regular; stamens as many as its lobes and opposite them; ovary superior,
1-celled (_rarely 2-celled in Ulmus_); seed 1.
XI. ULMACEÆ.
Trees, with watery juice, scaly buds, terete branchlets prolonged by an
upper lateral bud, and alternate simple serrate pinnately veined
deciduous stalked 2-ranked leaves unequal and often oblique at base,
conduplicate in the bud, their stipules usually fugaceous. Flowers
perfect or monœciously polygamous, clustered, or the pistillate
sometimes solitary; calyx 4—9-parted or lobed; stamens 4—6; filaments
straight; anthers introrse, 2-celled, opening longitudinally; ovary
usually 1-celled; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell,
anatropous or amphitropous; styles 2. Fruit a samara, nut, or drupe;
albumen little or none; embryo straight or curved; cotyledons usually
flat or conduplicate. Five of the thirteen genera of the Elm family
occur in North America. Of these four are represented by trees.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT GENERA.
Fruit a dry samara, or nut-like.
Flowers perfect; fruit a samara.
1. Ulmus.
Flowers polygamo-monœcious; fruit nut-like, tuberculate.
2. Planera.
Fruit drupaceous.
Pistillate flowers usually solitary.
3. Celtis.
Pistillate flowers in dichotomous cymes.
4. Trema.
1. ULMUS L. Elm.
Trees, or rarely shrubs, with deeply furrowed bark, branchlets often
furnished with corky wings, and buds with numerous ovate rounded
chestnut-brown scales closely imbricated in two ranks, increasing in
size from without inward, the inner accrescent, replacing the stipules
of the first leaves, deciduous, marking the base of the branchlet with
persistent ring-like scars. Leaves simply or doubly serrate; stipules
linear, lanceolate to obovate, entire, free or connate at base,
scarious, inclosing the leaf in the bud, caducous. Flowers from axillary
buds near the ends of the branches similar to but larger than the
leaf-buds, the outer scales sterile, the inner bearing flowers and
rarely leaves. Flowers perfect, jointed on slender bibracteolate
pedicels from the axils of linear acute scarious bracts, in pedunculate
or subsessile fascicles or cymes sometimes becoming racemose, appearing
in early spring before the leaves in the axils of those of the previous
year, or autumnal in the axils of leaves of the year; calyx campanulate,
5—9-lobed, membranaceous, marcescent; stamens 5 or 6 inserted under the
ovary; filaments filiform or slightly flattened, erect in the bud,
becoming exserted; anthers oblong, emarginate, and subcordate; ovary
sessile or stipitate, compressed, crowned by a simple deeply 2-lobed
style, the spreading lobes papillo-stigmatic on the inner face, usually
1-celled by abortion, rarely 2-celled; ovule amphitropous; micropyle
extrorse, superior. Fruit an ovoid or oblong, often oblique, sessile or
stipitate samara surrounded at base by the remnants of the calyx, the
seminal cavity compressed, slightly thickened on the margin,
chartaceous, produced into a thin reticulate-venulose membranaceous
light brown broad or rarely narrow wing naked or ciliate on the margin,
tipped with the remnants of the persistent style, or more or less deeply
notched at apex, and often marked by the thickened line of the union of
the two carpels. Seed ovoid, compressed, without albumen, marked on the
ventral edge by the thin raphe; testa membranaceous, light or dark
chestnut-brown, of two coats, rarely produced into a narrow wing; embryo
erect; cotyledons flat or slightly convex, much longer than the superior
radicle turned toward the oblong linear pale hilum.
Ulmus, with eighteen or twenty species, is widely distributed through
the boreal and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere with the
exception of western North America, reaching in the New World the
mountains of southern Mexico and in the Old World the Sikkim Himalaya,
western China, and Japan. Of the exotic species, _Ulmus procera_
Salisb., the so-called English Elm, and _Ulmus glabra_, Huds., the
Scotch Elm, and several of its varieties, have been largely planted for
shade and ornament in the north Atlantic states, where old and large
specimens of the former can be seen, especially in the neighborhood of
Boston.
Ulmus produces heavy, hard, tough, light-colored wood, often difficult
to split. The tough inner bark of some of the species is made into ropes
or woven into coarse cloth, and in northern China nourishing
mucilaginous food is prepared from the inner bark.
_Ulmus_ is the classical name of the Elm-tree.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Flowers vernal, appearing before the leaves.
Flowers on slender drooping pedicels; fruit ciliate on the margins.
Wing of the fruit broad.
Bud-scales and fruit glabrous; branchlets destitute of corky
wings; leaves obovate-oblong to elliptic, usually smooth
on the upper, soft-pubescent on the lower surface.
1. U. americana (A, C).
Bud-scales puberulous; branches often furnished with corky
wings; fruit hirsute; leaves obovate to oblong, smooth on
the upper, soft-pubescent on the lower surface.
2. U. racemosa (A).
Wing of the fruit narrow; bud-scales glabrous or slightly
puberulous; branchlets usually furnished with broad corky
wings; fruit hirsute, leaves ovate-oblong to
oblong-lanceolate, smooth on the upper, soft-pubescent on
the lower surface.
3. U. alata (A, C).
Flowers on short pedicels; fruit naked on the margins; bud-scales
coated with rusty hairs; fruit pubescent; leaves ovate-oblong,
scabrous on the upper, pubescent on the lower surface.
4. U. fulva (A, C).
Flowers autumnal, appearing in the axils of leaves of the year;
branchlets furnished with corky wings; fruit hirsute.
Bud-scales puberulous; flowers on short pedicels; leaves ovate,
scabrous on the upper, soft-pubescent on the lower surface.
5. U. crassifolia (C).
Bud-scales glabrous; flowers on long pedicels; leaves oblong to
oblong-obovate, acuminate, glabrous on the upper, pale and
puberulous on the lower surface.
6. U. serotina (C).
1. Ulmus americana L. White Elm.
[Illustration: Fig. 282]
Leaves obovate-oblong to elliptic, abruptly narrowed at apex into a long
point, full and rounded at base on one side and shorter and cuneate on
the other, coarsely doubly serrate with slightly incurved teeth, when
they unfold coated below with pale pubescence and pilose above with long
scattered white hairs, at maturity 4′—6′ long, 1′—3′ wide, dark green
and glabrous or scabrate above, pale and soft-pubescent or sometimes
glabrous below, with a narrow pale midrib and numerous slender straight
primary veins running to the points of the teeth and connected by fine
cross veinlets; turning bright clear yellow in the autumn before
falling; petioles stout, ¼′ in length; stipules linear-lanceolate, ½′—2′
long. Flowers on long slender drooping pedicels sometimes 1′ in length,
in 3 or 4-flowered short-stalked fascicles; calyx irregularly divided
into 7—9 rounded lobes ciliate on the margins, often somewhat oblique,
puberulous on the outer surface, green tinged with red above the middle;
anthers bright red; ovary light green, ciliate on the margins with long
white hairs; styles light green. Fruit on long pedicels in crowded
clusters, ripening as the leaves unfold, ovoid to obovoid-oblong,
slightly stipitate, conspicuously reticulate-venulose, ½′ long, ciliate
on the margins, the sharp points of the wings incurved and inclosing the
deep notch.
A tree, sometimes 100°—120° high, with a tall trunk 6°—11° in diameter,
frequently enlarged at the base by great buttresses, occasionally rising
with a straight undivided shaft to the height of 60°—80° and separating
into short spreading branches, more commonly divided 30°—40° from the
ground into numerous upright limbs gradually spreading and forming an
inversely conic round-topped head of long graceful branches, often 100°
or rarely 150° in diameter, and slender branchlets frequently fringing
the trunk and its principal divisions, light green and coated at first
with soft pale pubescence, becoming in their first winter light reddish
brown, glabrous or sometimes puberulous and marked by scattered pale
lenticels, and by large elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars showing the
ends of three large equidistant fibro-vascular bundles, later becoming
dark reddish brown and finally ashy gray. Winter-buds ovoid, acute,
slightly flattened, about ⅛′ long, with broadly ovate rounded light
chestnut-brown glabrous scales, the inner bright green, ovate, acute,
becoming on vigorous shoots often nearly 1′ in length. Bark 1′—1½′
thick, ashy gray, divided by deep fissures into broad ridges separating
on the surface into thin appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong,
tough, difficult to split, coarse-grained, light brown, with thick
somewhat lighter colored sapwood; largely used for the hubs of wheels,
saddle-trees, in flooring and cooperage, and in boat and shipbuilding.
Distribution. River-bottom lands, intervales, low rich hills, and the
banks of streams; southern Newfoundland to the northern shores of Lake
Superior and the headwaters of the Saskatchewan, southward to the
neighborhood of Lake Istokpoga, De Soto County, Florida, westward in the
United States to the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota, the Black Hills
of South Dakota, western Nebraska, central Kansas and Oklahoma, and the
valley of the upper Colorado River (Fort Chadbourne, Coke County),
Texas; very common northward, less abundant and of smaller size
southward; abundant on the banks of streams flowing through the
midcontinental plateau.
Largely planted as an ornamental and shade tree in the northern states,
and rarely in western and northern Europe.
2. Ulmus racemosa Thomas. Rock Elm. Cork Elm.
_Ulmus Thomasii_ Sarg.
[Illustration: Fig. 283]
Leaves obovate to oblong-oval, rather abruptly narrowed at apex into a
short broad point, equally or somewhat unequally rounded, cuneate or
subcordate at base, and coarsely doubly serrate, when they unfold pilose
on the upper surface and covered on the lower with soft white hairs, at
maturity 2′—2½′ long, ¾′—1′ wide, thick and firm, smooth, dark green and
lustrous above, paler and soft-pubescent below, especially on the stout
midrib and the numerous straight veins running to the point of the teeth
and connected by obscure cross veinlets; turning in the autumn bright
clear yellow; petioles pubescent, about ¼′ in length; stipules
ovate-lanceolate, conspicuously veined, light green, marked with dark
red on the margins above the middle, ⅔′ long, clasping the stem by their
abruptly enlarged cordate base conspicuously dentate with 1—3 prominent
teeth on each side, falling when the leaves are half grown. Flowers on
elongated slender drooping pedicels often ½′ long, in 2—4, usually in
3-flowered, puberulous cymes becoming more or less racemose by the
lengthening of the axis of the inflorescence, and when fully grown
sometimes 2′ in length; calyx green, divided nearly to the middle into 7
or 8 rounded dark red scarious lobes; anthers dark purple; ovary coated
with long pale hairs most abundant on the margins; styles light green.
Fruit ripening when the leaves are about half grown, ovoid or
obovoid-oblong, ½′ long, with a shallow open notch at the apex,
obscurely veined, pale pubescent, ciliate on the slightly thickened
border of the broad wing, the margin of the seminal cavity scarcely
thickened.
A tree, 80°—100° high, with a trunk occasionally 3° in diameter, and
often free of branches for 60°, short stout spreading branches forming a
narrow round-topped head, and slender rigid branchlets, light brown when
they first appear, and coated with soft pale pubescence often persistent
until their second season, becoming light reddish brown, puberulous or
glabrous and lustrous in their first winter, and marked by scattered
oblong lenticels and large orbicular or semiorbicular leaf-scars
displaying an irregular row of 4—6 fibro-vascular bundle-scars,
ultimately dark brown or ashy gray, and usually furnished with 3 or 4
thick corky irregular wings often ½′ broad, and beginning to appear in
their first or more often during their second year. Winter-buds ovoid,
acute, ¼′ long, with broadly ovate rounded chestnut-brown scales pilose
on the outer surface, ciliate on the margins, the inner scales becoming
ovate-oblong to lanceolate, and ½′ long, often dentate at the base, with
1 or 2 minute teeth on each side, bright green below the middle, marked
with a red blotch above, and white and scarious at the apex. Bark ¾′—1′
thick, gray tinged with red, and deeply divided by wide irregular
interrupted fissures into broad flat ridges broken on the surface into
large irregularly shaped scales. Wood heavy, hard, very strong and
tough, close-grained, light clear brown often tinged with red, with
thick lighter colored sapwood; largely employed in the manufacture of
many agricultural implements, for the framework of chairs, hubs of
wheels, railway-ties, the sills of buildings, and other purposes
demanding toughness, solidity and flexibility.
Distribution. Dry gravelly uplands, low heavy clay soils, rocky slopes
and river cliffs; Province of Quebec westward through Ontario, the
southern peninsula of Michigan and central Wisconsin to northeastern
Nebraska, western Missouri and eastern Kansas, and southward to northern
New Hampshire, southern Vermont, western New York, (valley of the
Genesee River), northern New Jersey, southern Ohio (near Columbus,
Franklin County), and central Indiana; rare in the east and toward the
extreme western and southern limits of its range.
Occasionally planted as a shade and ornamental tree in the northern
states.
3. Ulmus alata Michx. Wahoo. Winged Elm.
[Illustration: Fig. 284]
Leaves ovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, often somewhat falcate, acute
or acuminate, unequally cuneate or rounded or subcordate at base, and
coarsely doubly serrate with incurved teeth, when they unfold pale green
often tinged with red, coated on the lower surface with soft white
pubescence and glabrous or nearly so on the upper surface, at maturity
thick and firm or subcoriaceous, dark green and smooth above, pale and
soft-pubescent below, especially on the stout yellow midrib and numerous
straight prominent veins often forked near the margins of the leaf and
connected by rather conspicuous reticulate veinlets; turning yellow in
the autumn; their petioles stout, pubescent, ⅓′ in length; stipules
linear-obovate, thin and scarious, tinged with red above the middle,
often nearly 1′ long. Flowers on drooping pedicels, in short
few-flowered fascicles; calyx glabrous and divided nearly to the middle
into 5 broad ovate rounded lobes as long as the hoary-tomentose ovary
raised on a short slender stipe. Fruit ripening before or with the
unfolding of the leaves, oblong, ⅓′ in length, contracted at base into a
long slender stalk, gradually narrowed and tipped at apex with long
incurved awns, and covered with long white hairs most numerous on the
thickened margin of the narrow wing; seed ovoid, pointed, ⅛′ long, pale,
chestnut-brown, slightly thickened into a narrow wing-like margin.
A tree, occasionally 80°—100° but usually not more than 40°—50° high,
with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, short stout straight or erect branches
forming a narrow oblong rather open round-topped head, and slender
branchlets glabrous or puberulous and light green tinged with red when
they first appear, becoming light reddish brown or ashy gray and
glabrous, or on vigorous individuals frequently pilose in their first
winter, marked by occasional small orange-colored lenticels and by small
elevated horizontal semiorbicular leaf-scars, sometimes naked, more
often furnished with usually 2 thin corky wings beginning to grow during
their first or more often during their second season, abruptly arrested
at the nodes, often ½′ wide, and persistent for many years. Winter-buds
slender, acute, ⅛′ long, dark chestnut-brown, with glabrous or
puberulous scales, those of the inner ranks becoming oblong or obovate,
rounded and tipped with a minute mucro, thin and scarious, light red,
especially above the middle, and ½′ long. Bark rarely exceeding ¼′ in
thickness, light brown tinged with red, and divided by irregular shallow
fissures into flat ridges covered by small closely appressed scales.
Wood heavy, hard, not strong, close-grained, difficult to split, light
brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood; sometimes employed for the
hubs of wheels and the handles of tools. Ropes used for fastening the
covers of cotton bales are sometimes made from the inner bark.
Distribution. Usually on dry gravelly uplands, less commonly in alluvial
soil on the borders of swamps and the banks of streams, and occasionally
in inundated swamps; southeastern Virginia, southwestern Indiana,
southern Illinois (Richland and Johnson Counties) and southern Missouri,
and southward to central Florida (Lake County), and the valley of the
Guadalupe River, Texas; ranging westward in Oklahoma to Garfield County
(near Kingfisher, _G. W. Stevens_).
Often planted as a shade-tree in the streets of towns and villages of
the southern states.
4. Ulmus fulva Michx. Slippery Elm. Red Elm.
[Illustration: Fig. 285]
Leaves ovate-oblong, abruptly contracted into a long slender point,
rounded at base on one side and short-oblique on the other, and coarsely
doubly serrate with incurved callous-tipped teeth, when they unfold
thin, coated below with pale pubescence, pilose above with scattered
white hairs, at maturity thick and firm, dark green and rugose with
crowded sharp-pointed tubercles pointing toward the apex of the leaf
above, soft, smooth, and coated below, especially on the thin midrib and
in the axils of the slender straight veins with white hairs, 5′—7′ long,
2′—3′ wide; turning a dull yellow color in the autumn; petioles stout,
pubescent, ⅓′ in length; stipules obovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate,
thin and scarious, pale-pubescent, and tipped with clusters of rusty
brown hairs. Flowers on short pedicels, in crowded fascicles; calyx
green, covered with pale hairs, divided into 5—9 short rounded thin
equal lobes; stamens with slender light yellow slightly flattened
filaments and dark red anthers; stigmas slightly exserted, reddish
purple, papillose with soft white hairs. Fruit ripening when the leaves
are about half grown, semiorbicular, rounded and bearing the remnants of
the styles or slightly emarginate at apex, rounded or cuneate at base,
½′ broad, the seminal cavity coated with thick rusty brown tomentum, the
broad thin wing obscurely reticulate-veined, naked on the thickened
margin, and marked by the dark conspicuous horizontal line of union of
the two carpels; seed ovoid, with a large oblique pale hilum, a light
chestnut-brown coat produced into a thin border wider below than above
the middle of the seed.
A tree, 60°—70° high, with a trunk occasionally 2° in diameter,
spreading branches forming a broad open flat-topped head, and stout
branchlets bright green, scabrate, and coated with soft pale pubescence
when they first appear, becoming light brown by midsummer, often
roughened by small pale lenticels, and in their first winter ashy gray,
orange color or light red-brown, and marked by large elevated
semiorbicular leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 conspicuous equidistant
fibro-vascular bundles, ultimately dark gray or brown. Winter-buds
ovoid, obtuse, ¼′ long, with about 12 scales, the outer broadly ovate,
rounded, dark chestnut-brown, and covered by long scattered rusty hairs,
the inner when fully grown ½′ long, ⅛′—¼′ wide, light green,
strap-shaped, rounded and tipped at the apex with tufts of rusty hairs,
puberulous on the outer surface, slightly ciliate on the margins,
gradually growing narrower and passing into the stipules of the upper
leaves. Bark frequently 1′ thick, dark brown tinged with red, divided by
shallow fissures and covered by large thick appressed scales. Wood
heavy, hard, strong, very close-grained, durable, easy to split, dark
brown or red, with thin lighter colored sapwood; largely used for
fence-posts, railway-ties, the sills of buildings, the hubs of wheels,
and in agricultural implements. The thick fragrant inner bark is
mucilaginous and demulcent, and is employed in the treatment of acute
febrile and inflammatory affections.
Distribution. Banks of streams and low rocky hillsides in deep rich
soil; comparatively common in the valley of the St. Lawrence River,
Province of Quebec, and through Ontario to northern and eastern South
Dakota, northeastern and eastern Nebraska, southeastern Kansas, and
Oklahoma to the valley of the Canadian River (McClain County), and
southward to western Florida, central Alabama and Mississippi, western
Louisiana and the valley of the upper Guadalupe (Kerr County) and Leon
Rivers (Comal County), Texas; in the South Atlantic states not common
and mostly confined to the middle districts, ascending to altitudes of
2000° on the southern Appalachian foothills.
5. Ulmus crassifolia Nutt. Cedar Elm.
[Illustration: Fig. 286]
Leaves elliptic to ovate, acute or rounded at apex, unequally rounded or
cuneate and often oblique at base, coarsely and unequally doubly serrate
with callous-tipped teeth, when they unfold thin, light green tinged
with red, pilose above and covered below with soft pale pubescence, at
maturity thick and subcoriaceous, dark green, lustrous and roughened by
crowded minute sharp-pointed tubercles on the upper surface and soft
pubescent on the lower surface, 1′—2′ long, ½′—1′ wide, with a stout
yellow midrib, and prominent straight veins connected by conspicuous
more or less reticulate cross veinlets; usually turning bright yellow
late in the autumn; petioles stout, tomentose, ¼′—½′ in length; stipules
½′ long, linear-lanceolate, red and scarious above, clasping the stem by
their green and hairy bases, deciduous when the leaves are about half
grown. Flowers usually opening in August and sometimes also in October,
on slender pedicels ⅓′—½′ long and covered with white hairs, in
3—5-flowered pedunculate fascicles; calyx divided to below the middle
into oblong pointed lobes hairy at base; ovary hirsute, crowned with two
short slightly exserted stigmas. Fruit ripening in September and rarely
also in November, oblong, gradually and often irregularly narrowed from
the middle to the ends, short-stalked, deeply notched at apex, ⅓′ to
nearly ½′ long, covered with soft white hairs, most abundant on the
slightly thickened margin of the broad wing; seed oblique, pointed, and
covered by a dark chestnut-brown coat.
A tree, often 80° high, with a tall straight trunk 2°—3° in diameter,
sometimes free of branches for 30° or 40°, divided into numerous stout
spreading limbs forming a broad inversely conic round-topped head of
long pendulous branches, or while young or on dry uplands a compact
round head of drooping branches, and slender branchlets, tinged with red
and coated with soft pale pubescence when they first appear, becoming
light reddish brown, puberulous and marked by scattered minute lenticels
and by small elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars showing the ends of 3
small fibro-vascular bundles, and furnished with 2 corky wings covered
with lustrous brown bark, about ¼′ broad and continuous except when
abruptly interrupted by lateral branchlets, or often irregularly
developed. Winter-buds broadly ovoid, acute, ⅛′ long, with closely
imbricated chestnut-brown scales slightly puberulous on the outer
surface, those of the inner ranks at maturity oblong, concave, rounded
at apex, thin, bright red, sometimes ¾′ long. Bark sometimes nearly 1′
thick, light brown slightly tinged with red, and deeply divided by
interrupted fissures into broad flat ridges broken on the surface into
thick scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, brittle, light brown tinged with
red, with thick lighter colored sapwood; in central Texas used in the
manufacture of the hubs of wheels, for furniture, and largely for
fencing.
Distribution. Valley of the Sunflower River, Mississippi (Morehead,
Sunflower County), through southern Arkansas, and Texas to Nuevo Leon,
ranging in western Texas from the coast to the valley of the Pecos
River; in Arkansas usually on river cliffs and low hillsides, and in
Texas near streams in deep alluvial soil and on dry limestone hills; the
common Elm-tree of Texas and of its largest size on the bottom-lands of
the Guadalupe and Trinity Rivers.
Occasionally planted as a shade-tree in the streets of the cities and
towns of Texas.
6. Ulmus serotina Sarg. Red Elm.
[Illustration: Fig. 287]
Leaves oblong to oblong-obovate, acuminate, very oblique at base,
coarsely and doubly crenulate-serrate, when they unfold coated below
with shining white hairs and puberulous above, at maturity thin and firm
in texture, yellow-green, glabrous and lustrous on the upper surface,
pale and puberulous on the midrib and principal veins below, 2′—4′ long,
1′—1¾′ wide, with a prominent yellow midrib, about 20 pairs of primary
veins extending obliquely to the points of the teeth and often forked
near the margins of the leaf, and numerous reticular veinlets; turning
clear orange-yellow in the autumn; petioles stout, about ¼′ in length;
stipules abruptly narrowed from broad clasping bases, linear-lanceolate,
usually about ¼′ long, persistent until the leaves are nearly fully
grown. Flowers opening in September on slender conspicuously jointed
pedicels often ⅛′ long, in many-flowered glabrous racemes from 1′—1½′ in
length; calyx 6-parted to the base, with oblong-obovate red-brown
divisions rounded at apex; ovary sessile, narrowed below, villose. Fruit
ripening early in November, stipitate, oblong-elliptic, deeply divided
at apex, fringed on the margins with long silvery white hairs, about ½′
long.
A tree, 50°—60° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, comparatively
small spreading or pendulous branches often forming a broad handsome
head, and slender pendulous branchlets glabrous or occasionally
puberulous when they first appear, brown, lustrous, and marked by
occasional oblong white lenticels during their first year, becoming
darker the following season and ultimately dark gray-brown, and often
furnished with 2 or 3 thick corky wings developed during their second or
third years. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, ¼′ long, their outer scales
oblong-obovate, dark chestnut-brown, glabrous, the inner often scarious
on the margins, pale yellow-green, lustrous and sometimes ¾′ long when
fully grown. Bark ¼′—⅜′ thick, light brown slightly tinged with red, and
divided by shallow fissures into broad flat ridges broken on the surface
into large thin closely appressed scales. Wood hard, close-grained, very
strong and tough, light red-brown, with pale yellow sapwood.
Distribution. Limestone hills and river banks; rare and local; eastern
(near Pikeville, Pike County) and southern Kentucky (Bowling Green,
Warren County); banks of the Cumberland River, near Clarksville and
Nashville, Tennessee; northeastern Georgia (cliffs of the Coosa River,
near Rome, Floyd County); northern Alabama (Madison, Jefferson and
Tuscaloosa Counties); valley of the Arkansas River (near Van Buren,
Crawford County, _G. M. Brown_) and northwestern Arkansas (Sulphur
Springs, Benton County, and Boston Mountains near Jasper, Newton County,
_E. J. Palmer_); eastern Oklahoma (near Muskogee, Muskogee County, _B.
H. Slavin_); southwestern (Grand Tower, Jackson County, _H. A. Gleason_)
and southern Illinois (Richland County, _R. Ridgway_).
Occasionally planted as a shade-tree in the streets of cities in
northern Georgia and northern Alabama; hardy in Eastern Massachusetts.
2. PLANERA Gmel.
A tree, with scaly puberulous branchlets roughened by scattered pale
lenticels, and at the end of their first season by small nearly
orbicular leaf-scars marked by a row of fibro-vascular bundle-scars,
minute subglobose winter-buds covered by numerous thin closely
imbricated chestnut-brown scales, the outer more or less scarious on the
margins, the inner accrescent, becoming at maturity ovate-oblong,
scarious, bright red, ⅓′—½′ long, marking in falling the base of the
branchlet with pale ring-like scars. Leaves alternate, 2-ranked,
ovate-oblong, acute or rounded at the narrowed apex, unequally cuneate
or rounded at base, coarsely crenately serrate with unequal gland-tipped
teeth, with numerous straight conspicuous veins forked near the margin
and connected by cross reticulate veinlets more conspicuous below than
above, when they unfold puberulous on the lower and pilose on the upper
surface, at maturity thick or subcoriaceous and scabrate; petiolate with
slender terete puberulous petioles; stipules lateral, free, ovate,
scarious, bright red. Flowers polygamo-monœcious, the staminate
fascicled in the axils of the outer scales of leaf-bearing buds,
short-pedicellate, the pistillate or perfect on elongated puberulous
pedicels in the axils of the leaves of the year in 1—3-flowered
fascicles; pedicels without bracts; calyx campanulate, divided nearly to
the base into 4 or 5 lobes rounded at apex, greenish yellow often tinged
with red; stamens inserted under the ovary in the pistillate flower,
sometimes few or 0; filaments filiform, erect, exserted; anthers broadly
ovate, emarginate, cordate; ovary ovoid, stipitate,
glandular-tuberculate, narrowed into a short style divided into 2
elongated reflexed stigmas papillo-stigmatic on the inner face, 0 in the
staminate flower; ovule anatropous; micropyle extrorse, superior. Fruit
an oblong oblique drupe, narrowed below into a short stipe, inclosed at
the base by the withered calyx, crowned by the remnants of the style,
its pericarp crustaceous, prominently ribbed on the anterior and
posterior faces, irregularly tuberculate with elongated projections, and
light chestnut-brown; seed ovoid, oblique, pointed at apex, rounded
below, without albumen; testa thin, lustrous, dark brown or nearly
black, of two coats; raphe inconspicuous; embryo erect; cotyledons
thick, unequal, bright orange color, the apex of the larger hooded and
slightly infolding the smaller, much longer than the minute radicle
turned toward the linear pale hilum.
The genus is represented by a single species.
The generic name is in memory of Johann Jacob Planer, a German botanist
and physician of the eighteenth century.
1. Planera aquatica Gmel. Water Elm.
[Illustration: Fig. 288]
Leaves 2′—2½′ long, ¾′—1′ wide, on petioles varying from ⅛′—¼′ in
length, dark dull green on the upper surface, paler on the lower
surface, with a yellow midrib and veins. Flowers appearing with the
leaves. Fruit ripening in April, ⅓′ long.
A tree, 30°—40° high, with a short trunk rarely exceeding 20′ in
diameter, rather slender spreading branches forming a low broad head,
and branchlets brown tinged with red when they first appear, dark red in
their first winter, and ultimately reddish brown or ashy gray. Bark
about ¼′ thick, light brown or gray, separating into large scales
disclosing in falling the red-brown inner bark. Wood light, soft, not
strong, close-grained, light brown, with thick nearly white sapwood of
20—30 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Swamps covered with water during several months of the
year, or low river banks; valley of the Cape Fear River, North Carolina,
southward to northern Florida (Bradford County) and westward usually not
far from the coast through the Gulf states to the valleys of the
Navasota (Brazos County) and of the Colorado (Matagorda County) Rivers,
Texas, and northward through western Louisiana, eastern Oklahoma, and
Arkansas to southeastern Missouri, northeastern Mississippi (near Iuka,
Tishomingo County, _T. G. Harbison_), northern Kentucky (Henderson
County), and the valley of the lower Wabash River, Illinois;
comparatively rare and confined to the coast plain in the Atlantic
states; abundant and of its largest size in western Louisiana and
southern Arkansas.
3. CELTIS L.
Trees or shrubs, with thin, smooth often more or less muricate bark,
unarmed or spinose branchlets, and scaly buds. Leaves serrate or entire,
3-nerved in one species, membranaceous or subcoriaceous, deciduous;
stipules lateral, free, usually scarious, inclosing their leaf in the
bud, caducous. Flowers polygamo-monœcious or rarely monœcious, appearing
soon after the unfolding of the leaves, minute, pedicellate, on branches
of the year, the staminate cymose or fascicled at their base, the
pistillate solitary or in few-flowered fascicles from the axils of upper
leaves; calyx divided nearly to the base into 4 or 5 lobes, greenish
yellow, deciduous; stamens inserted on the margin of the discoid torus;
filaments subulate, incurved in the bud, those of the sterile flower
straightening themselves abruptly and becoming erect and exserted,
shorter and remaining incurved in the perfect flower; anthers ovoid,
attached on the back just above the emarginate base; ovary ovoid,
sessile, green and lustrous, crowned with a short sessile style divided
into diverging elongated reflexed acuminate entire lobes
papillo-stigmatic on the inner face and mature before the anthers of the
sterile flower, deciduous; minute and rudimentary in the staminate
flower; ovule anatropous. Fruit an ovoid or globose drupe tipped with
the remnants of the style, with thin flesh covered by a thick firm skin,
and a thick-walled bony nutlet, reticulate-pitted in the American
species. Seed filling the seminal cavity; albumen scanty, gelatinous,
nearly inclosed between the folds of the cotyledons, or 0; testa
membranaceous, of 2 confluent coats; chalaza colored, close to the
minute hilum; embryo curved; cotyledons broad, foliaceous, conduplicate
or rarely flat, variously folded, corrugate, incumbent, or inclosing the
short superior ascending radicle.
Celtis is widely distributed through the temperate and tropical regions
of the world, fifty or sixty species being distinguished.
Trees of the American species are often disfigured by gall-making
insects which distort the buds and cause the production of dark
broom-like clusters of short slender branchlets at the end of the
branches.
_Celtis_ was the classical name of a species of Lotus.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Fruit on pedicels much longer than the petioles.
Leaves not covered below with conspicuous reticulate veinlets, green
on both surfaces, smooth or rough above; fruit dark purple.
1. C. occidentalis.
Leaves covered below with a network of prominent veinlets, usually
rough above.
Leaves pale on the lower surface.
Leaves broadly ovate, obliquely rounded at base, coarsely
serrate, glabrous or slightly pilose below along the
midrib and veins; fruit light orange-brown, the pedicels
often 3 or 4 times longer than the petioles.
2. C. Douglasii.
Leaves oblong-ovate, mostly cordate or occasionally rounded at
base, entire or slightly serrate toward the apex, covered
below with pilose pubescence; fruit dark reddish brown,
the pedicels usually not more than twice as long as the
petioles.
3. C. Lindheimeri.
Leaves green on the lower surface, broadly ovate, obliquely
rounded at base, entire, pubescent along the midrib and
veins below, rarely smooth on the upper surface; fruit dark
orange-red, the pedicels usually not more than twice as long
as the petioles.
4. C. reticulata.
Fruit on pedicels shorter or only slightly longer than the petioles.
Leaves oblong-lanceolate, long-acuminate, unsymmetrically cuneate at
base, often falcate, entire or more or less serrate, smooth or
rarely roughened on the upper surface; fruit orange color or
yellow, the pedicels shorter or somewhat longer than the
petioles.
5. C. laevigata.
Leaves ovate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, obliquely rounded at
base, coarsely serrate or nearly entire, smooth or in var.
_georgiana_ roughened on the upper surface; fruit dark orange
red, the pedicels usually shorter than the petioles.
6. C. pumila.
1. Celtis occidentalis L. Hackberry. Sugarberry.
[Illustration: Fig. 289]
Leaves ovate, short-acuminate or acute at apex, obliquely rounded at
base, sharply serrate often only above the middle, thin, slightly
pubescent below on the slender midrib and veins early in the season,
becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous, 2½′—3½′ long, 1½′—2′ wide; turning
yellow late in the autumn; petioles slender, glabrous, ⅓′—½′ in length.
Flowers on drooping pedicels; calyx divided usually into 5 linear acute
thin and scarious lobes rounded on the back, more or less laciniately
cut, and often furnished with a tuft of pale hairs at apex; torus
hoary-tomentose. Fruit on stems ½′—¾′ long, ripening in September and
October and often remaining on the branches during the winter,
subglobose, ovoid or obovoid, dark purple, ⅓′ in diameter, with a thick
tough skin, dark orange-colored flesh and a thick-walled oblong pointed
light brown slightly rugose nutlet; seed pale brown.
A tree, rarely more than 40°—50° high with a trunk usually not more than
2° in diameter, spreading often pendulous branches forming a
round-topped head, and slender ridged light brown glabrous branchlets
marked by oblong pale lenticels, and by horizontal semioval or oblong
leaf-scars showing the ends of three fibro-vascular bundles, becoming
darker and in their second or third year often dark red-brown.
Winter-buds ovoid, pointed, flattened, about ¼′ long, with three pairs
of chestnut-brown ovate acute pubescent caducous scales closely
imbricated in two ranks, increasing in size from without inward. Bark
1′—1½′ thick, smooth, dark brown, and more or less thickly covered and
roughened by irregular, wart-like excrescences or by long ridges also
found on the large branches. Wood heavy, rather soft, not strong,
coarse-grained, clear light yellow, with thick lighter-colored sapwood;
used for fencing and in the manufacture of cheap furniture.
Distribution. Rocky hills and ridges; New England (rare) to Virginia and
westward to Iowa, eastern North Dakota, southwestern Missouri and
northwestern Kansas.
Often planted in some of its forms as a shade and ornamental tree in the
towns of the Mississippi valley and occasionally in the eastern states
and in Europe.
Well distinguished by its large dark fruit, _Celtis occidentalis_ is so
variable in the shape of its leaves that two principal varieties are
described as follows:
Celtis occidentalis var. canina Sarg. Hackberry.
_Celtis canina_ Raf.
[Illustration: Fig. 290]
Leaves oblong-ovate, gradually narrowed into a long acuminate point,
obliquely rounded or unsymmetrically cuneate at base, finely serrate,
glabrous or rarely pilose along the midrib and veins below, 2½′—6′ long
and ¾′—2½′ wide; petioles slender, glabrous or rarely pubescent, ½′—¾′
long.
A tree, often 80°—100° high; more common than the other forms of _Celtis
occidentalis_.
Distribution. Rich wooded slopes and bottoms, or eastward on rocky
ridges; Province of Quebec to eastern Nebraska, and southward to the
coast of Massachusetts, western New York, southern Ohio, southern
Indiana and Illinois, southwestern Missouri, southwestern Oklahoma
(Snyder, Kiowa County), and in northwestern Georgia.
Celtis occidentalis var. crassifolia A. Gray. Hackberry.
_Celtis crassifolia_ Lam.
[Illustration: Fig. 291]
Leaves thicker, long-acuminate, obliquely rounded at base, usually more
coarsely serrate, rarely nearly entire, rough on the upper surface,
pilose below along the prominent midrib and veins, 3½′—5′ long, 2′—2½′
wide, much smaller in the Rocky Mountain region; petioles
villose-pubescent, rarely glabrous, ¼′—½′ in length, much shorter than
the pubescent pedicels of the fruit.
A tree, 100°—120° high; with pubescent or glabrous branchlets; rarely
shrubby. The most widely distributed form of _Celtis occidentalis_.
Distribution. Wooded slopes and rich bottoms; Virginia and along the
Appalachian Mountains to North Carolina and westward to southern
Minnesota, Missouri, central Kansas, eastern and northwestern Oklahoma,
central Nebraska, North and South Dakota, cañons of the Big Horn
Mountains, Wyoming, and northwestern Idaho, and southward to Dallas
County, Alabama, and eastern Texas.
Often cultivated in towns of the Mississippi Valley and in western
Europe, and occasionally in the eastern states.
2. Celtis Douglasii Plan. Hackberry.
_Celtis rugulosa_ Rydb.
[Illustration: Fig. 292]
Leaves broadly ovate to oblong-ovate, acuminate, obliquely rounded or
unsymmetrically subcordate at base, coarsely serrate, rough on the upper
surface, pale and covered below with a network of reticulate veinlets
inconspicuous early in the season, later becoming prominent, glabrous or
sparingly pilose along the under side of the stout midrib and primary
veins, 2′—2½′ long, 1′—2′ wide; petioles stout, slightly pubescent,
¼′—½′ in length. Flowers on slender pubescent pedicels; calyx divided
into five linear acute scarious lobes laciniately cut at apex; torus
hoary-tomentose. Fruit on slender drooping slightly pubescent or
glabrous pedicels, ⅓′—½′ in length, subglobose to ellipsoid, light
orange-brown, lustrous, ⅓′ in diameter.
A small tree or shrub rarely more than 20′ high, with slender slightly
pubescent or glabrous red-brown branchlets marked by small pale
lenticels, becoming ashy gray in their second or third year. Bark rough,
red-brown or gray.
Distribution. Dry hillsides and rocky river banks; eastern Oregon from
the valley of the Deschutes and Columbia Rivers to the cañon of Snake
River, Whitman County, Washington, and to Big Willow Creek, Cañon
County, western Idaho; on the western foothills of the Wasatch
Mountains, in the cañon of Grand River, and in Diamond Valley, Utah;
southern California, near Independence, Inyo County, Hackberry Cañon,
Kern County, and Things Valley at base of Laguna Mountain, near Campo,
southern San Diego County; on Cedros Island, and in northern Lower
California; rim of the Grand Cañon, Arizona, and on the eastern
foothills of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
Occasionally planted in the towns of western Washington, and when
cultivated said to grow in good soil into a larger and more shapely tree
with thinner leaves.
3. Celtis Lindheimeri K. Koch. Palo Blanco.
_Celtis Helleri_ Small.
[Illustration: Fig. 293]
Leaves oblong-ovate, acuminate or acute, cordate or obliquely cordate or
rounded at base, entire, or crenately serrate on vigorous shoots, rough
above, pale and clothed below with white hairs, becoming by midsummer
thick and covered below with a conspicuous network of reticulate
veinlets, 1½′—3′ long, ¾′—2′ wide; petioles densely villose-pubescent,
¼′—½′ in length. Flowers opening toward the end of March on pubescent
pedicels; calyx divided into five oblong scarious lobes narrowed and
rounded at apex; torus tomentose. Fruit on slender tomentose stems ¼′—⅔′
long, ripening in September and persistent on the branches until spring,
subglobose to ellipsoid, dark reddish brown, lustrous, ¼′ in diameter.
A tree, occasionally 30° high, with a trunk rarely more than 12′—18′ in
diameter, stout spreading branches forming a broad open irregular head,
and slender pubescent branchlets roughened by numerous small lenticels,
becoming darker and glabrous in their second season. Bark of the trunk
and large branches dark and covered with high thick wart-like
excrescences and ridges. Wood not strong nor durable, of little value
even for fuel.
Distribution. Rich bottom-lands and on low adjacent hills of streams
flowing southward from the Edward’s Plateau (Goliad, San Antonio, New
Braunfels, San Marcos) and near Austin, Travis County, Texas.
4. Celtis reticulata Torr. Hackberry.
[Illustration: Fig. 294]
Leaves broadly ovate, acute or acuminate, obliquely rounded at base,
entire, thick, dark green and rough or rarely smooth on the upper
surface, yellow-green and conspicuously reticulate-venulose and
sparingly pilose along the prominent midrib and veins on the lower
surface, 1¼′—3′ long, ¾′—1½′ wide; petioles stout, ⅛′—¼′ in length, more
or less densely pubescent. Flowers not seen. Fruit on pubescent pedicels
⅓′—½′ in length, ripening in September, subglobose to ellipsoid,
orange-red or yellow, lustrous, ¼′ in diameter.
A tree, rarely 30° high with stout ascending branches forming an open
irregular head, and slender red-brown branchlets tomentose or pubescent
early in their first season and pubescent or glabrous in their second
year; or often a shrub. Bark thick and rough.
Distribution. Dry limestone hillsides, rocky ridges and cañon slopes,
western Texas, from the valley of the upper Rio Frio, Uvalde County, to
Oklahoma (Ozark region, near Page, Le Flore County to the southwestern
borders of the state); in mountain ravines through southern New Mexico,
and in southern central and northeastern Arizona.
A variety with more pubescent serrate leaves, those on vigorous shoots
mostly cordate at base and covered above with short white hairs, is
distinguished as var. _vestita_ Sarg. A small tree with slender
pubescent branchlets and a trunk 12′—15′ in diameter. In low ground,
along the North Fork of the Canadian River, near Canton, Blaine County,
Oklahoma.
5. Celtis laevigata K. Koch. Sugarberry. Hackberry.
_Celtis mississippiensis_ Spach.
[Illustration: Fig. 295]
Leaves oblong-lanceolate, long-pointed and acuminate at apex,
unsymmetrically rounded or cuneate or obliquely cuneate at base, often
falcate, entire or furnished with a few teeth near the apex or serrate
(var. _Smallii_ Sarg.), thin, smooth, glabrous or rarely rough above,
light green on both surfaces, 2½′—5′ long and ¾′—1½′ wide, with a narrow
yellow midrib, slender veins arcuate and united near the margins, and
inconspicuous reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, glabrous, ¼′—½′ in
length. Flowers on slender glabrous pedicels; calyx divided into five
ovate-lanceolate glabrous or puberulous scarious lobes furnished at apex
with tufts of long white hairs. Fruit on glabrous pedicels shorter or
slightly longer than the petioles, ripening in September, short-oblong
to ellipsoid or obovoid, orange-red or yellow, ¼′ in diameter; nutlet
slightly rugose.
A tree, 60°—80° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, spreading or
pendulous branches forming a broad head, and slender branchlets light
green, glabrous or pubescent when they first appear, and during their
first winter bright reddish brown, rather lustrous and marked by oblong
pale lenticels and narrow elevated horizontal leaf-scars showing the
ends of three fibro-vascular bundles; often much smaller. Winter-buds
ovoid, pointed, 1/16′—⅛′ long, with chestnut-brown puberulous scales.
Bark ½′—⅔′ thick, pale gray and covered with prominent excrescences.
Wood soft, not strong, close-grained, light yellow, with thick
lighter-colored sapwood; commercially confounded with the wood of
_Celtis occidentalis_ and its varieties, and used for the same purposes.
Distribution. Coast of Virginia to the Everglades Keys of southern
Florida, through the Gulf states to the valley of the lower Rio Grande
in Nuevo Leon, and through eastern Texas, Arkansas and Missouri to
eastern Oklahoma to the valley of the Washita River (Zarvin County) and
to Kiowa County, eastern Kansas, central Tennessee and Kentucky, and to
southern Illinois and Indiana; in Bermuda.
Often planted as a shade and street tree in the valley of the
Mississippi River and in Texas.
An arborescent form from the rocky banks of the Nueces River, western
Texas, with shorter and thicker leaves is distinguished as var.
_brachyphylla_ Sarg.; and a small shrubby form with oblong-ovate cordate
leaves and dark purplish fruit covered with a glaucous bloom, growing in
deep sand in Callihan County, Texas, has been described as var.
_anomala_ Sarg. An Arizona form is
Celtis laevigata var. brevipes Sarg.
_Celtis brevipes_ S. Wats.
[Illustration: Fig. 296]
Leaves ovate, acuminate, unsymmetrically rounded or cuneate at base,
entire or rarely furnished with occasional teeth, glabrous, dark green
and smooth on the upper surface, yellow-green on the lower surface, with
small clusters of pale hairs in the axils of the slender veins, and
inconspicuous reticulate veinlets, 1½′—2′ long, ¾′—1′ wide; petioles
slender, puberulous, ¼′—⅓′ in length. Fruit on glabrous pedicels shorter
or slightly longer than the petioles, short-oblong, canary yellow, about
¼′ long.
A small tree with slender glabrous red-brown branchlets.
Distribution. Central and southern Arizona.
More distinct is the common Celtis of western Texas which has been
described as
Celtis laevigata var. texana Sarg.
[Illustration: Fig. 297]
Leaves ovate to lanceolate, acuminate, unsymmetrically rounded or
cordate at base, entire or sparingly and irregularly serrate, often
subcoriaceous, dark green, smooth and granulate or rarely rough above,
green below, with a slender midrib and primary veins glabrous or
sparingly villose-pubescent and furnished with small tufts of axillary
hairs, and only slightly raised reticulate veinlets, 1½′—3′ long and
¾′—1½′ wide; petioles slender, pale pubescent, ⅕′—¼′ in length. Fruit on
glabrous or puberulous pedicels slightly longer than the petioles,
subglobose but rather longer than broad, dark orange-red, about ¼′ long.
An arborescent shrub or small tree rarely more than 25° high, with
slender reddish glabrous or gray-brown pubescent branchlets; often
growing in clusters. Bark rough, pale or grayish and not often covered
with wart-like excrescences.
Distribution. Rocky bluffs near Dallas to New Braunfels, Texas, and
westward to western Oklahoma, and southern New Mexico; in southwestern
Missouri; in Tamaulipas and Coahuila, Mexico. The common Celtis of the
Texas Panhandle.
A shrubby form from Nolan County, Texas, with red-brown branchlets
densely pubescent in their first season, becoming puberulous during
their second year, and smaller leaves with more prominent reticulate
veinlets, on densely pubescent petioles, is distinguished as forma
_microphylla_ Sarg.
6. Celtis pumila Pursh.
This shrub of the eastern states is sometimes a small tree in its
southern variety,
Celtis pumila var. georgiana Sarg.
[Illustration: Fig. 298]
Leaves ovate, acute or acuminate, obliquely rounded at base, entire or
sharply serrate, especially on vigorous leading shoots, thin, dark green
and rough on the upper surface, pale and more or less pubescent or
nearly glabrous along the midrib and veins below, 1½′—2½′ long and
¾′—1½′ wide; petioles slender, pubescent, ⅙′—¼′ in length. Flowers on
pubescent pedicels; calyx divided into usually five lanceolate acuminate
lobes; the disk pubescent. Fruit on pubescent pedicels as long or
slightly longer than the petioles, subglobose, reddish purple, often
covered with a glaucous bloom, ½′ in diameter; nutlet covered with
conspicuous reticulate ridges.
A shrub or small tree occasionally 30° high, with slender dark red-brown
pubescent branchlets, light red-brown and sometimes bright red-brown
before the end of their first year.
Distribution. Piedmont region of North and South Carolina, central
Georgia to western Florida; and Dallas County, Alabama; in southern
Missouri, and southern Illinois.
4. TREMA Lour.
Unarmed trees and shrubs with watery juices and terete branchlets.
Leaves alternate, often two-ranked, serrate, penniveined, three-nerved
from the base, short-petiolate, persistent; stipules lateral, free,
usually small, caducous. Flowers apetalous, small, monœcious, diœcious
or rarely perfect, in axillary cymes; calyx five or rarely four-parted,
the lobes induplicate, valvate or slightly imbricated in the bud, or in
perfect flowers more or less concave and induplicate; stamens five or
rarely four, opposite the calyx-lobes and inserted on their base,
occasionally present in the pistillate flower; filaments short, erect;
anthers oblong, attached on the back near the base, introrse,
two-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary sessile, rudimentary
or wanting in the staminate flower; style central, slightly or entirely
divided into two linear fleshy stigmatic branches; ovule solitary,
pendulous from the apex of the cell, anatropous; micropyle superior.
Fruit drupaceous, short-oblong to subglobose, crowned by the persistent
style; exocarp more or less fleshy; endocarp hard; seed filling the
cavity of the nutlet; testa membranaceous, albumen fleshy, often scanty;
embryo curved or slightly involute; cotyledons narrow; radicle incurved,
ascending.
Trema, with about twenty species, is widely distributed in tropical and
subtropical regions of the two hemispheres. Two species reach the coast
region and the keys of southern Florida. Of these _Trema mollis_ Lour.
is a small tree, and _Trema Lamarckiana_ Bl., which in Florida has been
noticed only on Key Largo, where it grows as a small shrub, is widely
distributed over the Bahamas and many of the West Indian islands.
1. Trema mollis Lour.
_Trema floridana_ Britt.
[Illustration: Fig. 299]
Leaves 2-ranked, ovate, abruptly acuminate at apex, rounded, cordate and
often oblique at base, finely serrate with incurved or rounded apiculate
teeth, dark green and scabrate above, covered with pale tomentum below,
3′—4′ long, 1′—2½′ wide; petioles stout, tomentose, about ⅖′ in length;
stipules narrow, acuminate, covered with long white hairs, about one
third as long as the petioles. Flowers in early spring, subtended by
minute scarious deciduous bracts on short slender pedicels in bisexual
many-flowered pedunculate villose cymes about as long as the petioles;
calyx 5-lobed, the lobes oblong, acute and incurved at apex, villose on
the outer surface; staminate with glabrous filaments and slightly
exserted yellow anthers; pistillate with a style divided to the base.
Fruit short-oblong, pale yellowish brown, ⅙′—⅕′ in diameter.
A fast-growing short-lived tree, in Florida occasionally 25°—30° high,
with a tall trunk 1½′—2½′ in diameter, small crowded branches ascending
at narrow angles, and stout hoary-tomentose red-brown 2-ranked
branchlets. Bark thin, chocolate-brown, roughened by numerous small
wart-like excrescences, and separating into small appressed papery
scales.
Distribution. Rich hummocks; near the shores of Bay Biscayne, in the
Everglades, and on the southern keys, Florida; common; often springing
up where the ground has been burned over, or otherwise cleared of its
forests; on many of the West Indian islands and in Mexico.
XII. MORACEÆ.
Tree or shrubs, with milky juice, scaly or naked buds, and stalked
alternate simple leaves with stipules. Flowers monœcious or diœcious, in
ament-like spikes, or in heads on the outside of a receptacle or on the
inside of a closed receptacle; calyx of the staminate flower 2—6-lobed
or parted; stamens 1—4, inserted on the base of the calyx; calyx of the
pistillate flower of 2—6 partly united sepals; ovary 1—2-celled; styles
1 or 2; ovule pendulous. Fruits drupaceous, inclosed in the thickened
calyx of the flower and united into a compound fruit (_syncarp_). The
Mulberry family is widely distributed with fifty-four genera confined
largely to the warmer parts of the world. Three genera only, all
arborescent, are indigenous in North America, although _Broussonetia
papyrifera_ Vent., the Paper Mulberry, a tree related to the Mulberry
and a native of eastern Asia, and the Hop and the Hemp are more or less
generally naturalized in the eastern and southern states.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN GENERA.
Flowers on the outside of the receptacle; buds scaly.
Flowers in ament-like spikes; syncarp oblong and succulent.
1. Morus.
Staminate flowers racemose, the pistillate capitate; syncarp dry and
globose.
2. Maclura.
Flowers on the inside of a closed receptacle; buds naked; syncarp
subglobose to ovoid, succulent.
3. Ficus.
1. MORUS L. Mulberry.
Trees or shrubs, with slender terete unarmed branches prolonged by one
of the upper axillary buds, scaly bark, fibrous roots, and winter-buds
covered by ovate scales closely imbricated in 2 ranks, increasing in
size from without inward, the inner accrescent, marking in falling the
base of the branch with ring-like scars. Leaves conduplicate in the bud,
alternate, serrate, entire or 3-lobed, 3—5-nerved at base, membranaceous
or subcoriaceous, deciduous; stipules inclosing their leaf in the bud,
lateral, lanceolate, acute, caducous. Flowers monœcious or diœcious, the
staminate and pistillate on different branches of the same plant or on
different plants, minute, vernal, in pedunculate clusters from the axils
of caducous bud-scales or of the lower leaves of the year; staminate in
elongated cylindric spikes; calyx deeply divided into 4 equal rounded
lobes; stamens 4, inserted opposite the lobes of the calyx under the
minute rudimentary ovary, filaments filiform, incurved in the bud,
straightening elastically and becoming exserted, anthers attached on the
back below the middle, introrse, 2-celled, the cells reniform, attached
laterally to the orbicular connective, opening longitudinally;
pistillate sessile, in short-oblong densely flowered spikes; calyx
4-parted, the lobes ovate or obovate, thickened, often unequal, the 2
outer broader than the others, persistent; ovary ovoid, flat, sessile,
included in the calyx, crowned by a central style divided nearly to the
base into 2 equal spreading filiform villose white stigmatic lobes;
ovule suspended from the apex of the cell, campylotropous; micropyle
superior. Drupes ovoid or obovoid, crowned with the remnants of the
styles, inclosed in the succulent thickened and colored perianth of the
flower and more or less united into a more or less juicy compound fruit;
flesh subsucculent, thin; walls of the nutlet thin or thick,
crustaceous. Seed oblong, pendulous; testa, thin, membranaceous; hilum
minute, apical; embryo incurved in thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons
oblong, equal; radicle ascending, incumbent.
Morus with eight or nine species is confined to eastern temperate North
America, the elevated regions of Mexico, Central America and western
South America, southern and western Asia, Indo-China, China, Japan, the
Bonin Islands and the mountains of the Indian Archipelago. Two species
occur in North America. The most valuable species, _Morus alba_ L., a
native of China and Formosa, and largely cultivated in many countries
for its leaves, which are the best food of the silkworm, has been
planted in large quantities in the eastern United States; and _Morus
nigra_ L., probably a native of Persia, has been introduced into the
southern and Pacific states for its large dark-colored juicy fruit.
Morus produces straight-grained durable light brown or orange-colored
valuable wood, and sweet acidulous and refreshing fruits.
_Morus_ is the classical name of the Mulberry-tree.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Leaves coated below with pale pubescence; lobes of the stigma long;
syncarp oblong, dark purple.
1. M. rubra (A, C).
Leaves glabrous or pubescent below; lobes of the stigma short; syncarp
subglobose or short-ovoid, nearly black.
2. M. microphylla (C, E, H).
1. Morus rubra L. Red Mulberry.
[Illustration: Fig. 300]
Leaves ovate, oblong-ovate or semiorbicular, abruptly contracted into a
long broad point or acute at apex, more or less deeply cordate or
occasionally truncate at base, coarsely and occasionally doubly serrate
with incurved callous-tipped teeth, often, especially on vigorous young
shoots, 3-lobed by broad deep oblique lateral rounded sinuses, when they
unfold yellow-green, slightly pilose on the upper surface and
hoary-tomentose on the lower surface, at maturity thin, dark bluish
green, glabrous, smooth or scabrate above, pale and more or less
pubescent below with short white hairs thickest on the orange-colored
midrib, and on the primary veins arcuate and united near the margins and
connected by reticulate veinlets, or sometimes hoary-tomentose below
(var. _tomentosa_ Bureau), 3′—5′ long, 2½′—4′ wide; turning bright
yellow in the autumn; petioles stout, hoary-tomentose at first, becoming
glabrous, ¾′—1¼′ in length; stipules lanceolate, acute, abruptly
enlarged and thickened at base, sometimes tinged with red above the
middle, coated with long white hairs, and often 1′ in length. Flowers
appearing with the unfolding of the leaves; staminate in narrow spikes
2′—2½′ long, on stout light green peduncles covered with pale hairs;
calyx divided nearly to the base into oblong concave lobes rounded at
apex and hirsute on the outer surface; stamens with slightly flattened
filaments narrowed from the base to the apex, and bright green anthers,
their connectives orbicular, conspicuous, bright green; pistillate in
oblong densely flowered spikes, 1′ long, on short hairy peduncles, a few
male flowers being sometimes mixed with them; calyx divided nearly to
the base into 4 thick concave lobes rounded at apex, rounded or slightly
keeled on the back, the 2 outer lobes twice as wide as the others, as
long as and closely investing the glabrous light green ovary. Fruit:
syncarp at first bright red when fully grown, 1′—1¼′ long, becoming dark
purple or nearly black and sweet and juicy when fully ripe; drupes about
1/32′ long, with a thin fleshy outer coat and a light brown nutlet; seed
ovoid, acute, with a thin membranaceous light brown coat.
A tree, 60°—70° high, with a short trunk rarely exceeding 3°—4° in
diameter, stout spreading smooth branches forming a dense broad
round-topped shapely head, and slender slightly zigzag branchlets dark
green often tinged with red, glabrous, more or less coated with pale
pubescence, and covered with oblong straw-colored spots when they first
appear, becoming in their first winter light red-brown to orange color
and marked by pale lenticels and by large elevated horizontal nearly
orbicular concave leaf-scars displaying a row of prominent
fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and in their second and third years dark
brown slightly tinged with red. Winter-buds ovoid, rounded or pointed at
apex, ¼′ long, with 6 or 7 chestnut-brown scales, those of the outer
rows broadly ovate, rounded, and slightly thickened on the back,
puberulous, ciliate on the margins, and much shorter than those of the
next rows, the inner scales scarious, coated with pale hairs,
oblong-lanceolate, rounded or acute at apex, and ½′—⅔′ long at maturity.
Bark ½′—¾′ thick, dark brown tinged with red and divided into irregular
elongated plates separating on the surface into thick appressed scales.
Wood light, soft, not strong, rather tough, coarse-grained, very
durable, light orange color, with thick lighter colored sapwood; largely
used for fencing, in cooperage, and in boat-building.
Distribution. Intervales in rich soil and on low hills; western
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Long Island to southern Ontario, central
Michigan, southeastern Minnesota, eastern Iowa, southeastern South
Dakota, eastern Nebraska, central Kansas and Oklahoma, and southward to
the shores of Bay Biscayne and Cape Romano, Florida, and to the cañon of
the Devil’s River, Valverde County, Texas; most abundant and of its
largest size in the basin of the lower Ohio River and on the foothills
of the southern Appalachian Mountains; ascending to altitudes of 2000°.
Occasionally planted, especially in the southern states, for its fruit
valued for fattening hogs and as food for poultry. A few natural
varieties, distinguished for the large size and good quality of their
fruit, or for their productiveness, are occasionally propagated by
pomologists.
2. Morus microphylla Buckl. Mulberry. Mexican Mulberry.
_Morus celtidifolia_ Sarg., not H. B. K.
[Illustration: Fig. 301]
Leaves ovate, acute or acuminate, rounded or rarely truncate, or often
on vigorous shoots cordate at the broad base, and 3-lobed with shallow
lateral sinuses and broad coarsely serrate lobes, when they unfold
coated below with pale tomentum, and puberulous above, at maturity thin
and firm in texture, dark green and often roughened on the upper surface
by minute pale tubercles, and paler, smooth or scabrate, and glabrous or
coated with soft pubescence on the lower surface, and often hirsute with
short stiff pale hairs on the broad orange-colored midrib, and on the
primary veins connected by conspicuous reticulate veinlets, rarely more
than 1½′ long and ¾′ wide; turning yellow in the autumn; petioles
slender, hoary-tomentose, becoming pubescent, ⅓′ in length; stipules
linear-lanceolate, acute, sometimes falcate, white and scarious, coated
with soft pale tomentum, about ½′ long. Flowers usually diœcious,
staminate short-pedicellate, in short many-flowered spikes, ½′—¾′ long;
calyx dark green, covered on the outer surface with soft pale hairs,
deeply divided into equal rounded lobes reddish toward the apex; stamens
with bright yellow anthers, their connectives conspicuous, dark green;
pistillate sessile in few-flowered spikes, rarely ⅓′ in length; calyx
divided to the base into thick rounded lobes, the 2 outer lobes much
broader than the others, dark green, covered with pale scattered hairs;
ovary green and glabrous, with short stigmatic lobes. Fruit: syncarp ½′
long, red becoming dark purple or nearly black, sweet and palatable;
drupe ⅙′ long, ovoid, rounded at the ends, with a thin fleshy outer
covering and a thick-walled light brown nutlet; seed ovoid, pointed,
pale yellow.
A tree, sometimes 15°—20° high, with a trunk occasionally 12′—14′ in
diameter, and slender branchlets covered when they first appear with
soft white hairs, soon becoming glabrous or nearly so, and in their
first winter light orange-red and marked by small lenticels and small
horizontal nearly orbicular elevated concave leaf-scars displaying a
ring of fibro-vascular bundle-scars; often a shrub. Winter-buds ovoid,
acute, sharp-pointed, and covered by thin lustrous chestnut-brown ovate
rounded scales scarious on the margins, those of the inner rows
ovate-oblong, rounded at apex, pale-pubescent on the outer surface, and
nearly 1′ long when fully grown. Bark smooth, sometimes nearly ½′ thick
but usually thinner, light gray slightly tinged with red, deeply
furrowed and broken on the surface into slightly appressed scales. Wood
heavy, hard, close-grained, dark orange color or sometimes dark brown,
with thick light-colored sapwood.
Distribution. Dry limestone hills, or westward only in elevated mountain
cañons in the neighborhood of streams; valley of the Colorado River,
Texas, southward into Mexico and through the mountain regions of western
Texas and southern New Mexico to the Santa Rita Mountains and the cañons
of the Colorado Plateau, Arizona.
2. MACLURA Nutt.
_Toxylon (Ioxylon)_ Rafn.
A tree, with thick milky slightly acrid juice, thick deeply furrowed
dark orange-colored bark, stout tough terete pale branchlets, with thick
orange-colored pith, lengthening by an upper axillary bud, marked by
pale orange-colored lenticels and armed with stout straight axillary
spines, short stout spur-like lateral branchlets from buds at the base
of the spines, and thick fleshy roots covered by bright orange-colored
bark exfoliating freely in long thin persistent papery scales. Leaves
involute in the bud, ovate to oblong-lanceolate, acuminate and apiculate
at apex, rounded, cuneate or subcordate at base, entire, penniveined,
the veins arcuate near the margins and connected by conspicuous
reticulate veinlets; petioles elongated, slender, terete, pubescent;
stipules lateral, nearly triangular, minute, hoary-tomentose, caducous.
Flowers diœcious, light green, minute, appearing in early summer; calyx
4-lobed, the lobes imbricated in æstivation; the staminate long
pedicellate, in short or ultimately elongated racemes borne on long
slender drooping peduncles from the axils of crowded leaves on the
spur-like branchlets of the previous year; calyx ovoid, gradually
narrowed into the slender pubescent pedicel, coated on the outer surface
with pale hairs, divided to the middle into equal acute boat-shaped
lobes; stamens 4, inserted opposite the lobes of the calyx on the
margins of the minute thin pulvinate disk; filaments flattened, light
green, glabrous, infolded above the middle in the bud, with the anthers
inverted and back to back, straightening abruptly in anthesis and
becoming exserted; anthers oblong, attached on the back near the middle,
introrse, 2-celled, the cells attached laterally to a minute oblong or
semiorbicular connective, free and spreading above and below, opening by
longitudinal lateral slits; pistillate sessile in dense globose
many-flowered heads on short stout peduncles axillary on shoots of the
year; calyx ovoid, divided to the base into oblong thick concave lobes,
rounded, thickened, and covered with pale hairs at the apex, longer than
the ovary and closely investing it, the 2 outer lobes much broader than
the others, persistent and inclosing the fruit; ovary ovoid, compressed,
sessile, green, and glabrous; style covered by elongated slender
filiform white stigmatic hairs; ovule suspended from the apex of the
cell, anatropous. Drupes oblong, compressed, rounded and often notched
at apex, acute at base, with thin succulent flesh, and a thin
crustaceous light brown nutlet, joined by the union of the thickened and
much elongated perianths of the flowers into a globose compound fruit
saturated with milky juice, mammillate on the surface by their thickened
rounded summits, light yellow-green, usually of full size but seedless
on isolated pistillate individuals. Seed oblong, compressed, rounded at
base, oblique and marked at apex by the conspicuous oblong pale hilum,
without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous, light chestnut-brown; embryo
recurved; cotyledons oblong, nearly equal; radicle elongated, incumbent,
ascending.
The genus is represented by a single species of eastern North America.
The generic name is in compliment to William Maclure, distinguished
geologist.
1. Maclura pomifera Schn. Osage Orange. Bow Wood.
_Toxylon_ (_Ioxylon_) _pomiferum_ Rafn.
[Illustration: Fig. 302]
Leaves 3′—5′ long, 2′—3′ wide; turning bright clear yellow before
falling in the autumn; petioles 1½′—2′ in length. Flowers: racemes of
the staminate flowers 1′—1½′ long; heads of the pistillate flowers,
¾′—1′ in diameter. Fruit 4′—5′ in diameter, ripening in the autumn, and
soon falling to the ground.
A tree, sometimes 50°—60° high, with a short trunk 2°—3° in diameter,
and stout erect ultimately spreading branches forming a handsome open
irregular round-topped head, and branchlets light green often tinged
with red and coated with soft pale pubescence when they first appear,
soon becoming glabrous, light brown slightly tinged with orange color
during their first winter, and ultimately paler. Winter-buds
depressed-globose, partly immersed in the bark, covered by few closely
imbricated ovate rounded light chestnut-brown ciliate conspicuous
scales. Bark ⅔′—1′ thick, and deeply and irregularly divided into broad
rounded ridges separating on the surface into thin appressed scales.
Wood heavy, exceedingly hard, very strong, flexible, coarse-grained,
very durable, bright orange color turning brown on exposure, with thin
light yellow sapwood of 5—10 layers of annual growth; largely used for
fence-posts, railway-ties, wheel-stock, and formerly by the Osage and
other Indians west of the Mississippi River for bows and war-clubs. The
bark of the roots contains moric and morintannic acid, and is used as a
yellow dye. The bark of the trunk is sometimes used in tanning leather.
Distribution. Rich bottom-lands; southern Arkansas to southern Oklahoma
and southward in Texas to about latitude 35° 36′; most abundant and of
its largest size in the valley of the Red River in Oklahoma.
Largely planted in the prairie regions of the Mississippi basin as a
hedge plant, and occasionally in the eastern states; hardy in New
England; occasionally naturalized beyond the limits of its natural
range.
3. FICUS L. Fig.
Trees, with milky juice, naked buds, stout branchlets, thick fleshy
roots frequently produced from the branches and developing into
supplementary stems. Leaves involute, entire and persistent in American
species; stipules inclosing the leaf in a slender sharp-pointed bud-like
cover, interpetiolar, embracing the leaf-bearing axis and inclosing the
young leaves, deciduous. Flower-bearing receptacle subglobose to ovoid,
sessile or stalked, solitary by abortion or in pairs in the axils of
existing or fallen leaves, surrounded at base by 3 anterior bracts
distinct or united into an involucral cup bearing on the interior at the
apex numerous rows of minute triangular viscid bracts closing the
orifice, those of the lower rows turned downward and infolding the upper
flowers, those immediately above these horizontal and forming a more or
less prominent umbilicus. Flowers sessile or pedicellate, the pedicels
thickening and becoming succulent with the ripening of the fruit,
unisexual, often separated by chaffy scales or hairs; calyx of the
staminate flower usually divided into 2—6 sepals; stamen 1; filament
short, erect; anther innate, ovoid, broad and subrotund, 2-celled, the
cells opening longitudinally, 0 in the pistillate flower; sepals or
lobes of the calyx of the pistillate flower usually narrower than those
of the staminate flower; ovary sessile, erect or oblique, surmounted by
the lateral elongated style crowned by a 2-lobed stigma; ovule suspended
from the apex or lateral below the apex of the cell, anatropous. Fruit
mostly immersed in the thickened succulent receptacle, obovoid or
reniform; flesh thin, mucilaginous; nutlet with a flat crustaceous
minutely tuberculate shell. Seed suspended; testa membranaceous; embryo
incurved, in thin fleshy albumen, cotyledons equal or unequal, longer
than the incumbent radicle.
Ficus, of which about six hundred species have been described, is
largely distributed through the topics of both hemispheres, the largest
number of species being found on the islands of the Indian Archipelago
and the Pacific Ocean. A few species extend beyond the tropics into
southern Florida, Mexico, Argentina, southern Japan and China, the
countries bordering the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands, and South
Africa. Two species of the section _Urostigma_ with monœcious flowers
occur in tropical Florida. _Ficus Carica_ L., probably a native of the
Mediterranean basin, is cultivated in the southern states and in
California for its large sweet succulent fruits, the figs of commerce.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Receptacles subglobose, sessile or short-stalked; leaves oblong,
usually pointed at the ends.
1. F. aurea (D).
Receptacles obovoid, long-stalked; leaves broadly ovate, cordate at
base.
2. F. brevifolia (D).
1. Ficus aurea Nutt. Wild Fig.
[Illustration: Fig. 303]
Leaves oblong, usually narrowed at the ends, acute or acuminate, with a
short broad point at apex, cuneate or rarely broad and rounded at base,
2′—5′ long, 1½′—3′ wide, thick and coriaceous, dark yellow-green and
lustrous above, paler and less lustrous below, with a broad light yellow
midrib slightly grooved on the upper side, and numerous obscure primary
veins arcuate and united near the margins and connected by fine closely
reticulated veinlets, continuing to unfold during a large part of the
year; usually falling during their second season; petioles stout,
slightly grooved, ½′—1′ in length; stipules ovate-lanceolate, thick,
firm, tinged with red, about 1′ long. Flowers: receptacles developing in
succession as the branch lengthens, subglobose, sessile or
short-stalked, solitary or in pairs, the orifice lateral closed and
marked by a small point formed by the union of the minute bracts,
becoming ⅓′ in diameter and yellow when fully grown, ultimately turning
bright red; flowers reddish purple, separated by minute reddish
chaff-like scales more or less laciniate at apex, sessile or
long-pedicellate; calyx of the staminate flower divided to below the
middle into 2 or 3 broad lobes rather shorter than the stout flattened
filaments; lobes of the anther oblong, attached laterally to the broad
connective; calyx of the pistillate flower divided to the middle into 4
or 5 narrow lobes, closely investing the ovate sessile ovary. Fruit
ovoid, immersed in the thickened reddish purple walls of the receptacle;
seed ovoid, rounded at the ends, with a thin light brown coat and a
large lateral oblong pale hilum.
A broad round-topped epiphytal tree, 50°—60° high, germinating and
growing at first on the branches and trunks of other trees and sending
down to the ground stout aerial roots which gradually growing together
form a trunk often 3°—4° in diameter, the growth of additional roots
from the branches extending the tree over a large area, and terete pithy
light orange-colored branchlets marked by pale lenticels, conspicuous
stipular scars, large slightly elevated horizontal oval leaf-scars
displaying a marginal ring of large pale fibro-vascular bundle-scars,
and smaller elevated concave circular scars left by the receptacles in
falling. Bark smooth, ashy gray, light brown tinged with red, ½′ thick,
and broken on the surface into minute appressed scales disclosing in
falling the nearly black inner bark. Wood exceedingly light, soft, weak,
coarse-grained, perishable in contact with the ground, light brown, with
thick lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Hummocks on the shores and islands of southern Florida;
from the Indian River on the east coast and Tampa Bay on the west coast,
to the southern keys; common and now rapidly spreading over the eastern
and southern borders of the Everglades; attaining its largest size in
the neighborhood of Bay Biscayne; on the Bahama Islands.
2. Ficus brevifolia Nutt. Fig. Wild Fig.
_Ficus populnea_ Sarg., not Willd.
[Illustration: Fig. 304]
Leaves broadly ovate or rarely obovate, contracted into a short broad
point or occasionally rounded at apex, rounded, truncate or cordate at
base, 2½′—5′ long, 1½′—5′ wide, thin and firm, dark green and lustrous
on the upper surface, paler on the lower, with a light yellow midrib,
and slender remote primary veins arcuate and united near the margins and
connected by finely reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, sometimes 1′
in length; stipules ovate-lanceolate, ½′ long, tinged with red. Flowers:
receptacles obovoid, solitary or in pairs, yellow until fully grown,
ultimately turning bright red and becoming ¼′—½′ long, on stout drooping
stalks ¼′—1′ in length; flowers sessile or pedicellate, separated by
minute chaff-like scales more or less laciniate at apex; calyx of the
staminate flower divided nearly to the base into three or four broad
acute lobes; calyx of the pistillate flower with narrow lobes shorter
than the ovoid pointed ovary. Fruit ovoid; seed ovoid, with a
membranaceous light brown coat and an oblong lateral pale hilum.
An epiphytal tree, rarely 40°—50° high, with a trunk 12′—18′ in
diameter, spreading branches occasionally developing aerial roots and
forming an open irregular head, and terete branchlets light red and
slightly puberulous when they first appear, becoming brown tinged with
orange and later with red, and marked by minute pale lenticels, narrow
stipular scars, large elevated horizontal oval or semiorbicular
leaf-scars showing a marginal row of conspicuous fibro-vascular
bundle-scars, and elevated concave receptacle scars. Wood light, soft,
close-grained, light orange-brown or yellow, with thick hardly
distinguishable sapwood.
Distribution. Usually on dry slightly elevated coral rocks; Florida from
the shores of Bay Biscayne to the Everglades Keys, and on several of the
southern keys to Key West; not common; on the Bahama Islands and in
Cuba.
XIII. OLACACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with watery juices, their stems sometimes twining, and
alternate usually entire persistent leaves, without stipules. Flowers
perfect or polygamous, in axillary cymes or racemes, rarely solitary;
calyx 4 to 6-lobed; petals 4—6, inserted on a hypogynous disk, free or
united into a campanulate or tubular corolla; stamens 4—12, inserted on
the tube of the corolla; filaments free, rarely united; anthers oblong,
introrse, opening longitudinally; ovary superior or partly inferior,
free or immersed in the disk, 1—4-celled; styles mostly united; stigmas
entire or lobed; ovules 1—3 in each cell of the ovary. Fruit drupaceous,
naked or nearly inclosed in the enlarged disk, 1-celled, 1-seeded; seed
pendulous; embryo minute, erect, in copious fleshly albumen; radicle
superior.
Olacaceæ with twenty-five genera and a large number of species is
confined to the tropics, and is most abundant in those of the Old World.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT GENERA.
Corolla-lobes short; stamens as many as its lobes; drupe almost
inclosed in the enlarged disk of the flower; branches unarmed.
1. Schoepfia.
Corolla-lobes elongated; stamens twice as many as its lobes; drupe
nearly naked; branchlets armed.
2. Ximenia.
1. SCHOEPFIA Schreb.
Trees or shrubs with slender unarmed branchlets. Leaves entire,
subcoriaceous, petiolate. Flowers small, perfect in axillary cymes,
rarely solitary; calyx disciform, obscurely 4-toothed, or nearly entire,
petals 4, 5 or rarely 6, united, their tips free, valvate; stamens
opposite the petals, filaments free, anthers attached by the back; ovary
partly immersed in the disk, 3-celled; style elongated, stigma 3-lobed;
ovules 3 in each cell, pendulous from the free apex of the axile
placentas. Fruit nearly inclosed in the enlarged disk of the flower, the
stone crustaceous or chartaceous.
Schoepfia with twelve or fourteen species is distributed in the New
World from southern Florida and Lower California to Brazil and Peru, and
in the Old World from southern Japan and southern and western China to
the East Indies and the eastern Himalayas.
The generic name is in compliment to Johann David Schoepf, German
physician and botanist, and traveler in North America and the West
Indies.
1. Schoepfia chrysophylloides Planch.
_Schoepfia Schreberi_ Small, not Gmel.
[Illustration: Fig. 305]
Leaves elliptic to oblong-ovate, often slightly falcate, acuminate at
apex, cuneate and often unsymmetric at base, light green and lustrous
above, paler below, 1½′—3′ long, ¾′—1¼′ wide, and on vigorous shoots
sometimes 4′ long and 1¾′ wide; petioles stout, wing-margined, ¼′—⅓′ in
length. Flowers sessile, pink or red, in axillary 1—3- usually
2-flowered clusters on peduncles 1/24′—⅙′ in length; calyx cup-shaped,
the rim slightly dilated, almost filled by the fleshy disk; corolla
ovate-cylindric, ⅛′—⅙′ long, 4-lobed, the lobes ovate, acute, united,
reflexed; stamens 4, adnate to the base of the lobes of the corolla;
anthers sessile; ovary mostly immersed in the disk; style not more than
1/24′ long; Fruit ovoid or ovoid-oval scarlet, ⅖′—½′ in length; stone
crustaceous; seed not seen.
A tree, sometimes 25°—30° high with a trunk 12′—18′ in diameter, small
erect branches and slender pale gray unarmed branchlets. Bark thin,
grayish brown, closely and regularly reticulated.
Distribution. In sandy or rocky soil; banks of the Caloosahatchee River,
Lee County, near Miami and at Cocoanut Grove, Dade County, and on the
southern keys, Florida; on the Bahama Islands, and in Cuba, Jamaica, and
Guatamala.
2. XIMENIA L.
Trees and shrubs, with terete armed or unarmed branchlets. Leaves
entire, subcoriaceous, often fascicled, short-petiolate. Flowers
perfect, white, on slender pedicels, in short axillary cymes or rarely
solitary; calyx small, 4-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud,
persistent; petals 4 or 5, hypogynous, narrow, bearded on their inner
face, valvate in the bud, reflexed above the middle; stamens twice as
many as the petals; filaments free, filiform; anthers linear, attached
on the back near the base, 2-celled, the cells opening laterally, their
connective apiculate at apex; ovary 4-celled below, only the apex
1-celled, externally 4-grooved, glandular at base, gradually narrowed
into the slender style; stigma entire, subcapitate; ovules linear,
solitary in each cell, pendulous from the apex of the axile placenta,
anatropous; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit ovoid or globose;
exocarp thick and succulent, endocarp crustaceous or subligneous; seed
filling the cavity of the endocarp, pendulous, surrounded by a thin
spongy coat; testa membranaceous; cotyledons elliptic; embryo minute,
erect; raphe terete.
Ximenia with four or five species is widely distributed on tropical
shores of the two worlds.
_Ximenia_ commemorates the name of Francisco Ximenes, a Dominican priest
who published in Mexico in 1615 a work on the plants and animals of that
country.
1. Ximenia americana L.
[Illustration: Fig. 306]
Leaves oblong or elliptic, rounded and often emarginate and apiculate at
apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, glabrous, bright green and
lustrous above, pale below, 1¼′—2½′ long, ⅗′—1¼′ wide, with slightly
thickened revolute margins, a prominent midrib and obscure primary
veins; petioles slender, narrow wing-margined at apex, ⅕′—⅖′ in length.
Flowers bell-shaped, fragrant, about ¼′ long, on slender pedicels in the
axils of minute acuminate caducous bractlets, in 3 or 4-flowered
clusters on peduncles ⅕′—⅓′ long; calyx-lobes acute, petals elliptic and
rounded or obtusely pointed at apex, yellowish white, leathery,
conspicuously bearded on the inner surface from base nearly to apex.
Fruit broad-ovoid to subglobose, bright yellow, with thin acid flesh,
1′—1¼′ long, on slender pedicels about ⅓′ in length, in usually 2 or
3-fruited drooping clusters; stone ovoid, apiculate at apex, covered
with minute pits, light red; seed yellow, with bright orange-colored
cotyledons.
A tree, occasionally 30° high, with a tall trunk 2½′—3½′ in diameter,
spreading branches armed with stout straight spines usually ¾′—1′ in
length, and slender branchlets slightly angled and light reddish brown
when they first appear, becoming terete and light gray or red-brown and
marked by numerous lenticels; more often a shrub with long vine-like
stems. Bark close, dark red, astringent. Wood very heavy, tough, hard,
close-grained, compact, brown tinged with red with lighter-colored
sapwood. Hydrocyanic acid has been obtained from the fruit.
Distribution. Florida, near Eustis Lake, Lake County, to the southern
keys, attaining its largest size on the west coast and on Long Key in
the Everglades; common on the shores of the Antilles and southward to
Brazil, and on those of west tropical Africa, the Indian peninsula, the
islands of the Malay Archipelago, New Guinea, Australia, and on those of
many of the islands of the south Pacific Ocean.