—21 oblong or ovate-lanceolate leaflets entire or remotely serrate above the middle, sharp-pointed or rarely emarginate at apex, acute or obtuse and often unequal at base, those of the lower pairs short-petiolulate and smaller than those above the middle of the leaf, the others sessile with the exception of the terminal leaflet sometimes contracted into a long winged stalk, when they unfold dark green and slightly puberulous above, especially along the midrib, and covered below with fine silvery white pubescence, at maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale and pubescent below, 1½′—2½′ long and about ¾′ wide, with slightly thickened revolute margins, a prominent midrib and primary veins; turning in the autumn before falling dark rich maroon color on the upper surface. Flowers appearing from June in the south to August in the north, those of the staminate plant opening in succession during nearly a month and continuing to unfold long after the petals of the pistillate plant have fallen, on stout pubescent pedicels ⅛′—¼′ long, in short compact pubescent panicles, the lower branches from the axils of the upper leaves, 4′—6′ long, 3′—4′ broad, and usually smaller on the female than on the male plant, their bracts and bractlets ovate or oblong, densely cinereo-pilose, deciduous before the expansion of the flowers; calyx puberulous on the outer surface, with ovate acute lobes one third as long as the ovate greenish yellow petals rounded at apex, becoming reflexed above the middle; disk red and conspicuous; stamens somewhat longer than the petals, with slender filaments and large orange-colored anthers, in the pistillate flower much shorter than the petals, with minute rudimentary anthers; ovary ovoid, pubescent, glabrous, much smaller in the staminate flower. Fruit ripening in five or six weeks and borne in stout compact often nodding pubescent clusters sometimes persistent on the branches until the beginning of the following summer, ⅛′ across, slightly obovoid, more or less flattened, with a thin bright red coat covered with short fine glandular hairs, and a smooth bony orange-brown stone; seed reniform, smooth, orange-colored, with a broad funicle.

A tree, 25°—30° high, with colorless watery juice, a short stout trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, erect spreading branches, and branchlets at first dark green tinged with red and more or less densely clothed with short fine or sometimes ferrugineous pubescence, appearing slightly zigzag at the end of their first season from the swellings formed by the prominent leaf-scars, and then pale reddish brown, slightly puberulous and marked by conspicuous dark-colored lenticels; or at the north usually a low shrub rarely more than 4°—5° tall. Winter-buds minute, nearly globose, and covered with dark rusty brown tomentum. Bark of the trunk ⅓′—½′ thick, light brown tinged with red, and marked by large elevated dark red-brown circular excrescences, and separating into large thin papery scales. Wood light, soft, coarse-grained, light brown streaked with green and often tinged with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 4 or 5 layers of annual growth. The leaves are rich in tannin and are gathered in large quantities and ground for curing leather and for dyeing.

Distribution. Dry hillsides and ridges; widely and generally distributed from northern New England to southern Florida, and to southeastern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas and the valley of the San Antonio River, Texas; in Cuba; in the United States arborescent only southward; at the north rarely more than a few feet high and spreading by underground stems on gravelly sterile soil into broad thickets; varying considerably in the size and form of the leaflets. The most distinct and probably the most constant of these varieties is var. lanceolata A. Gray, a small tree growing on the prairies of eastern Texas to the valley of the Rio Grande and to southeastern New Mexico, often forming thickets on river bluffs or on the banks of small streams, and distinguished by its narrow acute often falcate leaflets and by its larger inflorescence and fruit. A tree sometimes 25°—30° high, with a trunk occasionally 8′ in diameter, covered by dark gray bark marked by lenticular excrescences. The flowers appear in July and August and the dull red or sometimes green fruit ripens in early autumn and falls before the beginning of winter.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern United States, and in western and northern Europe.

3. Rhus vernix L. Poison Dogwood. Poison Sumach.

Leaves 7′—14′ long, with a slender usually light red or red and green petiole, and 7—13 obovate-oblong entire leaflets slightly unequal at base and narrowed at the acute or rounded apex, bright orange color and coated, especially on the margins and under surface, with fine pubescence when they unfold, soon becoming glabrous, and at maturity 3′—4′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, with a prominent midrib scarlet above, primary veins forked near the margins, conspicuous reticulate veinlets, and revolute margins; turning early in the autumn before falling to brilliant shades of scarlet or orange and scarlet. Flowers about ⅛′ long, appearing in early summer on slender pubescent pedicels bibracteolate near the middle, in long narrow axillary pubescent panicles crowded near the end of the branches, with acute pubescent early deciduous bracts and bractlets; calyx-lobes acute, one third the length of the yellow-green acute petals erect and slightly reflexed toward the apex; stamens nearly twice as long as the petals, with slender filaments and large orange-colored anthers, in the fertile flower not more than half the length of the petals, with small rudimentary anthers; ovary ovoid-globose, with short thick spreading styles terminating in large capitate stigmas. Fruit ripening in September and often persistent on the branches until the following spring, in long graceful racemes, ovoid, acute, often flattened and slightly gibbous, tipped with the dark remnants of the styles, glabrous, striate, ivory-white or white tinged with yellow, very lustrous, and about ½′ long; stone conspicuously grooved, the wall thin, membranaceous; seed pale yellow.

A tree, with acrid poisonous juice turning black on exposure, occasionally 25° high, with a trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, slender rather pendulous branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender glabrous branchlets reddish brown and covered with minute orange-colored lenticels when they first appear, orange-brown at the end of their first season, becoming light gray and marked by large elevated conspicuous leaf-scars; more often a shrub, with several slender clustered stems. Winter-buds acute and covered with dark purple scales puberulous on the back, and ciliate on the margins with short pale hairs, the terminal ⅛′—¾′ long and two or three times larger than the axillary buds. Bark of the trunk thin, light gray, smooth or sometimes slightly striate. Wood light, soft, coarse-grained, light yellow streaked with brown, with lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Wet swamps often inundated during a portion of the year; northern New England to northern Florida and southern Alabama, and westward to Ontario and southeastern Minnesota, western Louisiana and the valley of the Neches River (San Augustine County) eastern Texas; common and one of the most dangerous plants of the North American flora. An infusion of the young branches and leaves is employed in homœopathic practice, and the juice can be used as a black lustrous durable varnish.

4. Rhus integrifolia B. & H. Mahogany.

Leaves simple or very rarely 3-foliolate, persistent, acute or rounded at apex, with thickened revolute, or spinosely toothed margins (var. serrata Engler), puberulous when young, and at maturity 1½′—3′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, thick and coriaceous, dark yellow-green above, paler below, and glabrous with the exception of the stout petiole, broad thick midrib, and prominent reticulate veins. Flowers appearing from February to April, ¼′ in diameter when expanded, on short stout pedicels, with 2—4 broad-ovate pointed persistent scarious ciliate pubescent bractlets, in short dense racemes forming hoary-pubescent terminal panicles 1′—3′ in length; sepals rose-colored, orbicular, concave, ciliate on the margins, rather less than half the length of the rounded ciliate reflexed rose-colored petals; stamens as long as the petals, with slender filaments and pale anthers, minute and rudimentary in the pistillate flower; ovary broad-ovoid, pubescent, with 3 short thick connate styles and very large 3-lobed capitate stigmas, rudimentary in the staminate flower. Fruit ½′ long, ovoid, flattened, more or less gibbous, thick, dark red, densely pubescent; stone kidney-shaped, smooth, light chestnut-brown, with thick walls; seed flattened, pale, with a broad dark-colored funicle covering its side.

A tree, rarely 30° high, with a short stout trunk 2°—3° in diameter, numerous spreading branches, and stout branchlets covered when they first appear with thick pale pubescence disappearing in their second and third years, and bright reddish brown and marked by numerous small elevated lenticels; or usually a small often almost prostrate shrub. Winter-buds small, obtuse, covered with a thick coat of pale tomentum. Bark of the trunk ¼′—½′ thick, bright reddish brown, exfoliating in large plate-like scales. Wood hard, heavy, bright clear red, with thin pale sapwood of 8—10 layers of annual growth; valued and largely used as fuel. The fruit is occasionally employed in the preparation of a cooling beverage.

Distribution. Sandy sterile soil along sea beaches, and bluffs in the immediate vicinity of the ocean; neighborhood of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, California, to the shores of Magdalena Bay, Lower California, and on the Santa Barbara and Cedros islands; on the mainland usually shrubby, forming close impenetrable thickets; in more sheltered situations and on the islands becoming arborescent; probably of its largest size on the shores of Todos Santos Bay, Lower California.

XXXII. Cyrillaceæ.

Trees or shrubs, with small scaly buds and watery juice. Leaves alternate, entire, subcoriaceous, without stipules, persistent or tardily deciduous. Flowers small, regular, perfect, on slender bibracteolate pedicels, in terminal or axillary racemes; calyx 5—8-lobed, persistent, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 5—8, hypogynous; stamens 5—10, hypogynous, those opposite the petals shorter than the others; anthers oblong, introrse, 2-celled, the cells laterally dehiscent, opening longitudinally; ovary 2—4-celled; ovules suspended, anatropous; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit an indehiscent capsule. Seed suspended; seed-coat membranaceous; albumen fleshy, radicle superior.

A family confined to the warmer parts of America, with three genera, of which two are represented by small trees in the southern states.

Conspectus of the Genera of the United States.

Flowers in axillary racemes; calyx 5-lobed; petals 5 contorted in the bud; fruit without wings, 2-celled, with 2 seeds in each cell.

1. Cyrilla.

Flowers in terminal racemes; calyx 5—8-lobed; petals 5—8 imbricated in the bud; fruit with 2—4 wings, 3 or rarely 4-celled, with 1 seed in each cell.

2. Cliftonia.

1. Cyrilla L.

A glabrous tree or shrub, with spongy bark, slender terete branchlets conspicuously marked by large leaf-scars, and narrow acute winter-buds covered with chestnut-brown scales. Leaves usually clustered near the end of the branches, oblong or oblong-obovate, pointed, rounded, or slightly emarginate at apex, conspicuously reticulate-veined, short-petiolate. Flowers on pedicels from the axils of narrow alternate persistent bracts, in slender racemes from the axils of fallen leaves or of small deciduous bracts near the end of the branches of the previous year; calyx minute, divided nearly to the base into 5 ovate-lanceolate acute coriaceous lobes; petals 5, contorted in the bud, white or rose color, inserted on an annular disk, three or four times longer than the calyx-lobes, oblong-lanceolate, acute, concave, subcoriaceous, furnished below the middle on the inner surface with a broad glandular nectary; stamens 5, opposite the divisions of the calyx, inserted with and shorter than the petals; filaments subulate, fleshy; anther-cells united above the point of attachment, free below; ovary ovoid, free, sessile, pointed, 2-celled; styles short, thick; stigma 2-lobed, with spreading lobes; ovules 3 in each cell, suspended from an elongated placental process developed from the apex of the cell. Fruit 2-celled, broad-ovoid, crowned with the remnants of the persistent style; pericarp spongy. Seeds 2 in each cell, elongated, acuminate; embryo minute, cylindric, 2-lobed.

Cyrilla is represented by a single species of the coast region of the south Atlantic and Gulf states and of the Antilles and eastern tropical South America.

The name commemorates the scientific labors of Dominico Cirillo (1734—1799), the distinguished Italian naturalist and patriot.

1. Cyrilla racemiflora L. Ironwood. Leather Wood.

Leaves 2′—3′ long and ¼′—1′ wide, with a stout petiole ⅛′—1′ in length; turning late in the autumn and early winter to brilliant shades of orange and scarlet and then deciduous, or southward persistent with little change of color until the beginning of the following summer. Flowers appearing late in June or early in July, in racemes usually 6—10 together and 4′—6′ long, at first erect, becoming pendulous before the fruit ripens. Fruit ripening in August and September, rarely more than /16′ long; seeds light brown.

A slender tree, occasionally 30°—35° high, with a stout often eccentric trunk 10′—14′ in diameter, dividing several feet above the ground into numerous wide-spreading branches, and slender branchlets bright brown during their first season and ultimately ashy gray; often a broad bush sending up many slender stems 15°—20° high. Winter-buds about ⅛′ long. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ½′ thick except near the base of old trees, and covered by large thin bright red-brown scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, not strong, brown tinged with red, with rather lighter colored sapwood. The spongy bark at the base of the trunk is pliable, absorbent, and astringent, and has been recommended as a styptic.

Distribution. Rich shaded river-bottoms, the borders of sandy swamps and shallow ponds of the coast Pine-belt, or on high sandy exposed ridges rising above streams near the Gulf coast; southeastern Virginia southward near the coast to northern Florida and westward along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Neches River, Texas; in Lake County, Florida, and ranging northward in Mississippi to Forrest County (near Hattiesburg, T. G. Harbison), and in Alabama to Dallas County; in swamps near the coast of western Florida often a low shrub with smaller leaves and shorter racemes (var. parviflora Sarg.); in Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico, Demarara, and Brazil (var. racemifera Sarg.).

2. Cliftonia Gærtn. f.

A glabrous tree or shrub, with thick dark brown scaly bark, slender terete branchlets marked by conspicuous leaf-scars, and small acuminate buds covered by chestnut-brown scales. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, rounded or slightly emarginate at apex, glandular-punctate, short-petiolate, persistent. Flowers on pedicels from the axils of large acuminate membranaceous alternate bracts deciduous before the opening of the flowers, in short terminal erect racemes; calyx 5—8-lobed, equal or unequal, broad-ovoid, rounded or acuminate at apex, much shorter than the 5—8 obovate unguiculate concave white or rose-colored sepals; stamens 10, opposite and alternate with the sepals, inserted with and shorter than the petals, 2-ranked, those of the outer rank longer than the others; filaments laterally enlarged near the middle, flattened below, subulate above; disk cup-shaped, surrounding the base of the oblong 2—4-winged 2—4-celled ovary; stigma subsessile, obscurely 2—4-lobed; ovules 2 in each cell, suspended from its apex. Fruit oblong, 2—4-winged, crowned with the remnants of the persistent style, 3 or rarely 4-celled; pericarp spongy, the wings thin and membranaceous. Seed 1 in each cell, terete, tapering to the ends, suspended; cotyledons very short.

Cliftonia is represented by a single species of the south Atlantic and Gulf states.

The generic name is in honor of Dr. Francis Clifton (d. 1736), an English physician.

1. Cliftonia monophylla Britt. Titi. Ironwood.

Leaves 1½′—2′ long, ½′—1′ wide, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface; persistent until the autumn of their second year. Flowers fragrant, appearing in February and March, in racemes at first nodding, and conspicuous from the long exserted dark red-brown caducous bracts, becoming erect as the flowers open. Fruit about ¼′ long, ripening in August and September; seeds /16′—⅛′ long, light brown.

A tree, occasionally 40°—50° high, with a stout often crooked or inclining trunk, occasionally 15′—18′ in diameter, and usually divided 12°—15° from the ground into a number of stout ascending branches, and slender rigid bright red-brown branchlets, becoming paler during their second and third seasons; or sometimes a shrub, with numerous straggling stout or slender stems frequently only a few feet high or occasionally 30°—40° high. Winter-buds about ¼′ long. Bark of young stems and of large branches thin, the surface separating into small persistent scales 1′—2′ long, becoming near the base of old trees deeply furrowed, dark red-brown, ¼′ thick, and broken on the surface into short broad scales. Wood heavy, close-grained, moderately hard, brittle, not strong, brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual growth; burning with a clear bright flame, and valued as fuel.

Distribution. Damp sandy peat soil in swamps almost submerged for several months of the year, or often in shallow rarely overflowed swamps; coast region of the south Atlantic states from the valley of the Savannah River to the coast of western Florida, and through the maritime Pine-belt of the Gulf coast to eastern Louisiana.

XXXIII. Aquifoliaceæ.

Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, scaly buds, and alternate simple entire crenate or pungently toothed petiolate persistent or deciduous leaves, with minute stipules. Flowers axillary, solitary or cymose, small, greenish white, diœcious; calyx 4—6-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, hypogynous; petals 4—6, oval or oblong, obtuse, free or united at base, imbricated in the bud; disk 0; stamens as many as and alternate with the petals and adnate to the base of the corolla; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally, small and sterile in the pistillate flower; pistil compound; ovary 4—8-celled, minute and rudimentary in the staminate flower; style short or 0; stigmas as many as the cells of the ovary, nearly confluent; ovule generally solitary in each cell, suspended, anatropous; raphe usually dorsal, the micropyle superior. Fruit a drupe, with as many indehiscent bony or crustaceous 1-seeded nutlets as carpels; sarcocarp thin and fleshy. Seed narrowed at the ends, suspended; seed-coat membranaceous, pale brown; embryo minute in the apex of the copious fleshy albumen; cotyledons plain; the radicle superior.

The Holly family with five genera is distributed in temperate and tropical regions of the two hemispheres. Of the five genera now recognized, only Ilex is important in the number of species or is widely distributed.

1. Ilex L.

Characters of the family.

Ilex with about one hundred and seventy-five species is found in all tropical and temperate regions of the world with the exception of western North America, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and New Guinea, the largest number of species occurring in Brazil and Guiana. Of the thirteen species which inhabit eastern North America, six are trees. Ilex contains a bitter principle, ilicin, and possesses tonic properties. Ilex paraguariensis St. Hilaire, of South America, furnishes the maté or Paraguay tea, and is the most useful of the species. The European Ilex Aquifolium L. is a favorite garden plant, and is sometimes planted in the middle, southern, and Pacific United States.

Ilex is the classical name of the Evergreen Oak of southern Europe.

Conspectus of the North American Arborescent Species.

Parts of the flower in 4’s; pedicels with bractlets at the base; nutlets prominently ribbed on the back and sides; leaves persistent.

Leaves armed with spiny teeth; young branchlets glabrous or sparingly pubescent.

1. I. opaca (A, C).

Leaves serrate or entire; fruit bright red.

Leaves oblanceolate or oblong-obovate, mostly entire; young branchlets pubescent; calyx-lobes acuminate.

2. I. Cassine (C).

Leaves elliptic or oblong-elliptic, coarsely crenulate-serrate; young branchlets puberulous; calyx-lobes obtuse.

3. I. vomitoria (C).

Leaves entire, ovate, ovate-elliptic or ovate-lanceolate; fruit brownish purple.

4. I. Krugiana (D).

Parts of the flower in 4’s or 5’s, rarely in 6’s; pedicels without bractlets; nutlets striate, many-ribbed on the back; leaves deciduous.

Leaves oblong-spatulate or obovate-lanceolate, remotely crenulate-serrate; calyx-lobes broad-triangular.

5. I. decidua (A, C).

Leaves ovate or oblong-lanceolate, sharply serrate; calyx-lobes acute.

6. I. monticola (A).

1. Ilex opaca Ait. Holly.

Leaves elliptic to obovate-oblong, pungently acute, with thickened undulate margins and few stout spinose teeth, or occasionally entire, especially on upper branches, thick, coriaceous, dull yellow-green, paler and often yellow on the lower surface, 2′—4′ long, with a prominent midrib and conspicuous veins; persistent on the branches for three years, finally deciduous in the spring; petioles short, stout, thickened at base, grooved above, slightly puberulent; stipules minute, broad-acute or nearly deltoid, persistent. Flowers appearing in spring on slender puberulous pedicels, with minute acute bractlets, in short pedunculate cymes from the axils of young leaves or scattered along the base of the young shoots, 3—9-flowered on the staminate and 1 or rarely 2 or 3-flowered on the pistillate plant; calyx-lobes acute, ciliate on the margins; stigmas broad and sessile. Fruit ripening late in the autumn, persistent on the branches during the winter, spherical or ovoid, dull red or rarely yellow, ¼′ in diameter; nutlets prominently few-ribbed on the back and sides, rather narrower at apex than at base.

A tree, often 40°—50° and occasionally 80°—100° high, with a trunk 2°, 3°, or exceptionally 4° in diameter, short slender branches forming a narrow pyramidal head, and stout branchlets covered when they first appear with fine rufous pubescence disappearing during their first season, and becoming glabrous and pale brown. Winter-buds obtuse or acuminate, ⅛′—¼′ long, with narrow acuminate ciliate scales. Bark about ½′ thick, light gray and roughened by wart-like excrescences. Wood light, tough, not strong, close-grained, nearly white when first cut, turning brown with age and exposure, with thick rather lighter colored sapwood; valued and much used in cabinet-making, in the interior finish of houses, and in turnery. The branches are used in large quantities for Christmas decoration.

Distribution. Coast of Massachusetts, in the city of Quincy, Norfolk County, southward generally near the coast to the shores of Mosquito Inlet and Charlotte Harbor, Florida; valley of the Mississippi River from southern Indiana and Illinois, to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and through Missouri, Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, and Louisiana to the valley of Cibolo Creek (Southerland Springs, Wilson County), Texas; rare and of small size east of the Hudson River and rare in the Appalachian Mountain region and the country immediately west of it; most abundant and of its largest size on the bottom-lands of the streams of northern Louisiana, southern Arkansas and eastern Texas; at the north in dry rather gravelly soil often on the margins of Oak-woods, southward on the borders of swampy river-bottoms, in rich humid soil.

Occasionally cultivated in the eastern states as an ornamental plant.

2. Ilex Cassine L. Dahoon.

Leaves oblanceolate to oblong-obovate, acute, mucronate or rarely rounded and occasionally emarginate at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, revolute and entire, or sometimes serrate above the middle with sharp mucronate teeth, puberulous above and densely pubescent below when they first unfold, becoming glabrous at maturity with the exception of scattered hairs on the lower surface of the broad midrib, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 1½′—3′ long and ½′—1′ wide; petioles short, stout, thickened at the base, sparingly villose. Flowers on hairy pedicels, with acute scarious bractlets, in pedunculate clusters, 3—9-flowered on the staminate plant, usually 3-flowered on the pistillate plant sometimes nearly 1′ long, from the axils of leaves of the year or occasionally of the previous year; calyx-lobes acute, ciliate. Fruit ripening late in the autumn, persistent until the following spring, globose, sometimes ¼′ in diameter, bright or occasionally dull red or nearly yellow, solitary or often in clusters of 3’s; nutlets prominently few-ribbed on the back and sides; rounded at base, acute at apex.

A tree, 25°—30° high, with a trunk 12′—18′ in diameter, and branches coated at first with dense silky pubescence persistent until the end of the second or third year, ultimately dark brown and marked by occasional lenticels; or often a low shrub. Winter-buds minute, acute, with lanceolate scales thickly coated with pale silky pubescence. Bark of the trunk about /16′ thick, dark gray, thickly covered and roughened by lenticels. Wood light, soft, close-grained, not strong, pale brown, with thick nearly white sapwood.

Distribution. Cold swamps and on their borders, in rich moist soil, or occasionally on the high sandy banks of Pine-barren streams; southeastern Virginia southward in the immediate neighborhood of the coast to the shores of Bay Biscayne and the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and in the interior of the peninsular in Polk and De Soto Counties, Florida, and along the Gulf coast to western Louisiana; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba (var. latifolia Ait.); nowhere abundant on the Atlantic coast; most common in western Florida and southern Alabama; passing through forms with elongated narrow leaves (var. angustifolia Ait., the common form of southern Alabama) into the variety myrtifolia Sarg. This is a low shrub or occasionally a slender wide-branched tree, with pale nearly white bark, puberulous branchlets, and crowded generally entire mucronate leaves ½′—1′ long, ⅛′ wide, with strongly reflexed margins, a very short petiole, and a broad prominent midrib; an inhabitant of Cypress-swamps and Pine-barren ponds or their margins, in the neighborhood of the coast, North Carolina to Louisiana.

Ilex Cassine is occasionally cultivated in Europe.

3. Ilex vomitoria Ait. Cassena. Yaupon.

Leaves elliptic to elliptic-oblong, obtuse, coarsely and remotely crenulate-serrate, coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale and opaque below, 1′—2′ long and ¼′—1′ wide, persistent for two or three years, generally falling just before the appearance of the new growth of their third season; petioles short, broad, and grooved. Flowers on slender club-shaped glabrous pedicels, with minute bractlets at the base, in short glabrous cymes on branchlets of the previous year, those of the staminate plant short-stemmed and many-flowered, those of the pistillate plant sessile and 1 or 2-flowered; calyx-lobes rounded, obtuse, often slightly ciliate; ovary contracted below the broad flat stigma. Fruit produced in great abundance, on stems not more than ¼′ long, ripening late in the autumn or in early winter, soon deciduous, or persistent until spring, scarlet, nearly globose, about ¼′ in diameter; nutlets obtuse at the ends, and prominently few-ribbed on the back and sides.

A small much-branched tree, 20°—25° high, with a slender often inclining trunk rarely more than 6′ in diameter, and stout branchlets standing at right angles with the stem, slightly angled and puberulous during their first season, becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous, terete and pale gray in their second year; generally a tall shrub, with numerous stems forming dense thickets. Winter-buds minute, obtuse, with narrow dark brown or often nearly black scales. Bark of the trunk /16′—⅛′ thick, the light red-brown surface broken into thin minute scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, nearly white, turning yellow with exposure, with thick lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Southeastern Virginia to the St. John’s River and Cedar Keys, Florida, and westward to the shores of Matagorda Bay and the valleys of the upper Rio Blanco and the Guadalupe River, Texas, and to southern Arkansas; in the Atlantic and east Gulf states rarely far from salt water and usually not more than 10°—15° high; of its largest size and of tree-like habit only on the rich bottom-lands of eastern Texas. The branches covered with the fruit are sold during the winter months for decorative purposes. An infusion of the leaves, which are emetic and purgative, was used by the Indians, who formerly visited the coast in large numbers every spring to drink it.

Occasionally used in the southern states for hedges.

4. Ilex Krugiana Loesen.

Leaves ovate, ovate-elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate and abruptly long-pointed or acute at apex, rounded or obtusely cuneate at base, entire, with slightly thickened margins subcoriaceous or coriaceous, glabrous, dark yellow-green and lustrous above, dull beneath, persistent, 2½′—4′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with a prominent midrib deeply impressed on the upper side and pale on the lower side, and 6—9 pairs of slender primary veins connected by thin reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, ⅓′—¾′ in length; stipules minute, whitish, persistent. Flowers on slender pedicels, /12′—⅙′ long, in the axils of minute acute scarious deciduous bractlets, in crowded clusters, the staminate 1—3-flowered on short peduncles, the pistillate 1-flowered; calyx about /12′ in diameter, 4-lobed, the lobes triangular, suberect, about as long as the tube, imbricated in the bud; corolla rotate, greenish white, petals 4, ovate or slightly obovate in the pistillate flower, imbricated in the bud; stamens 4 in the staminate flower, nearly as long as the petals; filaments slender, about as long as the oval anthers; in the pistillate flower much smaller and abortive; ovary 4-celled, ellipsoid; stigma small, discoid, obscurely 4-lobed; ovary of the staminate flower subconic, minute and abortive. Fruit on a stout pedicel up to ⅕′ in length, globose, brownish purple, lustrous, ⅙′ in diameter; sarcocarp thin; nutlets 4, irregularly 3-seeded, obtusely angled, dark brown.

In Florida a tree, sometimes 30°—40° high, with a tall often crooked trunk occasionally 4′ in diameter and covered with thin smooth nearly white bark, becoming on old individuals darker-colored and broken into narrow scales, and small ascending branchlets green when they first appear, becoming light gray and finally white, and marked by numerous round elliptic lenticels; often a shrub.

Distribution. Florida, Homestead and Paradise Keys in the Everglades, Dade County; in the Bahama Islands, Hayti and San Domingo.

5. Ilex decidua Walt.

Leaves deciduous, except on vigorous shoots, fascicled at the end of short spur-like lateral branchlets, oblong-spatulate or spatulate-lanceolate, acuminate, obtuse or emarginate at apex, gradually narrowed below, remotely crenulate-serrate, 2′—3′ long, ⅓′—1′ wide, thin early in the season, becoming thick and firm at maturity, light green above and pale and sparingly hairy along the narrow midrib below; petioles slender, grooved, pubescent, about ¼′ in length; stipules filiform, membranaceous. Flowers on slender pedicels, those of the staminate plant often ½′ long and longer than those of the pistillate plant, in 1 or 2-flowered glabrous cymes crowded at the end of the lateral branches of the previous season, or rarely solitary on branchlets of the year; calyx-lobes triangular, with smooth or sometimes ciliate margins. Fruit on short stout stems, ripening in the early autumn, often remaining on the branches until the appearance of the leaves the following spring, globose or depressed-globose, orange or orange-scarlet, ¼′ in diameter; nutlets narrowed and rounded at base, acute or acuminate at apex, many-ribbed on the back.

A tree, 20°—30° high, with a slender trunk 6′—10′ in diameter, stout spreading branches, and slender glabrous pale silver gray branchlets; more often a tall straggling shrub. Winter-buds minute, obtuse, with ovate light gray scales. Bark of the trunk rarely more than /16′ thick, light brown, and roughened by wart-like excrescences. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, creamy white, with rather lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Borders of streams and swamps in low moist soil; Gloucester County, Virginia, to western Florida in the region between the eastern and southern base of the Appalachian Mountains and the neighborhood of the coast, and through the Gulf states to the valley of the Colorado River, Texas, and through Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, and southern Missouri to southern Illinois; usually shrubby east of the Mississippi River and only arborescent in Missouri, southern Arkansas, and eastern Texas. In Florida a form (var. Curtissii Fern.) occurs with leaves only ⅓′—⅔′ long and fruit about ¼′ in diameter.

6. Ilex monticola Gray.

Leaves deciduous, ovate to oblong-lanceolate, abruptly narrowed and acuminate or rarely acute at apex, cuneate or rarely rounded at base, sharply and rather remotely serrate with minute glandular incurved teeth, thin, glabrous, or sparingly hairy along the prominent midrib and veins, 2′—5′ long, ½′—2½′ wide, light green above and pale below; petioles slender, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers appearing in June when the leaves are more than half grown, on slender pedicels ½′ long on the staminate plant and much longer on the pistillate plant, in 1—2-flowered cymes crowded at the end of lateral spur-like branchlets of the previous year, or solitary on branchlets of the year; calyx-lobes acute, ciliate; ovary contracted below the broad flat stigma. Fruit globose, bright scarlet, nearly ½′ in diameter; nutlets narrowed at the ends, prominently ribbed on the back and sides.

A tree, 30°—40° high, with a short trunk sometimes 10′—12′ in diameter, slender branches forming a narrow pyramidal head, and more or less zigzag glabrous branchlets pale red-brown at first, becoming dark gray at the end of their first season; more often a low shrub, with spreading stems. Winter-buds broad-ovoid to subglobose, about ⅛′ long, with ovate keeled apiculate light brown scales. Bark of the trunk usually less than /16′ thick, with a light brown surface roughened by numerous lenticels. Wood hard, heavy, close-grained, and creamy white.

Distribution. Central and western New York, southward along the Appalachian Mountains to eastern Tennessee; northern and central Georgia; coast of South Carolina near Charleston; western Florida (Mariana, Jackson County, and Wakulla Springs, Wakulla County); Dallas County, Alabama; northeastern Mississippi (Tishomingo County), and in West Feliciana and Wynn Parishes, Louisiana; a shrubby form with leaves soft pubescent beneath (var. mollis Britt.) occurs in western Massachusetts and Connecticut, and southward to North Carolina.

XXXIV. Celastraceæ.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and opposite or alternate simple persistent or deciduous leaves, with or without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect, polygamous or diœcious, pedicellate in axillary clusters; calyx 4—5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 4 or 5, imbricated in the bud; stamens 4 or 5; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 2—5-celled; ovules 2 or solitary in each cell (6 in Canotia), anatropous, or subhorizontal (in Canotia). Fruit a capsule or drupe. Seed with copious albumen; embryo axile.

A family of about thirty-eight genera widely distributed over the tropical and warm temperate parts of the world, with five arborescent representatives in the United States.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Genera of the United States.

Leaves opposite, deciduous; parts of the flower in 4’s; fruit a fleshy capsule enclosed in a colored aril.

1. Evonymus.

Leaves alternate, persistent (0 in 3).

Fruit capsular; parts of the flower in 5’s.

Capsule 3—4-valved, loculicidal, its outer coat woody, the valves apiculate at apex; base of the seed enclosed in a colored aril.

2. Maytenus.

Capsule 5-valved, septicidal, its outer coat thin and fleshy, the valves 2-lobed at apex; seed without an aril.

3. Canotia.

Fruit drupaceous; parts of the flower in 4’s; seed without an aril.

Leaves often crenately serrate above the middle; stipules minute, caducous; fruit usually 1-seeded; branchlets quadrangular.

4. Gyminda.

Leaves entire; stipules 0; fruit 2-seeded; branchlets terete.

5. Schæfferia.

1. Evonymus L.

Small generally glabrous trees or shrubs, with usually square sometimes wing-margined branchlets, bitter drastic bark, slender obtuse or acuminate winter-buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves opposite, petiolate, entire, crenate or dentate, deciduous or rarely persistent; stipules minute, caducous. Flowers perfect or polygamo-diœcious, in dichotomous axillary usually few-flowered cymes; calyx 4-lobed (in the North American arborescent species); disk thick and fleshy, cohering with and filling the short tube of the calyx, flat, 4-angled or lobed, closely surrounding and adhering to the ovary; petals inserted in the sinuses of the calyx under the free border of the disk, as many as and much longer than the calyx-lobes, spreading, deciduous; stamens as many as the petals and alternate with them, inserted on the summit of the disk; filaments very short, subulate, erect or recurved; anthers 2-celled, the cells nearly parallel or spreading below; ovary 4-celled; styles short, terminating in a depressed stigma; ovules usually 2 in each cell, ascending from the central angle; raphe ventral, micropyle inferior, or pendulous, the raphe then dorsal and the micropyle superior. Fruit capsular, 4-lobed and celled, fleshy, angled or winged, smooth (in the North American arborescent species), loculicidally 4-valved, the valves septicidal. Seeds 2 in each cell, or commonly solitary by abortion, ascending, surrounded by a colored aril; seed-coat chartaceous; albumen fleshy; embryo axile; cotyledons broad, coriaceous, parallel with the raphe; the radicle short, inferior.

Evonymus is widely distributed through the northern hemisphere, extending south of the equator to the islands of the Indian Archipelago and to Australia. About forty species are distinguished, the largest number occurring in the tropical regions of southern Asia, and in China and Japan. Of the four species found within the territory of the United States one only is a small tree. Many of the species are rich in bitter and astringent principles, and are drastic and slightly stimulant. Many are valued as ornaments of gardens and parks.

The generic name is from the classical name of one of the European species.

1. Evonymus atropurpureus Jacq. Bunting Bush. Wahoo.

Leaves ovate-elliptic, acuminate, minutely serrate or biserrate, thin, puberulous below, 2′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with a stout midrib and primary veins; turning pale yellow in the autumn and falling in October; petioles stout, ½′—1′ in length. Flowers appearing from May to the middle of June, nearly ½′ across, in twice or thrice dichotomous usually 7—15-flowered cymes borne on slender peduncles 1′—2′ long and conspicuously marked by the scars of minute bracts; calyx-lobes 4, rounded or rarely acute at apex, mostly entire; petals broad-obovate, undulate, often erose on the margins; anthers spreading. Fruit ripening in October, usually persistent on the branches until midwinter, deeply lobed, ½′ across, with light purple valves; seeds sometimes gibbous on the dorsal side, broad and rounded above, narrowed below, ¼′ long, with a thin light chestnut-brown wrinkled coat and a thin scarlet aril.

A tree, rarely 20°—25° high, with a trunk 4′—6′ in diameter, spreading branches, and slender terete branchlets dark purple-brown at first, becoming lighter colored in their second season, often covered with small crowded lenticels, and marked by prominent leaf-scars, occasionally slightly or on vigorous shoots rarely broadly wing-margined; more often a shrub, 6°—10° tall. Winter-buds ⅛′ long, acute, with narrow purple apiculate scales scarious on the margins and covered by a glaucous bloom. Bark thin, ashy gray, and covered by thin minute scales. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, white tinged with orange.

Distribution. Borders of woods in rich soil; western New York to southern Minnesota, central Iowa, southeastern South Dakota, northwestern Nebraska, central Kansas, Oklahoma to the valley of the Canadian River (near Minton, Caddo County), southern Arkansas and eastern Texas (Dallas County), and southward to eastern Tennessee, Jackson County, Alabama, and western Florida; in the valley of the upper Missouri River, Montana; arborescent only in southern Arkansas and Texas.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornament of gardens in the eastern United States and in Europe.

2. Maytenus Molina.

Small unarmed trees or shrubs with slender branchlets and minute buds. Leaves alternate often in two ranks, coriaceous, petiolate, persistent; stipules minute, deciduous. Flowers polygamous, small, white, yellow or red, axillary, solitary or in cymose or fascicled clusters; calyx 5-lobed; petals 5, spreading; stamens 5, inserted under the orbicular disk, with undulate margins; filaments filiform; anthers ovoid-cordate; ovary immersed and confluent with the disk, 2—4-celled; style 0 or columnar; stigma 2—4-lobed, usually sessile; ovules erect, solitary or in pairs in each cell. Fruit capsular, coriaceous, 2—4-valved; seed erect, surrounded at base or entirely in a pulpy aril; testa crustaceous; albumen fleshy or wanting; cotyledons foliaceous.

Maytenus with some seventy species is widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions of America from southern Florida, where one species occurs, to Brazil and Chile.

The Chilean Maytenus boaria Molina, a handsome tree of graceful habit, is occasionally cultivated in California.

The generic name is from Mayten, the Chilean name of one of the species.

1. Maytenus phyllanthoides Benth.

Leaves oblong-obovate to elliptic, rounded and rarely emarginate or acute at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base and entire, deeply tinged with red when they unfold and at maturity, 1′—1½′ long and ½′—¾′ wide, with thickened often slightly undulate margins, a slender midrib, obscure primary veins, and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; petioles stout, ⅙′—¼′ in length. Flowers usually solitary or in compact fascicles, short-stalked, about /12′ in diameter; calyx-lobes rounded at apex, often persistent under the fruit, reddish, shorter than the white petals; ovary 3—4-celled. Fruit solitary, short-stalked, broad-obovoid, 4-angled, rounded and minutely mucronate at apex, abruptly narrowed below, bright red, ¼′—⅓′ long and broad, 1-celled, 3—4-valved, the valves opening to the base, ridged down the inner surface with a low ridge developed from the dissepiment, 2—4-seeded; seed ellipsoid, acute at the ends, /12′ long, surrounded at base by an open bright red aril.

A round-topped tree, rarely 20° high, with a trunk 1°—2° in diameter (teste J. K. Small), and slender alternate glabrous pale gray branchlets; usually a low shrub.

Distribution. Florida, west coast, Captiva Island, Lee County, to the neighborhood of Cape Sable; Cocoanut Grove, Dade County, and on many of the southern keys; on bluffs of Matagorda Bay near Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas; in northern Mexico and Lower California; probably of its largest size in Florida on Sands Key and on Captiva Island.

3. Canotia Torr.

A glabrous leafless tree, with light brown deeply furrowed bark, stout terete alternate branches terminating in rigid, pale green and striate spines, their base and those of the peduncles surrounded by black triangular persistent cushion-like processes minutely papillose on the surface. Flowers perfect, on slender spreading pedicels jointed below the middle, 3—7 together, in short-stemmed fascicles or corymbs near the end of the branches, from the axils of minute ovate subulate bracts; calyx 5-lobed, minute, persistent, much shorter than the oblong obtuse white hypogynous petals imbricated in the bud, reflexed at maturity above the middle, deciduous; stamens 5, hypogynous, opposite the lobes of the calyx; filaments awl-shaped, rather shorter than the petals, persistent on the fruit; anthers oblong, cordate, minutely apiculate, attached below the middle, grooved on the back; ovary raised upon and confluent with a fleshy slightly 10-angled gynophore, papillose-glandular on the surface, 5-celled, the cells opposite the petals, terminating in a fleshy elongated style; stigma slightly 5-lobed; ovules 6 in each cell, inserted in 2 ranks on its inner angle, subhorizontal; micropyle inferior. Fruit a woody ovoid, acuminate capsule rounded at base, crowned with the subulate persistent style, septicidally 5-valved, the valves 2-lobed at apex; outer coat thin, fleshy; inner coat woody. Seed solitary or in pairs, ascending, subovoid, flattened; seed-coat subcoriaceous, papillate, produced below into a subfalcate membranaceous wing; embryo surrounded by thin fleshy albumen, erect; cotyledons oval, compressed; radicle very short, inferior.

The genus is represented by a single species.

The generic name is that by which this plant was known to the Mexicans of Arizona at the time of its discovery.

1. Canotia holacantha Torr.

Leaves 0. Flowers ⅛′—¼′ in diameter, appearing from June until October. Capsule 1′ long; seed about ¾′ in length.

A small shrub-like tree, sometimes 20°—30° high, with a short stout trunk rarely a foot in diameter; or often a low spreading shrub.

Distribution. Dry gravelly mesas on the Arizona foothills, from the White Mountain region to the valley of Bill Williams’s Fork in the northwestern part of the state, and on Providence Mountain in southern California.

4. Gyminda Sarg.

Trees or shrubs, with pale quadrangular branchlets and minute acuminate buds. Leaves opposite, short-petiolate, oblong-obovate, rounded and sometimes emarginate at apex, entire or remotely crenulate-serrate above the middle with revolute thickened margins, feather-veined, coriaceous, persistent; stipules minute, acuminate, membranaceous, caducous. Flowers unisexual, pedicellate, in axillary pedunculate few-flowered dichotomously branched cymes bibracteolate at apex; calyx minute, 4-lobed, persistent, with a short urceolate tube and rounded lobes; disk fleshy, filling the tube of the calyx, cup-shaped, slightly 4-lobed; petals entire, obovate, white, rounded at apex, reflexed, much longer than the lobes of the calyx; stamens 4, opposite the sepals, inserted in the lobes of the disk, exserted, 0 in the pistillate flower; filaments slender, subulate, incurved; anthers oblong; ovary 2-celled, oblong, sessile, confluent with the disk, crowned with a large 2-lobed sessile stigma, rudimentary and deeply cleft in the staminate flower; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, 2-celled, 1 or 2-seeded, black or dark blue, oval or obovoid, crowned with the remnants of the persistent stigma, often 1-celled by abortion; flesh thin; stone thick, crustaceous. Seed oblong, suspended; seed-coat membranaceous; albumen thin, fleshy; embryo axile; cotyledons ovate, foliaceous; radicle superior, next the hilum.

Gyminda with a single species is distributed from southern Florida to Trinidad and southern Mexico, and is represented in Central America by what is perhaps a second species.

The generic name is formed by transposing the first three letters of Myginda, to which this plant had been referred.

1. Gyminda latifolia Urb.

Gyminda Grisebachii Sarg.

Leaves 1½′—2′ long, ¾′—1′ broad, pale yellow-green. Flowers produced on shoots of the year from April to June. Fruit ripening in November, ¼′ long.

A tree, sometimes 20°—25° high, with a trunk rarely more than 6′ in diameter, and branchlets becoming terete during their third season and covered with thin slightly grooved roughened bright red-brown bark. Bark of the trunk thin, brown tinged with red, separating into thin minute scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, dark brown or nearly black, with thick light brown sapwood of 75—80 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Florida, common and generally distributed over the southern keys from the Marquesas group to Upper Matecombe Key; in Cuba, Porto Rico, Trinidad, and southern Mexico. A form (var. glaucescens, Small.) with smaller less coriaceous very glaucous leaves occurs in Cuba.

5. Schæfferia Jacq.

Glabrous trees or shrubs, with slender rigid terete branches and small obtuse buds. Leaves alternate, or fascicled on short spur-like branchlets, entire, obovate or spatulate, acute and minutely apiculate or gradually narrowed to the rounded or emarginate apex, cuneate below, persistent, without stipules. Flowers diœcious, pedicellate in axillary clusters from buds covered by scale-like persistent bracts; calyx 4-lobed, the lobes orbicular, persistent, much shorter than the 4 hypogynous, oblong, obtuse, white or greenish white petals; stamens 4, hypogynous, inserted under the margin of the small inconspicuous disk opposite the lobes of the calyx, wanting in the pistillate flower; filaments subulate, incurved; anthers oblong-ovoid; ovary 2-celled, ovoid, sessile, free, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style very short, gradually enlarged into the large 2-lobed stigma, with spreading lobes; ovule solitary, ascending; raphe thin, ventral; micropyle inferior. Fruit a small 2-seeded fleshy drupe, ovoid or obovoid, crowned with the remnants of the persistent style, indistinctly 2-lobed by longitudinal grooves, slightly flattened; flesh thin and tuberculate; nutlets 2, obovoid, rounded at the ends, with a thick bony shell. Seed solitary, ascending; seed-coat membranaceous; albumen fleshy; cotyledons broad, foliaceous; radicle very short, inferior, next the hilum.

Schæfferia with four or five species is confined to the New World, with one species in southern Florida, and another, a small shrub, Schæfferia cuneifolia A. Gray in the arid region of western Texas and northern Mexico.

The generic name is in honor of Jakob Christian Schaeffer (1718—1790), the distinguished German naturalist.

1. Schæfferia frutescens Jacq. Yellow Wood. Box Wood.

Leaves bright yellow-green, 2′—2½′ long, ½′-1′ wide, with thick revolute margins, appearing in Florida in April and persistent on the branches until the spring of the following year; petioles short and broad. Flowers opening in spring on branchlets of the year, ⅛′ across, the staminate generally 3 or 5 together on pedicels rarely more than ⅙′ long, the pistillato solitary or 2 or 3 together on pedicels rather longer than the petioles. Fruit ripening in Florida in November, slightly grooved, compressed, bright scarlet, with an acrid disagreeable flavor.

A glabrous tree, 35°—40° high, with a trunk sometimes 8′—10′ in diameter, erect branches, and slender many-angled branchlets pale greenish yellow during their first season, becoming light gray during their second year and then conspicuously marked by the remains of the persistent wart-like clusters of bud-scales; or often a tall or low shrub. Bark of the trunk rarely more than /12′ thick, pale brown faintly tinged with red, the surface divided by long shallow fissures, and ultimately separating into long narrow scales. Wood heavy, close-grained, bright clear yellow, with thick rather lighter colored sapwood; sometimes used as a substitute for boxwood in wood engraving.

Distribution. Florida, upper Matecombe and Old Rhodes Keys, and eastward on the southern keys, and on the Everglade Keys, Dade County; on the Bahama Islands, and widely distributed through the West Indies to Venezuela.

XXXV. Aceraceæ.

Trees or rarely shrubs, with limpid juice, terete branches, scaly buds, their inner scales accrescent and marking the base of the branchlets with ring-like scars, and fibrous roots. Leaves opposite, or on vigorous shoots rarely in whorls of 3, long-petiolate, simple, palmately 3—7-lobed and nerved or pinnately 3—7-foliolulate, usually without stipules, deciduous, in falling leaving small U-shaped narrow scars showing the ends of 3 equidistant fibro-vascular bundles. Flowers regular, diœciously or monœciously polygamous, rarely perfect or diœcious, in fascicles produced from separate lateral buds appearing in early spring before the leaves or in terminal and lateral racemes or panicles appearing with or later than the leaves; bracts minute, caducous; calyx colored, generally 5-parted, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals usually 5, imbricated in the bud, or 0; disk annular, fleshy, more or less lobed, with a free margin; stamens 4—10, usually 7 or 8, inserted on the summit or inside of the disk, hypogynous; filaments distinct, filiform, commonly exserted in the staminate, shorter and generally abortive in the pistillate flower; anthers oblong or linear, attached at the base, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 2-lobed, 2-celled, compressed contrary to the dissepiment, wing-margined on the back; styles 2, inserted between the lobes of the ovary, connate below and divided into 2 linear branches stigmatose on their inner surface; ovules 2 in each cell, collateral, rarely superposed, ascending, attached by their broad base to the inner angle of the cell, anatropous or amphitropous; micropyle inferior. Fruit composed of 2 samaras separable from a small persistent axis, the nut-like carpels compressed laterally, produced on the back into a large chartaceous or coriaceous reticulated obovate wing thickened on the lower margin. Seed solitary by abortion, or rarely 2 in each cell, ovoid, compressed, irregularly 3-angled, ascending obliquely, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous, the inner coat often fleshy; embryo conduplicate; cotyledons thin, foliaceous or coriaceous, irregularly plicate, incumbent or accumbent on the elongated descending radicle turned toward the hilum.

A family of two genera, one widely distributed, the other, Dipteronia, distinguished by the broad wings encircling the mature carpels, and represented by a single Chinese species.

1. Acer L. Maple.

Characters of the family.

Acer with sixty or seventy species is widely distributed over the northern hemisphere, with a single species extending south of the equator to the mountains of Java. Acer produces light close-grained moderately hard wood valued for the interior finish of houses and in turnery. The bark is astringent, and the limpid sweet sap of some of the American species is manufactured into sugar.

Acer is the classical name of the Maple-tree.

Conspectus of the North American Arborescent Species.

Leaves simple, usually palmately lobed (sometimes 3-foliolate in 1, 3-lobed at apex in 4).

Flowers appearing with or after the leaves.

Flowers with petals; sepals distinct.

Inflorescence corymbose.

Flowers in terminal drooping corymbs.

Leaves 3-lobed or parted.

1. A. glabrum (B, F, G).

Leaves palmately 3—5-lobed.

2. A. circinatum (B, G).

Inflorescence racemose.

Flowers in dense erect racemes.

3. A. spicatum (A).

Flowers in drooping racemes.

Ovary and young fruit glabrous; leaves 3-lobed at apex.

4. A. pennsylvanicum (A).

Ovary and young fruit hairy; leaves deeply 5-lobed.

5. A. macrophyllum (G).

Flowers without petals; sepals united; inflorescence corymbose; pedicels long, pendulous, mostly hairy.

Leaves pale or glaucescent, or green and glabrous beneath.

Leaves green or pale beneath, glabrous or in one form villose-pubescent on the under side of the veins and on the petioles.

6. A. saccharum (A, C).

Leaves pale and pubescent, rarely glabrous beneath, their lobes usually short and obtuse or acuminate.

Lobes of the leaves only slightly lobed or entire; bark of young trees smooth and pale.

7. A. floridanum (C).

Lobes of the leaves distinctly lobulate; bark of young trees dark brown and scaly.

8. A. grandidentatum (F, H).

Leaves green and pubescent, rarely glabrous beneath.

Leaves hirsute-pubescent beneath and on the petioles, the lobes entire or lobulate, the basal sinus often closed by the lower lobes; bark dark and furrowed.

9. A. nigrum (A).

Leaves pilose-pubescent, rarely glabrous beneath, the lobes slightly lobulate, the basal sinus open; petioles glabrous; bark pale and smooth.

10. A. leucoderme (C).

Flowers appearing before the leaves in dense lateral clusters from separate buds; leaves 5-lobed (3-lobed in varieties of 12); fruit ripening in May or June.

Flowers sessile or short-stalked, without petals; ovary and young fruit tomentose.

11. A. saccharinum

Flowers on long pedicels, with petals; ovary and young fruit glabrous.

12. A. rubrum

Leaves 3—7-foliolate; flowers diœcious, without petals.

13. A. Negundo (A, B, C, F, G, H).

1. Acer glabrum Torr. Dwarf Maple.

Leaves glabrous, thin, rounded in outline, cordate-truncate or cuneate at base, 3—5-lobed, the middle lobe usually narrowed and entire below the middle, or often 3-parted or 3-foliolate (f. trisecta Sarg.), with acute or obtuse doubly serrate lobes, 3′—5′ in diameter, dark green and lustrous on the upper, paler on the lower surface, with conspicuous veinlets; petioles stout, grooved, 1′—6′ in length, and often bright red. Flowers about ⅛′ long on short slender pedicels, in loose few-flowered glabrous racemose corymbs on slender drooping peduncles from the end of 2-leaved branchlets, the staminate and pistillate usually produced separately on different plants; sepals oblong, obtuse, petaloid, as long as the greenish yellow petals; stamens 7 or 8, with glabrous unequal filaments shorter than the petals, much shorter or rudimentary in the pistillate flower; ovary glabrous, with short obtuse lobes, rudimentary or 0 in the staminate flower; style divided to the base into 2 spreading stigmatic lobes as long as the petals. Fruit glabrous, with broad nearly erect or slightly spreading wings ¾′—⅞′ long, often rose-colored during the summer; seeds ovoid, bright chestnut-brown, about ¼′ long.

A small tree, occasionally 20°—30° high, with a short trunk 6′—12′ in diameter, small upright branches, and slender glabrous branchlets often slightly many-angled, pale greenish brown when they first appear, becoming bright red-brown during their first winter; often a shrub. Winter-buds acute, ⅛′ long, with bright red or occasionally yellow scales, those of the inner ranks pale brown tinged with pink, tomentose on the inner surface, becoming 1½′ long and narrow-spatulate. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, and dark reddish brown. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, light brown or often nearly white, with thick lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Borders of mountain streams usually at elevations of 5000°—6000°; Rocky Mountains from Montana to Wyoming, the Black Hills of South Dakota, Sioux County, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, northern Arizona, and to the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico; in California from the Siskiyou Mountains along the Sierra Nevada to the East Fork of the Kaweah River, Kern County, at altitudes of 5000°—6000° at the north and of 8000°—9000° at the south. Passing into

Acer glabrum var. Douglasii Dippel.

Acer Douglasii Hook.

Leaves ovate or oblong-ovate, slightly cordate by a wide shallow sinus, truncate or rarely rounded at base, 3-lobed with acuminate lobes often slightly divided into acuminate lobules, the terminal leaflet usually ovate from a broad base, or occasionally gradually narrowed below and rhombic in outline and sharply serrate to the base or nearly to the base of the lobe with long-acuminate teeth pointing forward, dark green above, paler and often glaucescent below, 3½′—4′ long and 3′—4′ wide, with 3 prominent nerves extending to the points of the lobes, and slender veins; petioles glabrous, 1′—3½′ in length. Flowers as in the species. Fruit with erect or nearly erect wings, ¾′—1′ long and ⅓′—½′ wide.

A tree, occasionally 40° high, with a short trunk 12′—18′ in diameter, small upright branches and slender bright red-brown branchlets.

Distribution. Coast of southern Alaska (head of Lynn Canal), southward near the coast to Vancouver Island and western Washington, and eastward on the high mountains of Washington to the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, western Idaho and northern Montana; on Loomis Creek, Natrona County, Wyoming.

2. Acer circinatum Pursh. Vine Maple.

Leaves almost circular in outline, cordate at base by a broad shallow sinus, or sometimes almost truncate, palmately 7—9-lobed occasionally nearly to the middle, with acute lobes sharply and irregularly doubly serrate, and conspicuously palmately nerved, with prominent veinlets, when they unfold tinged with rose color, and puberulous, especially on the lower surface and on the petioles, and at maturity glabrous with the exception of tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the large veins, thin and membranaceous, dark green above, pale below, and 2′—7′ in diameter; in the autumn turning orange and scarlet; petioles stout, grooved, 1′—2′ in length, clasping the stem by their large base. Flowers appearing when the leaves are about half grown, in loose 10—20-flowered umbel-like corymbs pendent on long stems from the end of slender 2-leaved branchlets, the staminate and pistillate flowers produced together; sepals oblong to obovate, acute, villose, purple or red, much longer than the greenish white broad, cordate petals folded together at apex; stamens 6-8, with slender filaments villose at base, exserted in the staminate flower, much shorter than the petals in the pistillate flower; ovary glabrous, with spreading lobes, in the staminate flower reduced to a small point surrounded by a tuft of pale hairs; style divided nearly to the base into long exserted stigmas. Fruit with thin wings, 1½′ long, spreading almost at right angles, red or rose color like the nutlets in early summer, ripening late in the autumn; seeds smooth, pale chestnut-brown, ⅛′¼′ long.

A tree, rarely 30°—40° high, often vine-like or prostrate, with a trunk 10′—12′ in diameter, and glabrous pale green or reddish brown branchlets frequently covered during their first winter with a glaucous bloom, and occasionally marked by small lenticels; often a low wide-spreading shrub. Winter-buds ⅛′ long, rather obtuse, with thin bright red outer scales rounded on the back, and obovate-spatulate inner scales rounded at apex, contracted into a long narrow claw, bright rose-colored and more or less pubescent, especially on the outer surface, and when fully grown often 2′ long and ¼′ broad. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, bright red-brown, marked by numerous shallow fissures. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, not strong, light brown, sometimes nearly white, with thick lighter colored sapwood; used for fuel, the handles of axes and other tools, and by the Indians of the northwest coast for the bows of their fishing-nets.

Distribution. Banks of streams; coast of British Columbia through western Washington and Oregon to Mendocino County, and the cañon of the upper Sacramento River, California; one of the most abundant of the deciduous-leaved trees of western Washington and Oregon up to altitudes of 4000° above the sea, and of its largest size on the rich alluvial soil of bottom-lands, its vine-like stems in such situations springing 4 or 5 together from the ground, spreading in wide curves and sending out long slender branches rooting when they touch the ground and forming impenetrable thickets of contorted and interlaced trunks, often many acres in extent; in California smaller and less abundant, growing along streams in the coniferous forest or rarely on dry ridges up to an altitude of 4000° in the northeastern part of the state.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in Europe, and in the eastern states, and hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.

3. Acer spicatum Lam. Mountain Maple.

Leaves subcordate or sometimes truncate at base, conspicuously 3-nerved, 3 or slightly 5-lobed, with gradually narrowed pointed lobes, and sharply and coarsely glandular-serrate, when they unfold puberulous on the upper surface and densely tomentose on the lower surface, and at maturity thin, 4′—5′ long and broad; turning in the autumn to various shades of orange and scarlet; petioles slender, enlarged at base, 2′—3′ in length, often becoming scarlet in summer. Flowers opening in June after the leaves are fully grown, ¼′ diameter, on slender pedicels ½′—¾′ long, the pistillate toward the base and the staminate at the apex of a narrow many-flowered long-stemmed upright slightly compound pubescent raceme; calyx-lobes narrow-obovate, yellow, pubescent on the outer surface, much shorter than the linear-spatulate pointed yellow petals; stamens 7 or 8, inserted immediately under the ovary, with slender glabrous filaments as long as the petals in the sterile flower, about as long as the sepals in the pistillate flower, and glandular anthers; ovary hoary-tomentose, reduced to a minute point surrounded by a tuft of pale hairs in the staminate flower; style columnar, almost as long as the petals, with short stigmatic lobes. Fruit fully grown and bright red or yellow in July, turning brown late in the autumn, almost glabrous, with more or less divergent wings about ½′ long; seeds smooth, dark red-brown, ⅛′ long.

A bushy tree, occasionally 25°—30° high, with a short trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, small upright branches, and slender branchlets light gray and pubescent when they first appear, becoming glabrous during the summer, bright red during their first winter, gray or pale brown the following season, and blotched or streaked with green toward the base; more often a tall or low shrub. Winter-buds acute; the terminal ⅛′ long, with bright red outer scales more or less coated with hoary tomentum, those of the inner ranks becoming at maturity 1′ or more in length and then lanceolate, pale and papery; axillary buds much smaller and glabrous or puberulous. Bark of the trunk very thin, reddish brown, smooth or slightly furrowed. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Moist rocky hillsides usually in the shade of other trees, and really arborescent only on the western slopes of the high mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina; Newfoundland and Labrador to Hudson Bay, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, and southward through the northern states, and westward to Minnesota and northeastern Iowa, and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in the northern states.

4. Acer pennsylvanicum L. Striped Maple. Moose Wood.

Leaves rounded or cordate at base, palmately 3-nerved, 3-lobed at apex, with short lobes contracted into a tapering serrate point, and finely and sharply doubly serrate, when they unfold thin, pale rose color and coated with ferrugineous pubescence, especially on the lower surface and on the petioles, and at maturity glabrous with the exception of tufts of ferrugineous hairs in the axils of the principal nerves on the two surfaces, thin, pale green above, rather paler below, 5′—6′ long and 4′—5′ wide; turning in the autumn clear light yellow; petioles stout, grooved, 1½′—2′ in length, with an enlarged base nearly encircling the branch. Flowers bright canary-yellow, opening toward the end of May or early in June when the leaves are nearly fully grown, on slender pedicels ¼′—½′ long, in slender drooping long-stemmed racemes 4′—6′ in length, the staminate and pistillate usually in different racemes on the same plant; sepals linear-lanceolate to obovate, ¼′ long and a little shorter and narrower than the obovate petals; stamens 7—8, shorter than the petals in the staminate flower, rudimentary in the pistillate flower; ovary purplish brown, glabrous, in the staminate flower reduced to a minute point; styles united nearly to the top, with spreading recurved stigmas. Fruit in long drooping racemes, glabrous, with thin spreading wings ¾′ long, and marked on one side of each nutlet by a small cavity; seeds ¼′ long, dark red-brown, and slightly rugose.

A tree, 30°—40° high, with a short trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, small upright branches, and slender smooth branchlets pale greenish yellow at first, bright reddish brown during their first winter, and at the end of two or three years striped like the trunk with broad pale lines; or often much smaller and shrubby in habit. Winter-buds: the terminal conspicuously stipitate, sometimes almost ½′ long, much longer than the axillary buds, covered by two thick bright red spatulate boat-shaped scales prominently keeled on the back, the inner scales green and foliaceous, becoming 1½′—2′ long, ½′ wide, pubescent, and bright yellow or rose color. Bark of the trunk ⅛′—¼′ thick, reddish brown, marked longitudinally by broad pale stripes, and roughened by many oblong horizontal excrescences. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 30-40 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Usually in the shade of other trees, often forming in northern New England a large part of their shrubby undergrowth; shores of Ha-Ha Bay, Quebec, westward along the shores of Lake Ontario and the islands of Lake Huron to northern Wisconsin, and southward through the Atlantic states and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia; ascending to altitudes of 5000°; common in the north Atlantic states, especially in the interior and elevated regions; of its largest size on the slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains, Tennessee, and of the Blue Ridge in North and South Carolina.

Sometimes cultivated as an ornamental tree in the northern states, and occasionally in Europe.

5. Acer macrophyllum Pursh. Broad-leaved Maple.

Leaves more or less cordate at the broad base, deeply 5-lobed by narrow sinuses acute in the bottom, the lobes acute or acuminate, the terminal lobe often 3-lobed, the others usually furnished with small lateral lobules, the lower lobes much smaller than the others, prominently 3—5-nerved, puberulous when they unfold, especially on the upper surface along the principal veins, and at maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 8′—12′ in diameter; turning in the autumn bright orange color before falling; petioles stout, 10′—12′ in length, with enlarged bases united and encircling the stem and often furnished on the inside with small tufts of white hairs. Flowers bright yellow, fragrant, ¼′ long, on slender pubescent often branched pedicels ½′—¾′ in length, the staminate and pistillate together in graceful pendulous slightly puberulous racemes 4′—6′ long, appearing in April and May after the leaves are fully grown; sepals petaloid, obovate, obtuse and a little longer and broader than the spatulate petals; stamens 9—10, with long slender filaments hairy at base, exserted in the staminate flower and included in the pistillate flower, and orange-colored anthers; ovary hoary-tomentose, reduced in the staminate flower to a minute point; styles united at base only; stigmas long and exserted. Fruit fully grown by the 1st of July and ripening late in the autumn; nutlets covered with long pale hairs, their wings 1½′ long, ½′ wide, slightly divergent and glabrous with the exception of a few hairs on the thickened edge; seeds dark-colored, rugose and pitted, ¼′ long.

A tree, 80°—100° high, with a tall straight trunk 2°—3° in diameter, stout often pendulous branches forming a compact handsome head, and stout branchlets smooth and pale green at first, becoming bright green or dark red in their first winter, covered more or less thickly with small longitudinal white lenticels, and in their second summer gray or grayish brown. Winter-buds obtuse; terminal ¼′ long, with short broad slightly spreading dark red ciliate outer scales rounded on the back, those of the inner ranks green and foliaceous, and at maturity 1½′ long, colored and puberulous; axillary buds minute. Bark of the trunk ½′—¾′ thick, brown faintly tinged with red or bright reddish brown, deeply furrowed and broken on the surface into small square plate-like scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, rich brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored often nearly white sapwood of 60—80 layers of annual growth; more valuable than the wood produced by other deciduous-leaved trees of western North America, and in Washington and Oregon used in the interior finish of buildings, for furniture, and for axe and broom-handles.

Distribution. Banks of streams or on rich bottom-lands or the rocky slopes of mountain valleys; coast of Alaska south of latitude 55° north, southward along the islands and coast of British Columbia, through Washington and Oregon west of the Cascade Mountains, and southward along the coast ranges and the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada to the San Bernardino Mountains, and to Hot Spring Valley, San Diego County, California; on the Sierra Nevada usually between altitudes of 2000° and 5000° and on the southern mountains rarely above 3000°; most abundant and of its largest size in the humid climate and rich soil of the bottom-lands of southwestern Oregon, forming extensive forests; in California usually much smaller, especially on the coast ranges.

Generally planted in the Pacific States for shade and as a street tree, and occasionally in the Eastern States as far north as Long Island, New York, and in western Europe; not hardy in Massachusetts.

6. Acer saccharum Marsh. Sugar Maple. Rock Maple.

Leaves rarely in whorls of 3, heart-shaped by a broad sinus, truncate or sometimes cuneate at base, 3—5-lobed, the lobes usually acute sparingly sinuate-toothed usually 3-lobulate at apex, with 3—5 conspicuous nerves, and reticulate veinlets, when they unfold coated below with pale pubescence, glabrous or more or less pubescent on the nerves below (var. Schneckii Rehd.) and at maturity, 4′—5′ in diameter, often rather coriaceous, dark green and opaque on the upper surface, green or pale (var. glabrum Sarg.) on the lower surface; turning in the autumn brilliant shades of deep red, scarlet and orange or clear yellow; petioles slender, glabrous, 1½—3′ in length. Flowers appearing with the leaves on slender more or less hairy pedicels ¾′—3′ long, in nearly sessile umbel-like corymbs from terminal leaf-buds and lateral leafless buds, the staminate and pistillate in the same or in separate clusters on the same or on different trees; calyx broad-campanulate, 5-lobed by the partial union of the obtuse sepals, greenish yellow, hairy on the outer surface; corolla 0; stamens 7—8, with slender glabrous filaments twice as long as the calyx in the staminate flower and much shorter in the pistillate flower; ovary obtusely lobed, pale green, covered with long scattered hairs, in the staminate flower reduced to a minute point; styles united at base only, with 2 long exserted stigmatic lobes. Fruit ripening in the autumn, glabrous, with broad thin and usually divergent wings ½′—1′ long; seeds smooth, bright red-brown, ¼′ long.

A tree, 100°—120° high, with a trunk often 3°—4° in diameter, rising sometimes in the forest to the height of 60°—70° without branches, or in open situations developing 8°—10° from the ground stout upright branches forming while the tree is young a narrow egg-shaped head, ultimately spreading into a broad round-topped dome often 70°—80° across, and slender glabrous branchlets green at first, becoming reddish brown by the end of their first season, lustrous, marked by numerous large pale oblong lenticels, and in their second winter pale brown tinged with red. Winter-buds acute, ¼′ long, with purple slightly puberulous outer scales, and inner scales becoming 1½′ long, narrow-obovate, short-pointed at apex, thin, pubescent, and bright canary yellow. Bark of young stems and of large branches pale, smooth or slightly fissured, becoming on large trunks ½′—¾′ thick and broken into deep longitudinal furrows, the light gray-brown surface separating into small plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, tough, light brown tinged with red, with thin sapwood of 30-40 layers of annual growth; largely used for the interior finish of buildings, especially for floors, in the manufacture of furniture, in turnery, shipbuilding, for shoe-lasts and pegs, and largely as fuel. Accidental forms with the grain curled and contorted, known as curly maple and bird’s-eye maple, are common and are highly prized in cabinet-making. The ashes of the wood are rich in alkali and yield large quantities of potash. Maple sugar is principally made from the sap of this tree.

Distribution. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, westward to the Lake of the Woods, Ontario, and southward through eastern Canada and the northern states, and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia; in central Alabama and Mississippi, and westward in the United States to Minnesota, northeastern South Dakota (coulées of Little Minnesota River, Roberts County), central and northwestern Iowa, eastern Kansas, central Oklahoma, and eastern Louisiana; most abundant northward; ascending in North Carolina the Alleghany Mountains to altitudes of 3000°; the var. glabrum rare and local in the north from Prince Edwards Island and Lake St. John, Quebec, to Iowa and southward to Pennsylvania, Ohio and central Tennessee; more abundant southward; apparently the only form but not common in South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and southern Arkansas; the var. Schneckii with leaves glaucous or glaucescent below and more or less densely pubescent with spreading hairs, on the under side of the midrib and veins and on the petioles, southern Indiana and Illinois to western Kentucky and western and middle Tennessee, northwestern Georgia (near Rome, Floyd County), and to eastern Missouri southward to Williamsville, Wayne County.

Commonly planted as a shade and ornamental tree in the northern states.

More distinct are the following varieties:

Acer saccharum var. Rugelii Rehd.

Leaves thick, 3′—5′ long and 4′—6′ wide, pale and glabrous below, 3-lobed by broad rounded sinuses, rounded or slightly cordate at base, the lobes long-acuminate, usually entire, the middle lobe occasionally slightly undulate, the lateral lobes spreading, sometimes furnished near the base with a short acute lobule.

Distribution. Southeastern Ohio to western Pennsylvania (Kittaning, Armstrong County) and eastern and middle Tennessee, and to southern Ontario, the southern peninsula of Michigan, eastern and central Indiana, southern Illinois, eastern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas (Eureka Springs, Carroll County); rare and local in its extreme form; its 3-lobed leaves sometimes appearing on upper branches of trees bearing on lower branches leaves of the typical Sugar Maple.

Acer saccharum var. sinuosum Sarg.

Acer sinuosum Rehd.

Leaves suborbicular, broader than long, 3—5-lobed with short triangular-ovate to triangular-oblong obtuse lobes, entire or on vigorous shoots occasionally dentate, usually broad-cordate at base, often with the nerves of the two lateral lobes projecting into the broad sinus and forming its base, when they unfold glabrous and purplish above, loosely hairy below, soon glabrous, and at maturity dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale, reticulate-venulose and glabrous except in the axils of the principal veins on the lower surface, 3—5-nerved, usually not more than 1½′ long, occasionally up to 2¾′ long and 3′ wide; petioles slender, glabrous, ½′—1½′ in length. Flowers appearing with the leaves, on slender glabrous pedicels, ½′—1¼ long, in 3—8-flowered nearly sessile corymbs; calyx broad-campanulate or cupulate, with short semiorbicular lobes ciliate on the margins; petals 0; stamens usually 6, with slender filaments longer than the calyx of the staminate flower; style divided to below the middle, with two spreading stigmas. Fruit glabrous, with long and broad almost horizontally spreading nutlets, convex, smooth, pale yellow-brown, the wing curved upward.

A tree, rarely more than 20° high with a short trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, small branches forming an open irregular head, and slender glabrous branchlets light green above when they first appear, becoming pale red-brown and marked by pale lenticels during their first season and ultimately dull gray-brown. Bark of the trunk smooth, pale gray. Winter-buds small, obtuse, covered with dark brown scales, those of the inner ranks accrescent, linear-oblong, scarlet or pink, up to 1⅛′ in length when fully grown.

Distribution. Edwards Plateau of western Texas, banks and bluffs of Cibolo Creek, near Boerne, Kendall County, on the rocky banks of upper Saco Creek, Bandera County, and at the base of a high limestone bluff near Utopia, Uvalde County; rare and local.

7. Acer floridanum Pax. Sugar Maple.

Leaves rounded, truncate or slightly cordate at the broad base, 3—5-lobed, with short obtuse or acute entire or lobulate lobes, when they unfold sparingly hairy on the upper surface and hoary-tomentose on the lower surface, and at maturity thin, dark green and lustrous above, pale or glaucescent and pubescent below, 1½′—3′ in diameter, and prominently 3—5-nerved, with stout spreading lateral veins and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; turning yellow and scarlet in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, glabrous, or pubescent generally becoming glabrous, 1½′—3′ in length, with an enlarged base nearly encircling the branchlet. Flowers appearing with the leaves on slender elongated sparingly hairy ultimately glabrous or villose-tomentose (var. villipes Rehd.) pedicels, in many-flowered drooping nearly sessile corymbs; calyx campanulate, yellow, about ⅛′ long, persistent under the fruit, the short lobes ciliate on the margins with long pale hairs; corolla 0. Fruit green, sparingly villose until fully grown, usually becoming glabrous, with spreading occasionally erect wings ⅜′—¾′ long; seeds smooth, bright red-brown, about ¼′ long.

A tree, occasionally 50°—60° high, with a trunk rarely 3° in diameter, small erect and spreading branches, and slender glabrous or more or less densely villose-tomentose (var. villipes Rehdr.) branchlets, light green when they first appear, becoming rather light red-brown during their first season, and covered with minute pale lenticels; usually smaller. Winter-buds obtuse, about ⅛′ long, with dark chestnut-brown obtuse scales and bright rose-colored linear-spatulate inner scales often 1′ long when fully grown. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, pale, becoming near the base of old trees thick, dark, and deeply furrowed.

Distribution. River banks and low wet woods, southeastern Virginia (near McKinney, Dinwiddie County, W. W. Ashe), valley of the Roanoke River near Weldon, Halifax County, North Carolina, and southward to southern Georgia and western Florida to Lafayette County; near Selma, Dallas County, Alabama; West Feliciana Parish and through western Louisiana to eastern Texas (Harrison and St. Augustine Counties), and southern Arkansas (Fulton, Hempstead County); the var. fillipes near Raleigh, Walker County, North Carolina, Calhoun Falls, Abbeville County, South Carolina, Shell Bluff on the Savannah River, Burke County, Cuthbert, Randolph County, and Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia; River Junction, Gadsden County, Florida, and on the San Luis Mountains, southern New Mexico (A. brachypterum Woot. & Stanl.).

Sometimes planted as a shade-tree; the prevailing tree in the streets and squares of Raleigh, North Carolina.

8. Acer grandidentatum Nutt. Sugar Maple.

Leaves cordate or truncate at base, 3-lobed by broad shallow sinuses, the lobes acute or obtuse, entire or slightly lobulate, sparingly hairy on the upper surface and thickly coated with dense pale tomentum on the lower surface when they unfold, and at maturity thick and firm, dark green and lustrous above, pale and pubescent below, especially on the stout nerves and veins, or rarely glabrous, 2′—5′ in diameter; turning in the autumn before falling yellow and scarlet; petioles stout, 1′—2′ in length, glabrous, often red after midsummer, encircling the branchlet with their large base villose on the inner surface. Flowers appearing with the leaves on long slender drooping villose pedicels, in short-stalked corymbs; calyx campanulate, yellow, sparingly hairy with long pale hairs, about ¼′ long, with broad rounded lobes, often persistent under the fruit; corolla 0; stamens 7 or 8, much longer than the calyx, in the pistillate flower shorter than the calyx; ovary usually glabrous, with long spreading stigmatic lobes, rudimentary in the staminate flower. Fruit often rose-colored at midsummer, green at maturity, glabrous or rarely sparingly hairy, with spreading or erect wings ½′—1′ long; seeds smooth, light red-brown, about ¼′ long.

A tree, occasionally 30°—40° high, with a trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, stout usually erect branches, and slender glabrous bright red branchlets marked by numerous small pale lenticels and nearly encircled by the narrow leaf-scars, with conspicuous bands of long pale hairs in their axils. Winter-buds acute or acuminate, about /16′ long, bright red-brown, with puberulous-ciliate outer scales and obovate apiculate inner scales sometimes ½′ long when fully grown. Bark of the trunk thin, dark brown, separating on the surface into plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, bright brown or nearly white, with thick sapwood.

Distribution. Banks of mountain streams usually at altitudes of 5000°—6000° above the sea; on the Salt River Mountains, western Wyoming; valley of the Columbia River in northern Montana, southeastern Idaho (Pocatello, Oneida County), Wasatch Mountains, Utah, mountains of Arizona and of southern New Mexico; on the Guadalupe Mountains, western Texas, and on the Wichita Mountains, southwestern Oklahoma (G. W. Stevens); in Coahuila; rare and local.

Occasionally cultivated; hardy in the Arnold Arboretum.

9. Acer nigrum Michx. Black Maple.

Leaves generally 3 or occasionally 5-lobed, with abruptly short-pointed acute or acuminate lobes, undulate and narrowed from broad shallow sinuses and rarely furnished with short lateral spreading lobules, cordate at base with a broad sinus usually more or less closed by the approximation or imbrication of the basal lobes, occasionally 3-lobed with a broad long-acuminate nearly entire terminal lobe, and rounded or slightly cordate at base (var. Palmeri Sarg.), covered below when they unfold with hoary tomentum and above with caducous pale hairs, and at maturity thick and firm in texture, dull green on the upper surface, yellow-green and soft-pubescent, especially along the yellow veins on the lower surface, and 5′—6′ long and wide, with drooping sides; turning bright clear yellow in the autumn; petioles stout, tomentose or pubescent, sometimes becoming glabrous at maturity, usually pendent, 3′—5′ in length, much enlarged at base, frequently nearly inclosing the buds, in falling leaving narrow scars almost encircling the branchlet and furnished in their axils with tufts of long pale hairs; stipules triangular and dentate or foliaceous, sessile or stipitate, oblong, acute, tomentose or pubescent, sometimes slightly lobed, frequently 1½′ long. Flowers yellow, about ¼′ long, on slender hairy pedicels 2½′—3′ long, in many-flowered nearly sessile umbel-like corymbs, the staminate and pistillate in separate or in the same cluster on the same or on different trees; calyx broad-campanulate, 5-lobed by the partial union of the sepals, pilose on the outer surface near the base; corolla 0; stamens 7 or 8, with slender glabrous filaments, in the staminate flower nearly twice as long as the calyx and in the pistillate flower shorter than the calyx; ovary obtusely lobed, pale green, covered with long scattered hairs, minute in the sterile flower. Fruit glabrous, with convergent or wide-spreading wings ½′—1′ long; seeds smooth, bright red-brown, ¼′ long.

A tree, sometimes 80° high, with a trunk frequently 3° in diameter, stout spreading or often erect branches, and stout branchlets marked by oblong pale lenticels, orange-green and pilose with scattered pale caducous hairs when they appear, orange or orange-brown and lustrous during their first year, becoming dull pale gray-brown the following season. Winter-buds sessile, ovoid, acute, ⅛′ long, with dark red-brown acute scales hoary-pubescent on the outer surface and often slightly ciliate on the margins, and yellow puberulous inner scales, ½′—1′ long at maturity. Bark of young stems and of the branches thin, smooth, pale gray, becoming on old trunks thick, deeply furrowed, and sometimes almost black.

Distribution. Valley of the St. Lawrence River in the neighborhood of Montreal, Quebec, southward to the valley of Cold River, New Hampshire, through western Vermont and Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut (near Salisbury, Litchfield County), and westward through northern and western New York, southern Ontario, Ohio, the southern peninsula of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa to southeastern Minnesota, northeastern South Dakota, western and southern Missouri, eastern Kansas, and southward through western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Kentucky; comparatively rare near Montreal and in New England, more abundant farther west; almost entirely replacing Acer saccharum in Iowa, and the only Sugar Maple of South Dakota; easily distinguished in summer by its heavy drooping leaves, and at all seasons of the year by the orange color of the branchlets; the var. Palmeri in a single grove at Tunnel Hill, Johnson County, Illinois; southern Indiana (Shelby, Putnam and Lawrence Counties), and in Clark, Jackson and Dunklin Counties, Missouri; rare and local.

Occasionally planted in the region where it grows naturally as a shade-tree.

10. Acer leucoderme Small. Sugar Maple.

Leaves usually truncate or slightly cordate at base, more or less deeply divided into 3—5 acute caudate-acuminate lobes coarsely and sinuately dentate or undulate, when they unfold coated below with long matted pale caducous hairs, and at maturity thin, dark yellow-green above, bright yellow-green and pilose-pubescent below, 2′—3½′ in diameter; often turning in the autumn bright scarlet on the upper surface before falling; petioles slender, glabrous, 1′—1½′ in length. Flowers yellow, about ⅛′ long, on slender, glabrous pedicels, in nearly sessile clusters; calyx campanulate, glabrous or slightly villose, with rounded ciliate lobes; corolla 0; stamens 7 or 8; filaments villose, longer than the calyx, much shorter than the calyx in the pistillate flower; ovary villose; style elongated, with short spreading lobes. Fruit villose, with long scattered pale hairs until nearly grown, becoming glabrous at maturity, the wings wide-spreading or divergent, ½′—¾′ long; seeds smooth, light red-brown, about ¼′ long.

A tree, usually 20°—25° high, with a trunk a foot in diameter, occasionally 40° high, with a trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, short slender branches forming a rather compact round-topped head, and slender glabrous branchlets dark green when they first appear, becoming bright red-brown and lustrous during their first summer, and marked by numerous small oblong pale lenticels, gradually growing darker in their second year and finally light gray-green. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, dark brown, glabrous, rather more than /16′ long, the inner scales becoming bright crimson and very conspicuous when the tree is in flower. Bark of young stems and large branches close, light gray or grayish brown, becoming near the base of old trees dark brown or often nearly black and broken by deep furrows into narrow ridges covered by closely appressed scales.

Distribution. Banks of streams, rocky gorges, and woods in moist soil; valley of the Yadkin River, Stanley County, North Carolina; southeastern Tennessee (Polk County); valley of the Savannah River (Abbeville County, South Carolina, and Richmond County, Georgia) to central and northwestern Georgia (near Rome, Floyd County, and Walker County) and to the valley of the Chattahoochee River to Muscogee County; northern and central Alabama; western Louisiana (Natchitoches and Sabine Parishes); southern Arkansas (Baker Springs, Howard County); rare and local; most abundant in northwestern and central Georgia and northern Alabama.

Occasionally planted as a street tree in the towns of northern Georgia and Alabama; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.

11. Acer saccharinum L. Silver Maple. Soft Maple.

Leaves truncate or somewhat cordate at base, deeply 5-lobed by narrow sinuses, with acute irregularly and remotely dentate lobes, the middle lobe often 3-lobed, 6′—7′ long and nearly as broad, thin, bright pale green above, silvery white and at first slightly hairy below, especially in the axils of the primary veins; turning pale yellow in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, drooping, bright red, 4′—5′ in length. Flowers greenish yellow, opening during the first warm days of the late winter or early spring long before the appearance of the leaves, on short pedicels, in sessile axillary fascicles on shoots of the previous year, or on short spur-like branchlets developed the year before from wood of the preceding season, the staminate and pistillate in separate clusters, on the same or on different trees, and produced from clustered obtuse buds covered with thick ovate pubescent red and green scales ciliate on the margins with a thick fringe of long rufous hairs; calyx slightly 5-lobed, more or less pubescent on the outer surface, long and narrow in the staminate and short and broad in the pistillate flower; corolla 0; stamens 3—7, with slender filaments, three times as long as the calyx of the staminate flower and about as long as the calyx of the pistillate flower; ovary covered, like the young fruit, with a thick coat of pubescence, rudimentary in the sterile flower; styles united at base only, with long exserted stigmatic lobes. Fruit ripening in April and May when the leaves are nearly grown, on slender drooping pedicels, 1½′—2′ long, glabrous, 1½′ to nearly 3′ long, with thin almost straight conspicuously falcate divergent wings sometimes ¾′ broad, prominently reticulate-veined and pale chestnut-brown or rarely bright red; seeds ½′ long, with a pale reddish brown wrinkled coat, germinating as soon as they fall to the ground, and producing plants with several pairs of leaves before the end of the summer.

A tree, 90°—120° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, generally dividing 10°—15° from the ground into 3 or 4 stout upright secondary stems destitute of branches for a considerable length, brittle pendulous branchlets light green and covered with lenticels when they first appear, soon becoming darker, bright chestnut-brown, smooth and lustrous in the autumn and winter of their first year, and in their second season pale rose color or gray faintly tinged with red. Winter-buds ⅛′ long, with thick ovate bright red outer scales rounded on the back, minutely apiculate, and ciliate on the margins, and acute inner scales pubescent on the inner surface, becoming pale green or yellow and about 1′ long. Bark of young stems and large branches smooth and gray faintly tinged with red, becoming on old trunks ½′—¾′ thick, reddish brown and more or less furrowed, the surface separating into large thin scales. Wood hard, strong, close-grained, easily worked, rather brittle, pale brown, with thick sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual growth; now sometimes used for flooring and in the manufacture of furniture. Sugar is occasionally made from the sap.

Distribution. Sandy banks of streams, rarely in deep often submerged swamps; valley of the St. John’s River (near Fredericton), New Brunswick, to that of the St. Lawrence in Quebec, and southward through western Vermont and central Massachusetts to western Florida, Alabama, and south central Mississippi, and westward through Ontario, New York, Ohio, the southern peninsula of Michigan and southern Indiana to Minnesota, southeastern South Dakota, and eastern Nebraska, and through Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, eastern Kansas, northwestern Arkansas, and eastern Oklahoma; in western Louisiana (swamp near Alexandria, Rapides Parish); rare in the immediate neighborhood of the Atlantic coast and on the high Appalachian Mountains; probably of its largest size in the valley of the lower Ohio River.

Often cultivated with several forms differing in habit and in the lobing of the leaves; fast-growing, and largely planted in the eastern states as a park and street tree.

12. Acer rubrum L. Red Maple. Scarlet Maple.

Leaves truncate, more or less cordate by a broad shallow sinus, rounded or cuneate at base, 3—5-lobed by acute sinuses, with irregularly doubly serrate or toothed lobes, the middle lobe often longer than the others, when they unfold pubescent especially beneath, and at maturity light green and glabrous on the upper surface and white or glaucescent and more or less pubescent or densely tomentose (var. tomentosum Kirch. [var. rubrocarpum Detmars]) on the lower surface, particularly along the principal veins, chartaceous or sometimes almost coriaceous, 1½′—6′ long and rather longer than broad; turning in the early autumn to brilliant shades of scarlet and orange, or clear bright yellow; petioles slender, glabrous or puberulous, red or green, 2′—4′ in length. Flowers opening in March and April before the appearance of the leaves, bright scarlet, dull yellowish red or sometimes yellow (var. pallidiflorum Pax.), on long slender pedicels, in few-flowered fascicles on branches of the previous year, from clustered obtuse buds, the staminate and pistillate flowers in separate clusters on the same or on different trees; sepals oblong, obtuse, as long as and broader than the oblong or linear petals; stamens 5—8, scarlet or yellow, with slender filaments exserted in the staminate and included in the pistillate flower; ovary glabrous on a narrow slightly lobed glandular disk; styles slightly united above the base, with long exserted stigmatic lobes. Fruit ripening in the spring or early summer on drooping stems 3′—4′ long, scarlet, dark red or brown or yellow, with thin erect wings, convergent at first, divergent at maturity, ½′—1′ long and ¼′—½′ wide; seeds dark red, with a rugose coat, ¼′ long, germinating as soon as it falls to the ground.

A tree, 80°—120° high, with a tall trunk 3°—4½° in diameter, upright branches usually forming a rather narrow head, and branchlets green or dark red when they first appear, becoming dark or bright red and lustrous at the end of their first summer and marked by numerous longitudinal white lenticels, and gray faintly tinged with red in their second year. Winter-buds obtuse, ⅛′ long, with thick dark red outer scales, rounded on the back and ciliate on the margins, and inner scales becoming ¾′—1′ long, narrow-oblong, rounded at apex and bright scarlet. Bark of young stems and of the branches smooth and light gray, becoming on old trunks ¼′—½′ thick, dark gray, and divided by longitudinal ridges separating on the surface into large plate-like scales. Wood very heavy, close-grained, not strong, light brown often slightly tinged with red, with thick rather lighter colored sapwood; used in large quantities in the manufacture of chairs and other furniture, in turnery, for wooden ware and gun-stocks.

Distribution. Borders of streams, wet swamps, upland forests and rarely on dry rocky hillsides and sand dunes; Newfoundland, southward to southern Florida (banks of the Miami River, Dade County, on the east coast and to Cypress swamps east of Everglade, Lee County, on the west coast) and westward through Quebec to latitude 49° north, and Ontario to the sandy shores of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (Brevort, Mackinac County, on Lake Michigan and White Fish Point, Chippewa County, on Lake Superior), western Wisconsin, northwestern Minnesota (Buckeye County), southeastern Iowa (Johnson County), central Oklahoma, and the valley of the Trinity River, Texas; on the mountains of North Carolina to altitudes of 4500°; one of the commonest and most generally distributed trees of eastern North America, ranging between more degrees of latitude than any other American tree; most abundant southward especially in the valley of the Mississippi River, and of its largest size in the river swamps of the lower Ohio and its tributaries; in the north often covering with small trees low wet swamps; on the sand dunes and ridges of northern Michigan reduced to a low shrub. On var. tomentosum leaves usually 5-lobed, cordate or rarely rounded at base, with glabrous or pubescent petioles and branchlets; widely distributed but rare; near Cranberry Island, Buckeye Lake, Licking County, Ohio; Biltmore, Buncombe County, North Carolina; neighborhood of Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia; top of Flagstaff Mountain, Barclay, Talladega County, Alabama; Panther Burn, Sharkey County, Mississippi; near Little Rock, Pulaski County, Arkansas; near Page, Leflore County, Oklahoma, and Larissa, Cherokee County, Texas; connected by trees of this variety with pubescent branchlets and winter-buds, and broad-ovate 3—5-lobed slightly cordate leaves and pubescent petioles with

Acer rubrum var. Drummondii Sarg.

Leaves often broader than long, usually 5-lobed, cordate or truncate at base, 3′—6′ long and wide, with a stout midrib and veins, until nearly fully grown covered above with scattered hairs and clothed below with thick snow-white tomentum, and more or less pubescent during the season; petioles stout, hoary-tomentose, 1¼′—4′ in length, becoming nearly glabrous in the autumn. Flowers bright scarlet. Fruit ripening with or before the unfolding of the leaves late in March or in April, bright scarlet, with convergent wings 1¼′—2½′ long and ½′—¾′ wide.

A tree, usually not more than 30°—35° high, with small erect branches forming a narrow head and slender branchlets coated when they first appear with matted pale hairs, becoming glabrous and dark reddish brown in their second season.

Distribution. Deep swamps, eastern Louisiana to the valley of the Neches River (Beaumont, Jefferson County, and Concord, Hardin County), eastern Texas and northward through southern and eastern Arkansas to western Mississippi, western Tennessee and Kentucky, southeastern Missouri (Butler, Stoddard, Dunklin and Mississippi Counties), southern Illinois (Gallatin, Pulaski and Richland Counties), and southwestern Indiana (swamp eighteen miles west of Decker, Knox County, C. C. Deam). A form growing at Hattiesburg, Forrest County, Mississippi, at Glen Gordon, Covington, St. Tammany Parish, and Chopin, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, near Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas, and at Poplar Bluff, Butler County, Missouri, with 3-lobed leaves rounded at base (f. rotundatum Sarg.) shows in the shape of the leaves a transition from the var. Drummondii to

Acer rubrum var. tridens Wood. Red Maple.

Acer carolinianum Britt., not Walt.

Leaves obovate, usually narrowed from above the middle to the rounded or rarely cuneate base, 3-lobed at apex, with acute or acuminate erect or slightly spreading lobes, simple or furnished with short lateral secondary lobes, remotely serrate except toward the base, with incurved glandular teeth, and often ovate by the suppression of the lateral lobes and acute or acuminate, thick and firm in texture, glaucous and usually pubescent or rarely tomentose or tomentulose below, 2′—3′ long and 1½′—2½′ wide; petioles slender, glabrous or pubescent. Flowers sometimes tawny yellow. Fruit usually much smaller and rarely also yellow.

Distribution. Usually with the species; Massachusetts and central New York, southward usually in the coast region and the middle districts to western Florida, along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Trinity River, Texas, and through western Louisiana, and Arkansas to northeastern Mississippi, southern Missouri, western Tennessee and Kentucky and southern Illinois; in North Carolina occasionally ascending on the Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of 3000°; often the prevailing Red Maple in southern Missouri and northwestern Louisiana; in the swamps of western Florida and southwestern Georgia the form with leaves densely tomentose below and pubescent petioles prevails.

13. Acer Negundo L. Box Elder. Ash-leaved Maple.

Leaves usually 3, rarely 5—7-foliolate, with a slender glabrous petiole 2′—3′ in length, the enlarged base often furnished with a minute rim of deciduous white hairs, and in falling leaving a large conspicuous scar surrounding the stem; leaflets ovate to elliptic or obovate, acuminate, and often long-pointed at apex, rounded or cuneate and often unsymmetrical at base, coarsely and irregularly serrate usually only above the middle or nearly entire, and occasionally slightly and irregularly lobulate; when they unfold more or less hoary-tomentose below and slightly pubescent above, and at maturity thin, light green, paler on the lower than on the upper surface, glabrous above, villose-pubescent along the under side of the midrib and veins, often furnished with conspicuous tufts of axillary hairs, otherwise glabrous or slightly pubescent below, 2½′—4′ long, and 1½′—2½′ wide, on slender glabrous petiolules, that of the terminal leaflet ¾′—1′ long and much longer than those of the smaller lateral leaflets. Flowers on slender glabrous or rarely hairy pedicels, minute, apetalous, yellow-green, the staminate and pistillate on separate trees, expanding just before or with the leaves from buds developed in the axils of the last leaves of the previous year, the staminate fascicled, the pistillate in narrow drooping racemes, sometimes furnished near the base with one or two smaller 3-lobed or rarely elliptic leaves; calyx 5-lobed, hairy, campanulate in the staminate flower, much smaller in the pistillate flower and divided to the base into 5 narrow sepals; corolla 0; stamens 4—6, with slender exserted hairy filaments and long linear anthers narrowed and apiculate at apex, 0 in the pistillate flower; ovary on a narrow rudimentary disk, pubescent, only partly inclosed by the calyx; style separating from the base into 2 long stigmatic lobes. Fruit attaining nearly its full size in summer, pendent on glabrous stems 1′—2′ long, in graceful racemes 6′—8′ in length, ripening in the autumn, deciduous from the stems persistent on the branches until the following spring, 1½′—2′ long, with narrow acute pubescent nutlets diverging at an acute angle and constricted below into a stipe-like base, and thin reticulate straight or falcate wings undulate toward the apex; seeds narrowed at the ends, smooth, bright red-brown, ½′ long.

A tree 50°—70° high, with a trunk 2°—4° in diameter, dividing near the ground into a number of stout wide-spreading or erect branches, and slender pale green lustrous glabrous branchlets. Winter-buds terminal acute, ⅛′ long, rather longer than the obtuse lateral buds, the scales tomentose, those of the inner pairs accrescent, becoming 1′ long at maturity, deciduous, leaving conspicuous scars visible at the base of the branchlet for two or three years. Bark of the trunk ¼′—½′ thick, pale gray or light brown and deeply divided into broad rounded ridges separating on the surface into short thick scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, not strong, creamy white, with thick hardly distinguishable sapwood; occasionally manufactured into cheap furniture, and sometimes used for the interior finish of houses, for wooden ware, cooperage, and paper pulp. Small quantities of maple sugar are occasionally made from this tree.

Distribution. Banks of streams and lakes, and the borders of swamps; western Vermont, western Massachusetts and Connecticut, central New York and southwestern Ontario, and southward to west-central Florida (Hernando County) and westward to Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, eastern Kansas, Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, western Louisiana, and eastern and southern Texas to the valley of the lower Rio Blanco.

Often planted in the United States, especially in the western states and in eastern Canada, and in western and northern Europe, especially the varieties with variegated leaves.

Passing into the following varieties:

Var. violaceum Kirch., with slender pale or bluish violet glabrous branchlets covered with a glaucous bloom and rather larger winter-buds. Leaves 3—11, usually 3—7-foliolulate, the leaflets slightly thicker, lanceolate to oblong-ovate or obovate, often entire or irregularly dentate, occasionally lobed, the terminal leaflet sometimes 3-lobed, usually pubescent and furnished with tufts of axillary hairs on the lower surface. Fruit glabrous, usually constricted at the base. Western Massachusetts through Ohio to northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota, and to northern and southwestern Missouri; in Nez Perces County, Idaho.

Var. texanum Pax., with branchlets covered with pale tomentum. Leaves 3-foliate, the leaflets ovate, or the terminal obovate, acuminate, short-pointed at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, coarsely serrate above the middle or entire, only slightly and irregularly lobed, early in the season villose along the midrib and veins above and thickly coated below with matted pale hairs, and at maturity nearly glabrous on the upper surface and covered below with loose pubescence, 3′—4′ long and 2′—3′ wide. Fruit puberulous, constricted into a short stipe-like base. Western and southwestern Missouri, southeastern Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and eastern Texas to the valley of the San Antonio River. Passing into forma latifolia Sarg. differing only in its glabrous branchlets, and distributed from eastern Texas through Louisiana to western Mississippi, western North Carolina, Virginia and southern Ohio.

Var. interior Sarg., with branchlets covered with close pale pubescence, or rarely nearly glabrous. Leaves trifoliate, with puberulous petioles, rachis and petiolules, the long-stalked leaflets ovate to lanceolate, or the terminal sometimes obovate, acuminate and long-pointed at apex, cuneate, rounded or cordate at base, coarsely serrate, sometimes distinctly 3-lobed at base, glabrous or villose on the midrib below, or in Arizona sometimes sparingly pubescent on the lower surface, 3′—4′ long and 1½′—4′ wide. Fruit glabrous, not at all, slightly or at the north conspicuously constricted at the base. Southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta to Wyoming, and through the mountain regions of Colorado and Utah to New Mexico and Arizona.

Var. arizonicum Sarg., with glabrous branchlets thickly covered with a glaucous bloom. Leaves thin, 3-foliolulate; petioles slender, glabrous, 1¾′—3′ long, often turning bright red late in summer; leaflets oblong-ovate to rhombic, acuminate and long-pointed at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, coarsely serrate, often slightly lobed near the middle, glabrous with the exception of conspicuous tufts of axillary hairs, 2½′—4′ long, 1½′—2′ wide; petiolules slender, glabrous, usually bright red, that of the terminal leaflet ¾′—1′ long, the others not more than ⅛′ in length. Fruit in glabrous racemes 3′ or 4′ long, the body glabrous, spreading, not constricted at base. A tree, 20°—25° high. Bark fissured. Mountain cañons, central and southern Arizona up to 8000° altitude, and in Socorro County, New Mexico. More distinct is

Acer Negundo var. californicum Sarg.

Leaves trifoliate with tomentose or nearly glabrous rachis and petiolules; leaflets oblong-ovate to rhombic, acuminate and long-pointed at apex, cuneate or unsymmetrically rounded at base, coarsely serrate above the middle, or nearly entire, when they unfold hoary-tomentose below and densely pubescent above, occasionally deeply lobed, glabrous on the upper surface except along the midrib and veins, thickly coated on the lower surface with matted pale hairs and furnished with large axillary tufts. Fruit on pubescent pedicels, puberulous or nearly glabrous, not constricted or rarely slightly constricted at base.

A tree, 20°—50° high, with dark bark, hoary-tomentose branchlets and winter-buds.

Distribution. California, valley of the lower Sacramento River and the interior valleys of the coast ranges from the Bay of San Francisco to Santa Barbara County and in elevated cañons on the western slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains; widely distributed but nowhere abundant.

Occasionally planted in California.

XXXVI. Hippocastanaceæ.

Trees or rarely shrubs, with stout terete branchlets conspicuously marked by triangular leaf-scars, fetid bark, thick fleshy roots, and large scaly winter-buds, the inner scales accrescent with the young shoots and often brightly colored. Leaves opposite, digitately compound, without stipules, deciduous; leaflets 3—9, lanceolate or ovate, serrate, pinnately veined. Flowers polygamo-monœcious, showy, white, red, or pale yellow, on stout jointed pedicels from the axils of minute caducous bracts, racemose or nearly unilateral on the branches of large terminal thyrsi or panicles, appearing later than the leaves, only those near the base of the branches of the inflorescence perfect and fertile; calyx 5 or rarely 2-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, unequal, campanulate or tubular, the lobes imbricated in the bud, mostly oblique or posteriorly gibbous at base; disk hypogynous, annular, depressed, lobed, more or less gibbous posteriorly; petals 4 or 5, imbricated in the bud, alternate with the lobes of the calyx, deciduous, the anterior petal often abortive, unguiculate, the margins of the claw commonly involute; stamens 6—8, rarely 5, generally 7, inserted on the disk, free, unequal; filaments filiform; anthers ellipsoid, glandular-apiculate, attached on the back below the middle, introrse, 2-celled, the contiguous cells opening longitudinally; ovary sessile, oblong or lanceolate, 3-celled, echinate or glabrous, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style slender, elongated, generally more or less curved; stigma terminal, entire, mostly acute; ovules 2 in each cell, borne on the middle of its inner angle, amphitropous, the upper ascending, the micropyle inferior, the lower pendulous, the micropyle superior. Fruit an echinate or smooth coriaceous capsule, 3-celled and loculicidally 3-valved, the cells 1-seeded by abortion, often by suppression 1 or 2-celled, and then 1 or 2-seeded, the remnants of the abortive cells and seeds commonly visible at its maturity. Seeds without albumen, round when one is developed, or, when more than one, flattened by mutual pressure; seed-coat coriaceous, dark chestnut-brown or pale orange-brown, smooth and lustrous, with a broad opaque light-colored hilum; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons very thick and fleshy, often conferruminate, unequal, incurved on the short conic radicle, remaining under ground in germination; plumule conspicuously 2-leaved.

The Horsechestnut family is composed of the widely distributed genus Aesculus and of Billia Peyr., a genus of two species of Mexican and Central American trees, differing from Aesculus in its 3-foliolate leaves.

1. Aesculus L.

Characters of the family; leaves 5—9-foliolate.

Aesculus with fifteen or sixteen species, is represented in the floras of the three continents of the northern hemisphere and is most abundant in the southeastern United States. It produces soft straight-grained light-colored wood and bitter and astringent bark. The seeds contain a bitter principle, aesculin. Aesculus Hippocastanum L., of the mountains of Greece, the common Horsechestnut of gardens, is largely planted as an ornamental tree in all countries with temperate climates, and now occasionally grows spontaneously in the eastern states.

The generic name is the classical name of an Oak-tree.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Species of North America.

Winter-buds without a resinous covering. Pavia.

Calyx campanulate (occasionally tubular in 3); margins of the petals ciliate, eglandular; flowers usually yellow. Octandræ.

Fruit covered with prickles; flowers yellow; petals nearly equal in length, shorter than the stamens.

1. A. glabra (A, C).

Fruit without prickles; flowers yellow or red; petals unequal in length, longer than the stamens.

Pedicels and calyx glandular-villose.

2. A. octandra (A, C).

Pedicels and calyx without glandular hairs.

3. A. georgiana (C).

Calyx tubular; margins of the unequal petals without hairs, glandular; fruit without prickles. Eupaviæ.

Lower surface of the leaves glabrous or slightly pubescent along the midrib; flowers red; seeds dark chestnut-brown.

4. A. Pavia (C).

Lower surface of the leaves tomentose or pubescent; flowers red and yellow, red, or in one form yellow; seed light yellow-brown.

5. A. discolor (C).

Winter-buds resinous; petals nearly equal in length, shorter than the stamens; fruit without prickles. Calothyrsus.

6. A. californica (G).

1. Aesculus glabra Willd. Ohio Buckeye. Fetid Buckeye.

Leaves with a slender petiole 4′—6′ long and enlarged at the end, a rachis often furnished on the upper side with clusters of dark brown chaff-like scales surrounding the base of the petiolules, and 5 rarely 7 (var. Buckleyi Sarg.) oval-oblong or obovate acuminate leaflets gradually narrowed to the elongated entire base, finely and unequally serrate above, at first sessile, becoming slightly petiolulate at maturity, covered on the lower surface like the petioles when they first appear with floccose deciduous hairs most abundant on the midrib and veins, and at maturity glabrous with the exception of a few hairs along the under side of the conspicuous yellow midrib and in the axils of the principal veins, or rarely covered below with close dense pubescence persistent during the season (var. pallida, Kirch.); yellow-green, paler on the lower than on the upper surface, 4′—6′ long and 1½′—2½′ wide; turning yellow in the autumn before falling. Flowers pale yellow-green, mostly unilateral, ½′—1½′ long or more than twice as long as the pedicels, appearing in April and May in clusters 5′—6′ long and 2′—3′ wide, and more or less densely covered with pubescence, with short usually 4—6-flowered branches; calyx campanulate; petals nearly equal, puberulous, the thin limb about twice as long as the claw, in the lateral pair broad-ovate or oblong, and in the superior pair oblong-spatulate, much narrower, sometimes marked with red stripes; stamens usually 7, with long exserted curved pubescent filaments and orange-colored slightly hairy anthers; ovary pubescent, covered with long slender deciduous prickles thickened and tubercle-like at base. Fruit on a stout stem ½′—1′ long, ovoid or irregularly obovoid, pale brown, 1′—2′ long, with thin or sometimes thick valves, roughened by the enlarged persistent bases of the prickles of the ovary; seeds 1′—1½′ broad.

A tree, occasionally 70° high, with a trunk rarely 2° in diameter, small spreading branches, and branchlets orange-brown and covered at first with short fine pubescence, soon glabrous, reddish brown, and marked by scattered orange-colored lenticels; usually much smaller, and rarely more than 30° high. Winter-buds ⅔′ long, acuminate, with thin nearly triangular pale brown scales, the outer bright red on the inner surface toward the base, those of the inner pair strap-shaped, prominently keeled on the back, minutely apiculate and slightly ciliate along the margins, and at maturity 1½′—2′ long and bright yellow. Bark of young stems and of the branches dark brown and scaly, becoming on old trees ¾′ thick, ashy gray, densely furrowed, and broken into thick plates roughened on the surface by numerous small scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, not strong, often blemished by dark lines of decay, nearly white, with thin dark-colored sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual growth; used in the manufacture of artificial limbs, wooden ware, wooden hats, and paper pulp; occasionally sawed into lumber. An extract of the bark has been used as an irritant of the cerebro-spinal system.

Distribution. River-bottoms and the banks of streams in rich moist soil; western slopes of the Alleghany Mountains, western and southwestern Pennsylvania to northern Alabama, and westward to central and southern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, northern and central Missouri and northeastern Kansas; nowhere abundant; most common and of its largest size in the valley of the Tennessee River in Tennessee and northern Alabama.

A shrubby form (var. micrantha Sarg.) with flowers not more than ½′ long near Fulton, Hempstead County, Arkansas. In southern Missouri, Arkansas and probably Oklahoma Aesculus glabra is replaced by the var. leucodermis Sarg. with glabrous leaves pale green or glaucescent below. A tree occasionally 60° high, well distinguished from the type by the smooth pale nearly white bark of the trunk and large branches, becoming on old trunks light brown and separating into oblong flakes, and by its later flowers; the var. pallida in Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas; the var. Buckleyi in Jackson County, Missouri, eastern Kansas, Ohio and Mississippi.

The Ohio Buckeye is occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern United States and Europe; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.

× Aesculus Bushii Schn., probably a hybrid of Aesculus discolor var. mollis Sarg. and Aesculus glabra var. leucodermis Sarg., has been found in the neighborhood of Fulton, Hempstead County, Arkansas; and what is evidently a hybrid of Aesculus discolor var. mollis and the typical form of Aesculus glabra occurs near Starkville, Oktibbeha County, Mississippi.

× Aesculus mississippiensis Sarg., a probable hybrid between Aesculus glabra and Aesculus Pavia with characters intermediate between those of its supposed parents, occurs near Brookville, Noxubee County, Mississippi. The mingling of a species of the Octandræ and of the Eupaviæ in these hybrids of Aesculus is shown by the presence of both hairs and glands on the margins of the petals.

2. Aesculus octandra Marsh. Sweet Buckeye.

Leaves with slender or slightly pubescent petioles 4′—6′ long, and 5—7 elliptic or obovate-oblong leaflets, acuminate and usually abruptly long-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, sharply and equally serrate, glabrous above except on the midrib and veins sometimes clothed with reddish brown pubescence, when they unfold more or less canescent-pubescent on the lower surface, becoming glabrous at maturity, with the exception of a few pale or rufous hairs along the stout midrib and in the axils of the principal veins, dark yellow-green, duller on the lower than on the upper surface, 4′—6′ long, and 1½′—2½′ wide; petiolules /12′—½′ in length; turning yellow in the autumn before falling. Flowers opening in early spring when the leaves are about half grown, 1′—1½′ long, pale or dark yellow, rarely red, pink or cream-colored (var. virginica Sarg.), on short glandular-villose pedicels mostly unilateral on the branches of the pubescent clusters 5′—7′ in length; calyx campanulate, glandular-villose; petals connivent, very unequal, puberulent, the claws villose within, limb of the superior pair spatulate, minute, the long claws exceeding the lobes of the calyx, those of the lateral pair obovate or nearly round and subcordate at base; stamens usually 7, rather shorter than the petals, with straight or inclining subulate villose filaments; ovary pubescent. Fruit 2′—3′ long, generally 2-seeded, with thin smooth or slightly pitted pale brown valves; seeds 1½′ to nearly 2′ wide.

A tree, sometimes 90° high, with a tall straight trunk 2½°—3° in diameter, small rather pendulous branches, and glabrous or nearly glabrous branchlets orange-brown when they first appear, becoming in their second year pale brown and marked by numerous irregularly developed lenticels. Winter-buds ⅔′ long, rather obtuse, with broad-ovate pale brown outer scales rounded on the back, minutely apiculate, ciliate, and slightly covered with a glaucous bloom, the inner scales becoming sometimes 2′ long, bright yellow or occasionally scarlet. Bark of the trunk about ¾′ thick, dark brown, divided by shallow fissures and separating on the surface into small thin scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, difficult to split, creamy white, with thick hardly distinguishable sapwood; used in the manufacture of artificial limbs, for wooden ware, wooden hats, paper pulp, and occasionally sawed into lumber.

Distribution. Rich river-bottoms and mountain slopes; southwestern Pennsylvania (Alleghany, Greene and Fayette Counties), southward along the mountains to east Tennessee, and northwestern Georgia, and westward to north central Ohio (near Plymouth, Richard County), southeastern and southern Indiana (near Aurora, Dearborn County, and on the banks of Dry River near Leavenworth, Crawford County, C. C. Deam) and to southern Illinois (near Golconda, Pope County, shrub 6′—12′ high, E. J. Palmer); the var. virginica at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

Occasionally cultivated in the parks of the eastern United States and Europe.

× Aesculus hybrida DC., with red and yellow flowers, believed to be a hybrid of Aesculus octandra and Aesculus Pavia, appeared in the Botanic Garden at Montpelier in France early in the nineteenth century, and in many varieties is cultivated in Europe and occasionally in the eastern United States.

3. Aesculus georgiana Sarg.

Leaves with slender glabrous petioles 4½′—6′ in length, and 5 leaflets oblong-obovate, abruptly acuminate and long-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and acuminate at base, finely often doubly serrate with rounded teeth pointing forward, sparingly covered early in the season, especially on the upper side of the midrib and veins, with short caducous hairs, yellow-green above, green, glabrous and lustrous or pubescent (var. pubescens Sarg.) below, 4½′—6′ long, 1½′—2½′ wide, with a stout orange-colored midrib and 20—30 pairs of slender primary veins; petiolules stout, puberulous early in the season, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers opening in April and May 1′—1⅛′ long, on slender puberulous pedicels, in broad pubescent panicles, 4′—6′ in length; calyx campanulate or tubular, puberulous, about /12′ in diameter, red on the upper side, pale yellow on the lower side or entirely red or yellow, 5-lobed, the lobes oblong-ovate, narrowed and rounded at apex, finely serrate on the margins; petals connivent, obovate, rounded at apex, gradually narrowed below, those of the superior and lateral pairs very unequal in size, puberulous and glandular on the outer surface, pubescent on the inner surface, ciliate on the margins, bright yellow or red, their claws furnished on the margins with long white hairs, those of the superior pair as long as the lateral petals; stamens 7, shorter than the petals; filaments villose, especially below the middle; ovary covered with matted pale hairs; styles exserted, villose. Fruit on stout pendulous pedicels, globose, usually 1-seeded, 1′—1¼′ in diameter, with thin light brown slightly pitted valves; seed globose, dark chestnut-brown.

A tree, 25°—30° high, with a trunk 6′—10′ in diameter, slender erect and spreading branches and stout glabrous branchlets, orange-green and marked by pale lenticels when they first appear, becoming light reddish brown in their first winter; more often a large or small round-topped shrub 3°—5° tall and broad. Bark of the trunk thin, dark brown, the surface separating into small thin scales. Winter-buds about ⅓′ long, with light reddish brown scales, narrowed, rounded and short-pointed at apex. The common Buckeye of the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina and northern Georgia.

Distribution. Central North Carolina (Durham and Orange Counties), southward to eastern (Richmond County) and central Georgia; northern Alabama (Madison, Etowah and Tuscaloosa Counties), and near Pensacola, Escambia County, Florida. The var. pubescens occasionally arborescent in habit, common in the woods west of Augusta, Richmond County, and in De Kalb, Rabun and Floyd Counties, Georgia, ranging northward to Orange County, North Carolina, and ascending on the Blue Ridge to altitudes of 3000°; in northern Alabama.

× Aesculus Harbisonii Sarg., a probable hybrid between A. discolor var. mollis and A. georgiana, has appeared in the Arnold Arboretum among plants of A. georgiana raised from seeds collected near Stone Mountain, De Kalb County, Georgia.

A distinct form of Aesculus georgiana is

Aesculus georgiana var. lanceolata Sarg.

Leaves with glabrous petioles 3½′—5½′ in length, and 5 lanceolate or slightly oblanceolate leaflets long-acuminate at apex, cuneate at base, and finely glandular-serrate, when the flowers open early in May thin yellow-green above, pale below, glabrous with the exception of occasional hairs on the under side of the slender midrib and of minute axillary tufts, 6′—8′ long and 1¼′—1½′ wide; petiolules /12′—⅙′ in length. Flowers on stout puberulous pedicels, bright red, in narrow crowded clusters, 8′—10′ long; calyx narrow-campanulate, otherwise as in the type. Fruit not seen.

A tree 25°—30° high, with a short trunk 6′—10′ in diameter, small erect and spreading branches forming a narrow head, and slender glabrous branchlets orange-brown when they first appear, becoming dark gray-brown and marked by pale lenticels in their second year.

Distribution. Georgia, rich woods near Clayton, Rabun County.

4. Aesculus Pavia L. Red-flowered Buckeye.

Leaves with slender petioles glabrous or puberulous early in the season and 4′—7′ long, and 5 short-petiolulate, oblong-obovate, acuminate leaflets, gradually narrowed at base, coarsely often doubly serrate above with incurved teeth, slightly pubescent early in the season along the upper side of the midrib and veins, and glabrous or slightly pubescent below, and at maturity thin, lustrous and glabrous, dark green on the upper surface, pale yellow-green on the lower surface, often furnished with conspicuous tufts of axillary hairs, 3½′—6′ long and 1¼′—1¾′ wide, with a thin midrib and from 18—30 pairs of slender primary veins. Flowers in narrow pubescent panicles, 4½′—8′ in length, on slender pubescent pedicels; calyx tubular, dark red, puberulous on both surfaces, minutely lobed, the lobes rounded, much shorter than the light red petals; petals connivent, unequal, oblong-obovate, rounded at apex, glandular on the outer surface and on the margins, gradually narrowed below into a long slender villose claw; claw of the lateral petals about as long or shorter than the calyx, those of the superior pair much longer than the calyx, their blades not more than one-third as large as the blades of the lateral pair; stamens exserted; filaments villose like the ovary. Fruit obovoid or subglobose, light brown, smooth, generally pitted, usually 1 or 2-seeded, pendulous on slender stems; seeds usually about 1′ in diameter, dark chestnut-brown and lustrous with a small hilum.

Occasionally a tree, rarely 40° high, with a tall trunk 8′—10′ in diameter covered with smooth dark bark, large erect branches forming an open head, and stout light orange-brown branchlets marked in their second year by conspicuous emarginate scars of fallen leaves showing the ends of 3 fibro-vascular bundles; usually a shrub, often flowering when not more than 3′ high.

Distribution. Southeastern Virginia, southward to western Florida to the valley of the Suwanee River (near Old Town, Lafayette County), and westward to eastern Louisiana, usually in the neighborhood of the coast; in Alabama ranging inland to Jefferson and Dallas Counties and in Louisiana to West Feliciana Parish; in southern Kentucky (near Bowling Green, Warren County).

5. Aesculus discolor Pursh. Buckeye.

Leaves with slender grooved villose or pubescent usually ultimately glabrous petioles 4′ or 5′ long, and 5 oblong-obovate or elliptic leaflets, acuminate and usually long-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and acuminate at the entire base, finely or coarsely and sometimes doubly crenulate-serrate above, dark green, lustrous and glabrous except along the slender yellow midrib and veins on the upper surface, lighter colored and tomentulose or tomentose on the lower surface, 4′—5′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, nearly sessile or raised on slender petiolules up to ½′ in length. Flowers opening from the first to the middle of April, usually ¾′—1′ long, on slender pubescent pedicels much thickened on the fruit, sometimes ¼′ long, and mostly aggregated toward the end of the short branches of the narrow pubescent inflorescence 6′—8′ in length; calyx red, rose color or yellow more or less deeply tinged with red, tubular, short and broad or elongated, puberulous on the outer surface, tomentose on the inner surface, with rounded lobes; petals yellow, shorter than the stamens, connivent, unequal, oblong-obovate, rounded at apex, puberulous on the outer surface and glandular on the margins with minute dark glands, those of the superior pair about half as wide as those of the lateral pair, with claws much longer than the calyx; filaments and ovary villose. Fruit ripening and falling in October, usually only a few fruits maturing in a cluster, generally obovoid or occasionally subglobose, mostly 2-seeded, 1½′—2½′ long, with very thin, light brown slightly pitted valves; seeds light yellow-brown, sometimes 1½′ in diameter, with a comparatively small hilum and a thin shell.

Rarely arborescent and occasionally 25° high, with a straight trunk 6′ or 7′ in diameter, stout branches forming a narrow symmetric head, and slender branchlets marked by numerous small pale lenticels, green and puberulous at first, becoming gray slightly tinged with red during their first winter and only slightly darker in their second year; usually a small or large shrub. Winter-buds broad-ovoid, obtusely pointed, about ¼′ long, with rounded apiculate light red-brown scales. Bark thin, smooth, and pale.

Distribution. Rich woods; Shell Bluff on the Savannah River, Burke County, Georgia; near Birmingham, Jefferson County, and Selma, Dallas County, Alabama; near Campbell, Dunklin County, Missouri; Comal Springs, New Braunfels County, and Sutherland Springs, Wilson County, Texas; rare and local, and found as a tree only near Birmingham, Alabama; more abundant is the var. mollis Sarg. (Aesculus austrina Small) with bright red flowers; a tree up to 25° or 30° high, or more often a large or small shrub; valley of the lower Cape Fear River (near Wilmington, New Hanover County), North Carolina, southward near the coast to the neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina, through Georgia to the neighborhood of Rome, Floyd County, and southward to western Florida; in Alabama widely distributed from Jefferson County southward; widely distributed in Mississippi except in the neighborhood of the Gulf coast, to West Feliciana Parish, eastern Louisiana; more common and generally distributed in western Louisiana, and through eastern Texas to the valley of the San Antonio River (neighborhood of San Antonio, Bexar County) and to that of the upper Guadalupe River (near Boerne, Kendall County), ranging northward through Arkansas to southern Missouri and western Tennessee.

On the Edwards Plateau of western Texas Aesculus discolor is represented by the var. flavescens Sarg., with yellow flowers, appearing a few days earlier than those of the var. mollis; a shrub 9′—12′ high, or often much smaller; interesting as the only form of Eupaviæ with yellow flowers; San Marcos, Hays County, common on the slopes above Comal Springs, near New Braunfels, Comal County, near Boerne, Kendall County (with the var. mollis), Kerrville, Kerr County, and Cancan, Uvalde County.

6. Aesculus californica Nutt. Buckeye.

Leaves with slender grooved petioles 3′—4′ long, and 4—7 usually 5 oblong-lanceolate acuminate leaflets narrowed and acuminate or rounded at base, sharply serrate, 4′—6′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, dark green above, paler below, slightly pubescent when they first appear, becoming glabrous or nearly so, on petiolules ½′—1′ long; falling early, often by midsummer. Flowers white or pale rose color, 1′—1¼′ long, appearing from May to July when the leaves are fully grown, on short pedicels mostly unilateral on the long branches of the densely flowered long-stemmed pubescent cluster 3′—9′ in length; calyx 2-lobed, slightly toothed, much shorter than the narrow oblong petals; stamens 5—7, with long erect exserted slender filaments and bright orange-colored anthers; ovary densely pubescent. Fruit obovoid, often somewhat gibbous on the outer side, with thin smooth pale brown valves, usually 1-seeded, 2′—3′ long, on a slender stalk ¼′—½′ in length; seeds pale orange-brown, 1½′—2′ broad.

A tree, rarely 20°—30° high, with a short trunk occasionally 4°—5° in diameter, often much enlarged at base, stout wide-spreading branches, forming a round-topped head, and branchlets glabrous and pale reddish brown when they first appear, becoming darker in their second season; more often a shrub, with spreading stems 10°—15° high forming broad dense thickets. Winter-buds acute, covered with narrow dark brown scales rounded on the back and thickly coated with resin. Bark of the trunk about ¼′ thick, smooth, and light gray or nearly white. Wood soft, light, very close-grained, white or faintly tinged with yellow, with thin hardly distinguishable sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. California, borders of streams, valley of the south fork of the Salmon River, Siskiyou County, south along the coast ranges to San Luis Obispo County and on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, usually at altitudes between 2000° and 2500°, occasionally to 5000°, to the northern slopes of Tejon Pass, Kern County, and to Antelope Valley, Los Angeles County.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the Pacific states, and in western and southern Europe.

XXXVII. Sapindaceæ.

Trees or shrubs, with alternate pinnate petiolate persistent or deciduous leaves, without stipules. Flowers regular or irregular, polygamo-diœcious, polygamo-monœcious or polygamous; calyx of 4 or 5 sepals or lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 4 or 5 imbricated in the bud; disk annular, fleshy, 5-lobed, or unilateral and oblique; stamens usually 7—10, inserted on the disk; filaments free; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 2—4 or 3-celled; styles terminal; stigmas capitate or lobed; ovule solitary or 2 in each cell, anatropous or amphitropous. Fruit a drupe or capsule. Seed usually solitary, without albumen; seed-coat bony, coriaceous or crustaceous.

Of the one hundred and twenty-six genera of this family, which is chiefly confined to the tropics and is more abundant in the Old than in the New World, four have arborescent representatives in the United States.

Conspectus of the Arborescent Genera of the United States.

Fruit baccate.

Fruit dark orange-color or yellow, with thin semitranslucent coriaceous flesh; ovules 1 in each cell of the ovary; leaflets subcoriaceous to coriaceous.

1. Sapindus.

Fruit purple, with thick juicy flesh; ovules 2 in each cell of the ovary; leaflets thin, persistent.

2. Exothea.

Fruit a drupe; leaves 3-foliolate, persistent.

3. Hypelate.

Fruit a 3-valved capsule; leaves 4 or 5, rarely 3-foliolate, deciduous.

4. Ungnadia.

1. Sapindus L. Soapberry.

Trees or shrubs, with terete branches, without a terminal bud, marked by large obcordate leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 equidistant fibro-vascular bundles, small globose axillary buds often superposed in pairs, the upper bud the larger, and thick fleshy roots. Leaves equally or rarely unequally pinnate. Flowers regular, minute, polygamo-diœcious, on short pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, in ample axillary or terminal panicles; sepals 4 or 5, unequal, slightly united at base; petals 4 or 5, equal, alternate with the sepals, inserted under the thick edge of the annular fleshy entire crenately lobed disk, unguiculate, naked or furnished at the summit of the claw on the inside with a 2-cleft scale, deciduous; stamens usually 8 or 10, inserted on the disk immediately under the ovary, equal; filaments subulate or filiform, often pilose, exserted in the staminate, much shorter in the pistillate flower; anthers oblong, attached near the base; pistils 2 or 3, united; ovary sessile, entire or 2—4-lobed, 2—4-celled, narrowed into a short columnar style, rudimentary in the staminate flower; stigma 2—4-lobed, the lobes spreading; ovule solitary in each cell, ascending from below the inner angle of the cell; raphe ventral; micropyle inferior. Fruit baccate, coriaceous, 1—3-seeded, usually formed of 1 globose coriaceous carpel, with the rudiments of the others remaining at its base, or of 2 or sometimes 3 carpels more or less connate by their base and then 2—3-lobed. Seed solitary in each carpel, obovoid or globose; seed-coat bony, smooth, black or dark brown; tegmen membranaceous or fleshy; hilum oblong, surrounded by an ariloid tuft of long pale silky hairs; embryo incurved or straight; cotyledons thick and fleshy, incumbent; radicle very short, inferior, near the hilum.

Sapindus is widely distributed through the tropics, especially in Asia, occasionally extending into colder regions. About forty species have been distinguished; of these three are found within the territory of the United States.

Sapindus contains a detersive principle which causes the pulp of the fruit to lather in water, and makes it valuable as a substitute for soap. The bark, which is bitter and astringent, has been used as a tonic. The seeds of several of the species are strung for chaplets and bracelets and are used as buttons.

The generic name, from sapo and Indus, refers to the detersive properties and use of the first species known to Europeans, a native of the West Indies.

Conspectus of the Species of the United States.

Leaves persistent.

Rachis of the leaf interrupted-winged, with usually broad wings; leaflets 4—9, oblong-lanceolate and acute to elliptic-ovate or oblong, tomentulose below; petals without scales; fruit globose, orange-brown.

1. S. saponaria (D).

Rachis of the leaf without wings narrow-margined or marginless; leaflets 7—13, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, often somewhat falcate, glabrous below; petals with scales; fruit somewhat oblong, dorsally keeled, yellow.

2. S. marginatus (C).

Leaves deciduous, their rachis without marginal borders; leaflets 8—18, lanceolate, mostly falcate, soft-pubescent or ultimately glabrous below; petals with scales; fruit globose, not keeled, turning black in drying.

3. S. Drummondii (C, E).

1. Sapindus saponaria L.

Leaves 6′—7′ long, with a broad winged rachis, the wings narrow and often nearly obsolete below the lowest pair of leaflets, and sometimes nearly ½′ wide below the upper pair, and usually 7—9 elliptic to oblong-lanceolate leaflets, rounded or slightly emarginate at apex, gradually narrowed at base and very short-petiolulate, soft-pubescent on the lower surface when they unfold, and at maturity rather coriaceous, yellow-green, paler and tomentulose below, prominently reticulate-venulose, 3′—4′ long and 1½′ wide, with a yellow midrib and primary veins, those of the lowest pair smaller than the others; rarely reduced to a single leaflet. Flowers appearing in Florida in November, usually produced 3 together on short pedicels, in terminal panicles 7′—10′ in length, with an angulate peduncle and branches; calyx-lobes acute, concave, ciliate on the margins, the 2 outer rather smaller than those of the inner rank, much shorter than the white, ovate, short-clawed petals, without scales, rounded at apex and covered, especially toward the base, with long scattered hairs; ovary slightly 3-lobed; stamens included or slightly exserted, with hairy filaments broadened at base. Fruit ripening in spring or in early summer, globose, ⅔′—¾′ in diameter, with thin orange-brown semitranslucent flesh; seeds obovoid, black, 1′ in diameter.

A tree, sometimes 25°—30° high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 10′—12′ in diameter, erect branches and slender branchlets at first slightly many-angled and puberulous, soon glabrous, orange-green and marked by white lenticels, becoming in their second season terete, pale brown faintly tinged with red. Bark of the trunk ¼′—½′ thick, light gray and roughened by oblong lighter colored excrescences, the outer layer exfoliating in large flakes exposing the nearly black inner bark. Wood heavy, rather hard, close-grained, light brown tinged with yellow, with thick yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Cape Sable, shores and islands of Caximbas Bay, Key Largo, Elliott’s Key, and the shores of Bay Biscayne, Dade County; in Florida most common in the region of Cape Sable, and of its largest size on some of the Ten Thousand Islands, Lee County; generally distributed through the West Indies to Venezuela and Ecuador.

2. Sapindus marginatus Willd.

Sapindus manatensis Radlk.

Leaves 6′—7′ long, with a slender wingless or narrow-margined or marginless rachis, and 7—13 lance-oblong acuminate more or less falcate leaflets, glabrous, dark green, and lustrous on the upper surface, paler and glabrous or puberulous on the lower surface along the slender midrib, sessile or very short-petiolulate, 2′—5′ long, ¾′—1¼′ wide, the lower usually alternate, the upper opposite. Flowers appearing in early spring, more or less tinged with red and nearly ⅛′ in diameter, on short stout tomentose pedicels, in panicles 4′—5′ long and usually about 3′ wide, with a villose stem and branches; sepals acute, concave, ciliate on the margins, much shorter than the ovate-oblong, short-clawed, ciliate petals furnished on the inner surface near the base with a 2-lobed villose scale; filaments villose; ovary 3-lobed. Fruit conspicuously keeled on the back, short-oblong to slightly obovoid, about ¾′ long, with thin light yellow translucent flesh; seeds obovoid, dark brown.

A tree, rarely more than 25°—30° high, with a trunk sometimes 1° in diameter, and stout pale brown or ultimately ashy gray branchlets.

Distribution. Hurricane Island at the mouth of Medway River, Liberty County, Georgia (Miss J. King); hummocks, peninsular of Florida to Alachua and Manatee Counties; not common; in Cuba.

3. Sapindus Drummondii Hook. & Arn. Wild China-tree.

Leaves appearing in March and April, with a slender grooved puberulous rachis, without wings, and 4—9 pairs of alternate obliquely lanceolate acuminate leaflets, glabrous on the upper surface and covered with short pale pubescence on the lower surface, coriaceous, prominently reticulate-venulose, pale yellow-green, 2′—3′ long, ½′—⅔′ wide, short-petiolulate; deciduous in the autumn or early winter. Flowers appearing in May and June in clusters 6′—9′ long and 5′—6′ wide, with a pubescent many-angled stem and branches; sepals acute and concave, ciliate on the margins, much shorter than the obovate white petals rounded at apex, contracted into a long claw hairy on the inner surface and furnished at base with a deeply cleft scale hairy on the margins; filaments hairy, with long soft hairs. Fruit ripening in September and October, persistent on the branches until the following spring, glabrous, not keeled, yellow, ½′ in diameter, turning black in drying; seeds obovoid, dark brown.

A tree, 40°—50° high, with a trunk sometimes 1½°—2° in diameter, usually erect branches, and branchlets at first slightly many-angled, pale yellow-green, pubescent, becoming in their second year terete, pale gray, slightly puberulous, and marked by numerous small lenticels. Bark of the trunk ⅓′—½′ thick, separating by deep fissures into long narrow plates broken on the surface into small red-brown scales. Wood heavy, strong, close-grained, light brown tinged with yellow, with lighter colored sapwood of about 30 layers of annual growth; splitting easily into thin strips and largely used in the manufacture of baskets used in harvesting cotton, and for the frames of pack-saddles.

Distribution. Moist clay soil or dry limestone uplands; southwestern Missouri to northeastern and southern Kansas, eastern Louisiana (Tangipahoa Parish R. S. Cocks), and to extreme western and southwestern Oklahoma, through eastern Texas to the Rio Grande, over the Edwards Plateau, and in the mountain valleys of western Texas and of southern New Mexico and Arizona; in northern Mexico.

2. Exothea Macf.