A tree, 20°—30° high, with a straight trunk 12′—18′ in diameter,

separating 6°—8° from the ground into numerous long pendulous branches

forming a wide round spreading head, and slender terete or slightly

striate angled branchlets, glabrous or at first puberulous, and armed

with straight rigid terete spines developed from the persistent stipules

and sometimes 1½′ long. Bark of the trunk thin, reddish brown,

irregularly broken by long reticulated ridges, exfoliating in large thin

scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, rich reddish brown, with thin

pale sapwood; in India used for the knees of small vessels and in

agricultural implements.

Distribution. Now widely spread by cultivation through the tropical and

subtropical regions of the two worlds and probably a native of America

from western Texas to northern Chile; growing in Texas apparently

naturally in the arid and almost uninhabited region between the Nueces

and Rio Grande; naturalized and now covering great areas in the valley

of the Guadalupe River near Victoria, Victoria County, Texas.

Largely cultivated in southern Europe for its fragrant flowers used in

the manufacture of perfumery, as an ornament of gardens in all warm

countries, and in India as a hedge plant.

2. Acacia tortuosa Willd.

[Illustration: Fig. 543]

Leaves generally less than 1′ long, short-petiolate, with a slender

puberulous rachis and usually 3 or 4 pairs of pinnæ; early deciduous;

pinnæ sessile or short-stalked, remote, with 10—15 pairs of linear

somewhat falcate leaflets, acute, tipped with a minute point,

subsessile, light green, glabrous, 1/20′—1/16′ long. Flowers minute,

bright yellow, very fragrant, in the axils of clavate pilose bracts, in

heads ¼′—⅜′ in diameter, appearing in March with or just before the

unfolding leaves, on clustered or solitary slender puberulous peduncles

½′—¾′ long, and furnished at apex with 2 minute connate bracts; calyx

only about one third as long as the corolla, with short puberulous

lobes; corolla puberulous at apex, less than half as long as the

filaments; ovary covered with short close pubescence. Fruit elongated,

linear, slightly compressed, somewhat constricted between the seeds,

dark red-brown and cinereo-puberulous, 3′—5′ long and about ¼′ wide;

seeds in 1 series, obovoid, compressed, dark red-brown, lustrous, about

¼′ long, faintly marked by large oval rings.

A tree, occasionally 15°—20° high, with a straight trunk 5′—6′ in

diameter, stout wide-spreading branches forming an open irregular head,

and slender somewhat zigzag slightly angled reddish brown branchlets

roughened by numerous minute round lenticels, villose with short pale

hairs, and armed with thin terete puberulous spines occasionally ¾′

long; in Texas usually shrubby, with numerous stems forming a symmetric

round-topped bush only a few feet high. Bark dark brown or nearly black,

and deeply furrowed.

Distribution. Valley of the Rio Cibolo to Eagle Pass on the Rio Grande,

Maverick County, Texas; and in northern and southern Mexico, the West

Indies, Venezuela, and on the Galapagos Islands; in Texas probably

arborescent only on the plains of the Rio Grande near Spofford, Kinney

County.

3. Acacia Emoriana Benth.

[Illustration: Fig. 544]

Leaves 3½′—4′ long, with a slender petiole and rachis, villose-pubescent

early in the season, becoming nearly glabrous; and 4 or 5 pairs of

pinnæ; falling late in the autumn; pinnæ on slender stalks ¼′ in length,

with 5—7 pairs of oblong leaflets rounded and apiculate at apex,

obliquely rounded at base, short-petiolulate, pointing forward, when

they unfold densely villose above and on the margins, and

hoary-tomentose below, becoming glabrous, gray-green rather darker above

than below, ⅓′ long. Flowers subsessile, puberulous, in interrupted

spikes, ¾′—1′ in length, densely hoary-tomentose when they first appear

late in March, on villose peduncles ½′—1′ in length, and furnished near

the apex with lanceolate caducous bracts; calyx about half the length of

the ovate acute petals ciliate on the margins, about 1/12′ long and much

shorter than the stamens; ovary stipitate, glabrous. Fruit fully grown

in July, stipitate much compressed, rounded and sometimes slightly

emarginate at apex, gradually narrowed and obliquely cuneate at base,

with much thickened revolute undulate margins, densely pubescent early

in the season, becoming puberulous, 5′ or 6′ long, 1¼′—1½′ wide and

many-seeded, or nearly orbicular and 1 or 2-seeded; seeds in one series,

oval, the two sides unsymmetric, obliquely pointed at base, rounded at

apex, compressed, dark chestnut-brown and lustrous, ½′ long and ¼′ wide.

A tree, sometimes 25° high, usually smaller, with slender red-brown

branchlets pubescent or puberulous when they first appear, becoming

glabrous in their second year, and armed with small curved stipular

spines; often a shrub.

Distribution. Texas; creek banks and cañons, near Montell and Uvalde,

Uvalde County, and rocky banks of Devil’s River, Valverde County (_E. J.

Palmer_).

4. Acacia Wrightii Benth. Cat’s Claw.

[Illustration: Fig. 545]

Leaves 1′—2′ long, slightly pubescent, especially on the petiole and

rachis, with 1—3 pairs of pinnæ, slender petioles 1⅓′ in length, and

eglandular or glandular with small convex glands, and linear acute

caducous stipules 1/16′ long; pinnæ short-stalked, with 2—5 pairs of

obovate-oblong leaflets, obliquely rounded and often apiculate at apex,

sessile or short-petiolulate, 2 or sometimes 3-nerved, glabrous, or

rarely pubescent, reticulate-veined, rigid, bright green and rather

paler on the lower surface than on the upper surface, ¼′—⅚′ long.

Flowers light yellow, fragrant, appearing from the end of March to the

end of May, on slender pubescent pedicels from the axils of minute

caducous bracts, in narrow spikes 1½′ long, often interrupted below the

middle, on slender fascicled pubescent or sometimes glabrous peduncles;

calyx obscurely 5-lobed, pubescent on the outer surface, half as long as

the spatulate petals slightly united at base, and ciliate on the

margins; stamens ¼′ long; ovary long-stalked, covered with long pale

hairs. Fruit fully grown early in the summer, deciduous in the autumn,

slightly falcate, compressed, stipitate, oblique at base, rounded and

short-pointed at apex, 2′—4′ long, 1′—1¼′ wide, with thick straight or

irregularly contracted margins and thin papery walls conspicuously

marked by narrow horizontal reticulate veins; seeds narrow-obovoid,

compressed, ¼′ long, suspended transversely on a long slender funicle,

light brown, marked by large oval depressions.

A tree, occasionally 25°—30° high, with a short trunk 10′—12′ in

diameter, spreading branches forming a low wide or irregular head, and

branchlets when they first appear somewhat striately angled, glabrous,

pale yellow-brown or dark red-brown, turning pale gray in their second

year, and armed with occasional stout recurved infrastipular

chestnut-brown spines ¼′ long, compressed toward the broad base and

sharp-pointed, or rarely unarmed. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick,

divided by shallow furrows into broad ridges separating on the surface

into thin narrow scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, bright

clear brown streaked with red and yellow, with thin clear yellow sapwood

of 6 or 7 layers of annual growth; valued and largely used as fuel.

Distribution. Valley of the Guadalupe River in the neighborhood of New

Braunfels, Comal County, Texas, to the Sierra Madre of Nuevo Leon; most

abundant and of its largest size south of the Rio Grande on dry gravelly

mesas and foothills.

5. Acacia Greggii A. Gray. Cat’s Claw. Una de Gato.

[Illustration: Fig. 546]

Leaves 1′—3′ long, pubescent or puberulous, with 1—3 pairs of pinnæ, a

short slender petiole furnished near the middle with a minute oblong

chestnut-brown gland, and linear caducous stipules 1/16′ long; pinnæ

short-stalked, with 4—5 pairs of obovate oblique leaflets rounded or

truncate at apex and unequally contracted at base into a short

petiolule, thick and rigid, 2—3-nerved, inconspicuously

reticulate-veined, hoary-pubescent, 1/16′—¼′ long. Flowers fragrant,

bright creamy yellow, in dense oblong pubescent spikes, on a peduncle

½′—⅔′ long, and fascicled usually 2 or 3 together toward the end of the

branches; calyx obscurely 5-lobed, puberulous on the outer surface, half

as long as the petals slightly united at base and pale-tomentose on the

margins; stamens ¼′ long; ovary long-stalked, covered with long pale

hairs. Fruit fully grown at midsummer and hanging unopened on the

branches until winter or the following spring, compressed, straight or

slightly falcate, obliquely narrowed at base into a short stalk, acute

or rounded at apex, more or less contracted between the seeds, 2′—4′

long, ½′—¾′ wide, curling and often contorted when fully ripe, the

valves thin and membranaceous, thick-margined, light brown,

conspicuously transversely reticulate-veined; seeds nearly orbicular,

compressed, dark brown and lustrous, ¼′ in diameter, marked by small

oval depressions.

A tree, rarely 30° high, with a trunk 10′—12′ in diameter, numerous

spreading branches, and striately angled puberulous or in Texas glabrous

pale brown branchlets faintly tinged with red and armed with stout

recurved infrastipular spines flat at base, and ¼′ long and broad. Bark

of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, furrowed, the surface separating into thin

narrow scales. Wood heavy, very hard, strong, close-grained, durable,

rich brown or red, with thin light yellow sapwood of 5 or 6 layers of

annual growth.

Distribution. Dry gravelly mesas, the sides of low cañons and the banks

of mountain streams; valley of the Rio Grande, western Texas, through

southern New Mexico and Arizona to southern California, ranging

northward in Arizona to the rim of the Grand Cañon of the Colorado

River, and to Clark County, Nevada; in northern Mexico, and in Lower

California to the eastern base of the San Pedro Mártir Mountains.

4. LEUCÆNA Benth.

Trees or shrubs, with slender unarmed branches. Leaves persistent,

abruptly bipinnate, with numerous pinnæ and small leaflets in many

pairs, petiolate, the petioles often furnished with a conspicuous gland

below the lower pair of pinnæ; stipules minute and caducous, or becoming

spinescent and persistent. Flowers minute, white, mostly perfect,

sessile or short-pedicellate, in the axils of small peltate bracts

villose at apex, in globose many-flowered pedunculate heads, the

peduncles in axillary fascicles or in leafless terminal racemes; calyx

tubular-campanulate, minutely 5-toothed; petals 5, free, acute or

rounded at apex, narrowed at base; stamens 10, free, inserted under the

ovary, exserted; filaments filiform; anthers oblong, versatile; ovary

stipitate, contracted into a long slender style, with a minute terminal

slightly dilated stigma. Legume many-seeded, stipitate, linear,

compressed, dehiscent, the valves thickened on the margins, rigid, thin,

continuous within, their outer coat thin and papery, dark-colored, the

inner rather thicker, woody, pale brown. Seeds obovoid, compressed,

transverse, the hilum near the base, suspended on a long slender

funicle; seed-coat thin, crustaceous, brown and lustrous; embryo

inclosed on its two sides by a thin layer of horny albumen; radicle

slightly exserted.

Leucæna with nine or ten species is confined to the warmer parts of

America from western Texas to Venezuela and Peru, and to the islands of

the Pacific Ocean from New Caledonia to Tahiti, where one species has

been recognized. Of the indigenous species found in the territory of the

United States, three are arborescent. _Leucæna glauca_ L., a small tree

or shrub, cultivated in all warm countries, and a native probably of

tropical America, is now naturalized on Key West, Florida.

The generic name, from λευχαίνω, refers to the color of the flowers.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.

Peduncles bibracteolate at apex; stipules becoming spinescent.

Leaves 10—14-pinnate; pinnæ with 15—30 pairs of leaflets; blade of

the bract of the flower produced into a short point.

1. L. Greggii (E).

Leaves 2—4-pinnate; pinnæ with 4—8 pairs of leaflets; blade of the

bract of the flower produced into a long slender villose tip.

2. L. retusa (E).

Peduncles without bracts; stipules minute, caducous; leaves

30—36-pinnate; pinnæ with 30—60 pairs of leaflets.

3. L. pulverulenta (E).

1. Leucæna Greggii S. Wats.

[Illustration: Fig. 547]

Leaves 6′—7′ long and broad, with a slender rachis furnished on the

upper side with a single elongated bottle-shaped gland between the

stalks of each pair of pinnæ; pinnæ 10—14, remote, short-stalked, with

15—30 pairs of leaflets; stipules gradually narrowed into a long slender

point, becoming rigid and spinescent, ⅓′ to nearly ½′ long and

persistent for two or three years; leaflets lanceolate, acute or

acuminate, often somewhat falcate, nearly sessile or short-petiolulate,

full and rounded toward the base on the lower margin, nearly straight on

the upper margin, gray-green, ultimately nearly glabrous, ¼′—⅓′ long,

about ⅛′ wide, with a narrow midvein and obscure lateral nerves. Flowers

on slender pedicels, in heads ¾′—1′ in diameter, on stout peduncles

2′—3′ long furnished at apex with 2 irregularly 3-lobed bracts, and

solitary or in pairs; calyx coated with hairs only near the apex, much

shorter than the spatulate glabrous more or less boat-shaped petals;

ovary villose with a few short scattered hairs. Fruit 6′-8′ long, ⅓′—½′

wide, narrowed below into a short stout stipe, acuminate and crowned at

apex with the thickened style, ⅓′—¾′ long, cinereo-pubescent until

nearly fully grown, becoming nearly glabrous at maturity, much

compressed, with narrow wing-like margins; seeds conspicuously notched

by the hilum, ½′ long and ⅓′ wide.

A tree, 15°-20° high, with a stem 4′—5′ in diameter, and stout zigzag

red-brown branchlets marked by numerous pale lenticels, coated at first

with short spreading lustrous yellow deciduous hairs found also on the

young petioles and lower surface of the unfolding leaflets, the

peduncles of the flower-heads and their bracts. Bark about ⅜′ thick,

dark brown, divided into low ridges and broken on the surface into small

closely appressed persistent scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained,

rich brown streaked with red, with thin clear sapwood.

Distribution. Mountain ravines and the steep banks of streams; western

Texas from the valley of the upper San Saba River to that of Devil’s

River; and southward into Mexico.

2. Leucæna retusa Benth.

[Illustration: Fig. 548]

Leaves 3′ or 4′ long and 4′ or 5′ wide, with a slender petiole and

rachis and 2-4 pairs of pinnæ 6′-10′ long, remote, long-stalked, with

4-8 pairs of short-stalked leaflets furnished between their stems with a

single globose white gland found also occasionally on the upper side of

the rachis between the stems of the pinnæ; stipules ovate, gradually

narrowed into a long slender tip, ½′ in length, often persistent through

the season; leaflets obliquely obovate or elliptic, rounded and

apiculate at apex, obliquely rounded or cuneate at the unsymmetric base,

entire, short-petiolulate, villose-pubescent like the rachis and petiole

when they first appear, soon, glabrous, and at maturity thin,

blue-green, ¾′—1′ long and ⅓′—½′ wide, with a slender midrib, and

prominent veins extending obliquely toward the apex of the leaflet,

those of the lowest pair more prominent and starting from near its base.

Flowers short-stalked in the axil of a peltate bract, its blade produced

into a long slender villose tip, appearing continuously from April until

October in dense globose heads ¾′ in diameter, on villose bibracteolate

axillary, single or fascicled peduncles 1½′—3′ in length; calyx thin,

tubular, 5-toothed at apex; petals narrow-oblong, hardly longer than the

calyx; stamens 10, shorter than the bract of the flower; anthers

glabrous. Fruit solitary or clustered, on a puberulous peduncle 3′-5′ in

length, 6′-10′ long, ⅓′—½′ wide, gradually narrowed below into a stout

stipe, the acuminate apex terminating in the thickened persistent style,

glabrous and dark reddish brown; seeds ⅓′ long and ¼′ wide.

A tree, occasionally 25° high, with a trunk 6′-8′ in diameter, and

slender branchlets pubescent when they first appear, becoming puberulous

and orange-brown or reddish brown at the end of their first season; more

often a shrub.

Distribution. Texas; steep rocky hillsides, and on the summits of

limestone bluffs; (Uvalde, Valverde, Kemble, Real and Jeff Davis

Counties).

3. Leucæna pulverulenta Benth. Mimosa.

[Illustration: Fig. 549]

Leaves 4′-7′ long and 3′-4′ wide, with a slender petiole usually marked

by a large dark oblong gland between the somewhat enlarged base and the

lowest pair of the 30-36 nearly sessile crowded pinnæ, each with 30-60

pairs of leaflets, and minute caducous stipules, when they unfold

covered like the peduncles and flower-buds with dense hoary tomentum,

and at maturity puberulous on the petiole and rachis; leaflets linear,

acute, rather oblique at base by the greater development of the upper

side, sessile or very short-petiolulate, pale bright green, ⅙′—¼′ long.

Flowers sessile, fragrant, in heads ½′ in diameter, appearing in

succession as the branches grow from early spring to midsummer, on

slender peduncles 1′—1½′ long and fascicled in the axils of upper

leaves; calyx one fourth as long as the acute petals and like them

pilose on the outer surface; stamens twice as long as the petals; ovary

coated with long pale hairs. Fruit conspicuously thick-margined, 4′-14′

long, long-stalked, tipped with a short straight or recurved point,

usually in pairs on a peduncle thickened at apex; seeds 5/16′ long.

A tree, 50°-60° high, with a straight trunk 18′-20′ in diameter,

separating 20°-30° from the ground into slender spreading branches

forming a loose round head, and branchlets at first more or less

striately grooved and thickly coated with pulverulent caducous tomentum,

becoming at the end of a few weeks terete, pale cinnamon-brown and

puberulous. Bark about ¼′ thick, bright cinnamon-brown, and roughened by

thick persistent scales. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, rich dark

brown, with thin clear yellow sapwood of 2 or 3 layers of annual growth;

considered valuable, and sometimes manufactured into lumber.

Distribution. Rich moist soil of river banks and the borders of lagoons

and small streams; valley of the lower Rio Grande; in Texas only for a

few miles near its mouth; more abundant from Matamoras to Monterey in

Nuevo Leon; and southward to the neighborhood of the City of Mexico.

Occasionally planted as a shade and ornamental tree in the towns of the

lower Rio Grande valley and in New Orleans, Louisiana.

5. PROSOPIS L. Mesquite.

Trees or shrubs, with branches without a terminal bud and armed with

geminate supra-axillary persistent spines, and small obtuse axillary

buds covered with acute apiculate dark brown scales. Leaves alternate on

branches of the year and fascicled in earlier axils, deciduous, usually

2 rarely 3-4-pinnate, with many-foliolate pinnæ; petioles glandular at

apex with a minute gland, and tipped with the small spinescent rachis;

stipules linear, membranaceous or spinescent, deciduous. Flowers

greenish white, nearly sessile, in axillary pedunculate spikes; calyx

campanulate, 5-toothed, or slightly 5-lobed, deciduous; petals 5,

connate below the middle or ultimately free, glabrous or tomentose on

the inner surface toward the apex, sometimes puberulous on the outer

surface; stamens 10, free, inserted with the petals on the margin of a

minute disk adnate to the calyx-tube, those opposite the lobes of the

calyx rather longer than the others; filaments filiform; anthers oblong,

versatile, their connective tipped with a minute deciduous gland, the

cells opening by marginal sutures; ovary stipitate, villose; style

filiform, with a minute terminal stigma. Legume linear, compressed, or

subterete, straight or falcate, or contorted or twisted into a more or

less regular spiral, indehiscent; the outer coat thin, woody, pale

yellow, inclosing a thick spongy inner coat of sweet pulp containing the

seeds placed obliquely and separately inclosed, their envelopes forming

nut-like joints. Seeds oblong, compressed, the hilum near the base;

seed-coat crustaceous, light brown, lustrous; embryo surrounded by a

layer of horny albumen; radicle short, slightly exserted.

Prosopis is distributed in the New World from southern Kansas to

Patagonia, and in the Old World is confined to tropical Africa, and to

southwestern and tropical Asia. Sixteen or seventeen species have been

distinguished. Of the three species found in the territory of the United

States two are small trees.

Prosopis produces hard durable wood, particularly valuable as fuel, and

the pods are used as fodder.

The generic name is from προσωπίς, employed by Dioscorides as a name of

the Burdock.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.

Legume compressed or ultimately convex; pinnæ 12—22-foliolate.

1. P. juliflora (C, E, G, H).

Legume thick, spirally twisted; pinnæ 10—16-foliolate.

2. P. pubescens (E, F, G, H).

1. Prosopis juliflora DC. Mesquite. Honey Locust.

[Illustration: Fig. 550]

Leaves with 2 or rarely 4 pinnæ, and slender terete petioles abruptly

enlarged and glandular at base; stipules linear, acute, membranaceous,

deciduous. Flowers appearing in successive crops from May to the middle

of July, fragrant, about 1/12′ long, on short pedicels, in slender

cylindric spikes 1½′—4′ long, on stout peduncles ½′—¾′ in length; calyx

glabrous or puberulous, about one fourth as long as the narrowly oblong

acute petals, glabrous or puberulous on the outer surface and covered on

the inner surface toward the apex with hoary tomentum; stamens twice as

long as the corolla, the dark-colored connective of the anther-cells

furnished at apex with a stalked gland; ovary short-stalked, clothed

with silky hairs. Fruit in drooping clusters, linear, at first flat,

becoming subterete at maturity, constricted between the 10-20 seeds,

straight or falcate, contracted at the ends, 4′—9′ long, ¼′—½′ wide;

seeds about ¼′ long.

A low tree, with a large thick taproot descending frequently to the

depth of 40°-50°, and furnished with radiating horizontal roots

spreading in all directions and forming a dense mat, a trunk 6′—8′ in

diameter, divided a short distance above the ground into many

irregularly arranged crooked branches forming a loose straggling head,

and slender branchlets at first pale yellow-green, turning darker in

their second year, furnished in the axils of the leaves of their first

season with short spur-like excrescences covered with chaffy scales, and

armed with stout straight terete supra-axillary persistent spines ½′—2′

long, or rarely unarmed; more often a shrub, with numerous stems only a

few feet high. Bark of the trunk thick, dark reddish brown, divided by

shallow fissures, the surface separating into short thick scales. Wood

heavy, close-grained, rich dark brown or sometimes red, with thin clear

yellow sapwood; almost indestructible in contact with the soil, and

largely used for fence-posts, railway-ties, the underpinnings of

buildings, and occasionally in the manufacture of furniture, the fellies

of wheels, and the pavements of city streets; the best fuel of the

region, and largely made into charcoal. The ripe pods supply Mexicans

and Indians with a nutritious food, and are devoured by most herbivorous

animals. A gum, resembling gum-arabic, exudes from the stems.

Distribution. Western Texas and eastern New Mexico, and on the island of

Jamaica; eastward and westward diverging into two extreme forms. These

are

Prosopis juliflora var. glandulosa Cock.

[Illustration: Fig. 551]

Leaves 8′—10′ long, 2-pinnate, with long slender petioles, the pinnæ

12—20-foliolate; leaflets distant, linear, mostly acute, glabrous, dark

green, often 2′ long and ⅛′—¼′ wide. Flowers with a usually glabrous

calyx. Fruit occasionally conspicuously constricted between the seeds

(f. _constricta_ Sarg.).

A round-topped tree, often 20° high, with a trunk a foot in diameter,

and long gracefully drooping branches forming a symmetrical round-topped

head.

Distribution. Eastern Texas to western Louisiana (near Shreveport, Caddo

Parish), western Oklahoma and southern Kansas, and southward into

northern Mexico. The common Mesquite of eastern Texas; reappearing with

rather shorter and more crowded leaflets in Arizona, southern

California, and Lower California.

Prosopis juliflora var. velutina Sarg.

[Illustration: Fig. 552]

Leaves 5′—6′ long, often fascicled, 2—4-pinnate, cinereo-pubescent, with

short petioles, the pinnæ 12-22-foliolate; leaflets oblong or

linear-oblong, obtuse or acute, crowded, pale green, ¼′—½′ long. Flowers

in densely-flowered spikes 2′—3′ long; calyx villose.

A tree, often 50° high, with a trunk 2° in diameter, covered with rough

dark brown bark, and heavy irregularly arranged usually crooked

branches.

Distribution. Dry valleys of southern Arizona and of Sonora.

2. Prosopis pubescens Benth. Screw Bean. Screw Pod Mesquite.

[Illustration: Fig. 553]

Leaves canescently pubescent, 2′—3′ long, with a slender petiole ⅓′—⅔′

in length, and pinnæ 1½′—2′ long and 10—16-foliolate; stipules

spinescent, deciduous; leaflets oblong or somewhat falcate, acute,

sessile or short-petiolulate, often apiculate, conspicuously

reticulate-veined, ⅓′—⅔′ long, ⅛′ wide. Flowers beginning to open in

early spring, and produced in successive crops from the axils of minute

scarious bracts, in dense or interrupted cylindric spikes 2′—3′ long;

calyx obscurely 5-lobed, pubescent on the outer surface, one third to

one fourth as long as the narrow acute petals coated on the inner

surface near the apex with thick white tomentum, and slightly puberulous

on the outer surface; ovary and young fruit hoary-tomentose. Fruit

ripening throughout the summer and falling in the autumn, in dense

racemes, sessile, twisted with from 12—20 turns into a narrow straight

spiral 1′—2′ long; seeds 1/16′ long.

A tree, 25°-30° high, with a slender trunk sometimes a foot in diameter,

and terete branches canescently pubescent or glabrate when they first

appear, becoming glabrous and light red-brown in their third year, and

armed with stout spines ⅓′—½′ long. Bark of the trunk thick, light brown

tinged with red, separating in long thin persistent ribbon-like scales.

Wood heavy, exceedingly hard, close-grained, not strong, light brown,

with thin lighter colored sapwood of 6 or 7 layers of annual growth;

used as fuel and occasionally for fencing. The sweet, nutritious legumes

are valued as fodder.

Distribution. Sandy or gravelly bottom-lands; valley of the Rio Grande

in western Texas, and through New Mexico and Arizona to southern Utah

and Nevada, and to San Diego County, California, and northern Mexico;

attaining its largest size in the United States in the valleys of the

lower Colorado and Gila Rivers, Arizona.

6. CERCIS L.

Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, slender unarmed branchlets prolonged

by an upper axillary bud, marked by numerous minute pale lenticels, and

in their first winter by small elevated horizontal leaf-scars showing

the ends of two large fibro-vascular bundles, and small scaly obtuse

axillary buds covered by imbricated ovate chestnut-brown scales. Leaves

simple, entire, 5—7-nerved with prominent nerves, long-petiolate,

deciduous; petioles slender, terete, abruptly enlarged at apex; stipules

ovate, acute, small, membranaceous, caducous. Flowers appearing in early

spring before or with the leaves on thin jointed pedicels, in simple

fascicles or racemose clusters produced on branches of the previous or

earlier years, or on the trunk, with small scale-like bracts often

imbricated at the base of the inflorescence, and minute bractlets; calyx

disciferous, short-turbinate, purplish, persistent, the tube oblique at

base, campanulate, enlarged on the lower side, 5-toothed, the short

broad teeth imbricated in the bud; corolla subpapilionaceous; petals

nearly equal, rose color, oblong-ovate, rounded at apex, unguiculate,

slightly auricled on one side of the base of the blade, the upper petal

slightly smaller and inclosed in the bud by the wing-petals encircled by

the broader slightly imbricated keel-petals; stamens 10, inserted in 2

rows on the margin of the thin disk, free, declinate, those of the inner

row opposite the petals and rather shorter than the others; filaments

enlarged and pilose below the middle, persistent until the fruit is

grown; anthers uniform, oblong, attached on the back near the base;

ovary short-stalked, inserted obliquely in the bottom of the calyx-tube;

style filiform, fleshy, incurved, with a stout obtuse terminal stigma;

ovules 2-ranked, attached to the inner angle of the ovary. Legume

stalked, oblong or broad-linear, straight on the upper edge, curved on

the lower edge, acute at the ends, compressed, tipped with the thickened

remnants of the style, many-seeded, 2-valved, the valves

coriaceo-membranaceous, many-veined, tardily dehiscent by the dorsal and

often by the wing-margined ventral suture, dark red-purple and lustrous

at maturity. Seeds suspended transversely on a slender funicle, ovoid or

oblong, compressed, the small depressed hilum near the apex; seed-coat

crustaceous, bright reddish brown; embryo surrounded by a thin layer of

horny albumen, compressed; cotyledons oval, flat, the radicle short,

straight or obliquely incurved, slightly exserted.

Cercis is confined to eastern and western North America, southern

Europe, and to southwestern, central and eastern Asia. Of the eight

species now distinguished, three occur in North America. Two of these

are arborescent.

The generic name is from κερκίς, the Greek name of the European species,

from a fancied resemblance of the fruit to the weaver’s implement of

that name.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.

Flowers in sessile clusters; leaves ovate, acute, cordate or truncate

at base.

1. C. canadensis (A, C).

Flowers fascicled or slightly racemose; leaves reniform.

2. C. reniformis (C).

1. Cercis canadensis L. Redbud. Judas-tree.

[Illustration: Fig. 554]

Leaves broad-ovate, acute or acuminate and often abruptly contracted at

apex into a short broad point, truncate or more or less cordate at base,

entire, glabrous with the exception of axillary tufts of white hairs, or

sometimes more or less pubescent below, 3′—5′ long and broad; turning in

the autumn before falling bright clear yellow; petioles 2′—5′ in length.

Flowers ½′ long, on pedicels ⅓′—½′ in length and fascicled 4-8 together;

rarely white (var. _alba_ Rehdr.). Fruit fully grown in the south by the

end of May and at the north at midsummer, and then pink or rose color,

2½′—3½′ long, falling late in the autumn or in early winter; seeds about

¼′ long.

A tree, sometimes 40°-50° high, with a straight trunk usually separating

10°-12° from the ground into stout branches covered with smooth light

brown or gray bark, and forming an upright or often a wide flat head,

and slender glabrous somewhat angled branchlets, brown and lustrous

during their first season, becoming dull and darker the following year

and ultimately dark or grayish brown. Bark of the trunk about ½′ thick

and divided by deep longitudinal fissures into long narrow plates, the

bright red-brown surface separating into thin scales. Wood heavy, hard,

not strong, close-grained, rich dark brown tinged with red, with thin

lighter colored sapwood of 8-10 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Borders of streams and rich bottom-lands, forming,

especially west of the Alleghany Mountains, an abundant undergrowth to

the forest; valley of the Delaware River, New Jersey, central and

southern Pennsylvania southward to northern Florida, northern Alabama

and southern Mississippi (Crystal Springs, Copiah County), and westward

to southwestern Ontario (Point Pelee, Essex County), and through

southern Michigan to southern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, eastern

Kansas, western Oklahoma (Major and Dewey Counties), Louisiana, and the

valley of the Brazos River, Texas; and on the Sierra Madre of Nuevo

Leon; common and of its largest size in southwestern Arkansas, Oklahoma

and eastern Texas, and in early spring a conspicuous feature of the

landscape.

Often cultivated as an ornamental tree in the northeastern states, and

occasionally in western Europe.

2. Cercis reniformis Engl. Redbud.

_Cercis texensis_ Sarg.

[Illustration: Fig. 555]

Leaves reniform, when they unfold light green and slightly pilose, and

at maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface,

paler, glabrous or pubescent on the lower surface, and 2′—3′ in

diameter; petioles 1½′—2′ in length. Flowers about ½′ long, on slender

pedicels ½′—¾′ in length and fascicled in sessile clusters, or

occasionally racemose. Fruit 2′—4′ long, ½′—1′ wide; seeds ¼′ long.

A slender tree, occasionally 20° or rarely 40° high, with a trunk 6′-12′

in diameter, and glabrous branchlets marked by numerous minute white

lenticels, light reddish brown during their first and second years,

becoming dark brown in their third season; more often a shrub, sending

up numerous stems and forming dense thickets only a few feet high. Bark

of the trunk and branches thin, smooth, light gray. Wood heavy, hard,

close-grained brown streaked with yellow, with thin lighter colored

sapwood of 5 or 6 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Limestone hills and ridges; neighborhood of Dallas, Dallas

County, Texas to the Sierra Madre of Nuevo Leon; common in the valley of

the upper Colorado River, Texas; of its largest size on the mountains of

northeastern Mexico.

7. GYMNOCLADUS Lam.

Trees, with stout unarmed blunt branchlets with a thick pith, prolonged

by axillary buds, rough deeply fissured bark, thick fleshy roots, and

minute buds depressed in pubescent cavities of the bark, 2 in the axil

of each leaf, superposed, remote, the lower and smaller sterile and

nearly surrounded by the enlarged base of the petiole, their scales 2,

ovate, rounded at apex, coated with thick dark brown tomentum, infolded

one over the other, accrescent with the young shoots. Leaves deciduous,

unequally bipinnate; pinnæ many-foliolulate, with 1 or 2 pairs of the

lowest pinnæ reduced to single leaflets; pinnæ and leaflets usually

alternate; leaflets thin, ovate, entire, petiolulate; stipules

foliaceous, early deciduous. Flowers regular, diœcious, greenish white,

long-pedicellate, the slender pedicels from the axils of long lanceolate

scarious caducous bracts, bibracteolate near the middle; staminate

flowers in a short terminal racemose corymb; pistillate flowers in

elongated terminal racemes, on pedicels much longer than those of the

staminate flowers; calyx tubular, elongated, 10-ribbed, lined with a

thin glandular disk, 5-lobed, the lobes, lanceolate, acute, nearly

equal, erect; petals 4 or 5, oblong, rounded or acute at apex,

pubescent, as long as the calyx-lobes or rather longer and twice as

broad, inserted on the margin of the disk, spreading or reflexed;

stamens 10, free, inserted with the petals, erect, included; filaments

filiform, pilose, those opposite the petals shorter than the others;

anthers oblong, uniform, small and sterile in the pistillate flower;

ovary sessile or slightly stipitate, acute; styles short, erect,

obliquely dilated into 2 broad lobes stigmatic on their inner surface,

rudimentary or 0 in the sterile flower; ovules numerous, suspended from

the angle opposite the posterior petals. Legume oblong, subfalcate,

turgid or slightly compressed, several-seeded, 2-valved, tardily

dehiscent, the thin tough woody valves thickened on the margins into

narrow wings, pulpy between the seeds. Seeds ovoid or slightly obovoid,

suspended by a long slender funicle; seed-coat thick, bony, brown and

opaque, of 3 layers; embryo surrounded by a thin layer of horny albumen;

cotyledons ovate, orange-colored, thick and fleshy, the radicle short,

erect.

Gymnocladus, with two species, is confined to eastern North America and

to central China.

Gymnocladus is slightly astringent and purgative, and the detersive pulp

surrounding the seeds of the Asiatic species is used in China as a

substitute for soap.

The generic name, from γυµνός and κλάδος, relates to the stout

branchlets destitute of spray.

1. Gymnocladus dioicus K. Koch. Kentucky Coffee-tree. Mahogany.

[Illustration: Fig. 556]

Leaves 1°—3° long, 18′—24′ wide, obovate, 5—9 pinnate, the pinnæ

6—14-foliolate, covered when they unfold with hoary tomentum except on

the upper surface of the ovate acute leaflets, often mucronate,

especially while young, cuneate or irregularly rounded at base, pink at

first, soon becoming bronze-green and lustrous, glabrous on the upper

surface with the exception of a few scattered hairs along the midrib,

and at maturity thin, obscurely veined, dark green above, pale

yellow-green and glabrous below, with the exception of a few short hairs

scattered along the narrow midrib, 2′—2½′ long and 1′ wide, or those

replacing the lowest or occasionally the 2 lower pairs of pinnæ

sometimes twice as large; turning bright clear yellow in the autumn

before falling; petioles abruptly and conspicuously enlarged at base, at

first hoary-tomentose, becoming glabrous at maturity; stipules

lanceolate or slightly obovate, glandular-serrate toward the apex, ⅓′

long. Flowers: inflorescence of the staminate tree 3′—4′ long, the lower

branches usually 3 or 4-flowered; inflorescence of the pistillate tree

10′—12′ long, the flowers on stout pedicels 1′—2½′ long or twice to five

times as long as those of the staminate flowers; flowers hoary-tomentose

in the bud; calyx ⅔′ long, covered on the outer surface when the flowers

open with pale hairs and on the inner surface with hoary tomentum;

petals keeled, pilose on the back, slightly grooved, tomentose on the

inner surface; anthers bright orange color; ovary hairy. Fruit 6′—10′

long, 1½′—2′ wide, dark red-brown, covered with a glaucous bloom, on

stout stalks 1′—2′ in length, remaining unopened on the branches through

the winter; seeds separated by a thick layer of dark-colored sweet pulp,

¾′ long.

A tree, 75°—110° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, usually dividing

10°—15° from the ground into 3 or 4 principal stems spreading slightly

and forming a narrow round-topped head, or occasionally sending up a

tall straight shaft destitute of branches for 70°—80°, and branchlets

coated when they first appear with short dense pubescence faintly tinged

with red, bearing at their base the conspicuous orange-green obovate

pubescent bud-scales, ¼′—⅓′ thick at the end of their first season, very

blunt, dark brown, often slightly pilose, marked by orange-colored

lenticels, and roughened by the large pale broadly heart-shaped

leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 or 4 conspicuous fibro-vascular

bundles. Bark of the trunk ¾′—1′ thick, deeply fissured, dark gray

tinged with red, and roughened by small persistent scales. Wood heavy

although not hard, strong, coarse-grained, very durable in contact with

the soil, rich light brown tinged with red, with thin lighter colored

sapwood of 5 or 6 layers of annual growth; occasionally used in

cabinet-making and for fence-posts, rails, and in construction. The

seeds were formerly used as a substitute for coffee; a decoction of the

fresh green pulp of the unripe fruit is used in homœopathic practice.

Distribution. Bottom-lands in rich soil; central and western New York

and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, through southern Ontario and southern

Michigan to southeastern Minnesota, northeastern and southern Iowa,

southeastern South Dakota, eastern and northeastern Nebraska, eastern

Kansas, southwestern Arkansas and northeastern Oklahoma (with isolated

stations in Woods and Custer Counties and in the western parts of

Cimarron County); in Eastern Kentucky, and western and middle Tennessee;

nowhere common.

Occasionally cultivated in the gardens and parks of the eastern United

States, and of northern and central Europe.

8. GLEDITSIA L.

Trees, with furrowed bark, slender terete slightly zigzag branchlets

thickened at the apex and prolonged by axillary buds, thick fibrous

roots, the trunk and branches often armed with stout simple or branched

spines or abortive branchlets developed from supra-axillary or

adventitious buds imbedded in the bark. Winter-buds minute, 3 or 4

together, superposed, the 2 or 3 lower without scales and covered by the

scar left by the falling of the petiole, the upper larger, nearly

surrounded by the base of the petiole and covered by small scurfy

scales. Leaves long-petiolate, often fascicled in earlier axils,

abruptly pinnate or bipinnate, the pinnæ increasing in length from the

base to the apex of the leaf, the lowest sometimes reduced to single

leaflets; deciduous; leaflets thin, their margins irregularly crenate,

without stipels; stipules minute, caducous. Flowers regular, polygamous,

minute, green or white on short pedicels, in axillary or lateral simple

or fascicled racemes, with minute scale-like caducous bracts; calyx

campanulate, lined with the disk, 3—5-lobed, the narrow lobes nearly

equal; petals as many as the lobes of the calyx, nearly equal; stamens

6—10, inserted with the petals on the margin of the disk, exserted;

filaments free, filiform, erect; anthers uniform, much smaller and

abortive in the pistillate flower; ovary subsessile, rarely

bicarpellary, rudimentary or 0 in the staminate flower; styles short;

stigma terminal, more or less dilated, often oblique; ovules 2 or many,

suspended from the angle opposite the posterior petal. Legume

compressed, many-seeded, elongated, straight and indehiscent, or

1—3-seeded, ovoid and tardily dehiscent. Seeds transverse, ovoid to

suborbicular, flattened, attached by a long slender funicle; seed-coat

thin, crustaceous, light brown; embryo surrounded by a layer of horny

orange-colored albumen; cotyledons subfoliaceous, compressed; radicle

short, erect, slightly exserted.

Gleditsia is confined to eastern North America, where three species

occur, southwestern Asia, China, Formosa, Japan, and west tropical

Africa. It produces strong, durable, coarse-grained wood. In Japan the

pods are used as a substitute for soap.

The generic name is in honor of Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch (1714—1786),

professor of botany at Berlin.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.

Legume linear-oblong, elongated, many-seeded, indehiscent.

Legume 12′—18′ long, with pulp between the seeds; ovary

hoary-tomentose.

1. G. triacanthos (A, C).

Legume 4′—5′ long, without pulp between the seeds.

2. G. texana (C).

Legume oval, oblique, 1—3-seeded, without pulp, tardily dehiscent;

ovary glabrous.

3. G. aquatica (A, C).

1. Gleditsia triacanthos L. Honey Locust.

[Illustration: Fig. 557]

Leaves 7′—8′ long, 18—28-foliolulate or sometimes bipinnate, with 4—7

pairs of pinnæ, those of the upper pair 4′—5′ long, when they unfold

hoary-tomentose, and at maturity pubescent on the petiole and rachis,

the short stout petiolules, and the under surface of the midrib of the

oblong-lanceolate leaflets, unequal at base, acute or slightly rounded

at apex, remotely crenulate-serrate, dark green and lustrous above, dull

yellow-green below, 1′—1½′ long and ½′ wide; turning in the autumn pale

clear yellow. Flowers appearing in June when the leaves are nearly fully

grown from the axils of leaves of previous years; the staminate in short

many-flowered pubescent racemes 2′—2½′ long and often clustered; the

pistillate in slender graceful few-flowered usually solitary racemes

2½′—3½′ long; calyx campanulate, narrowed at base, the acute lobes

thickened, revolute and ciliate on the margins, villose with pale hairs,

rather shorter than and half as wide as the erect acute petals;

filaments pilose toward the base; anthers green; pistil rarely of 2

carpels, hoary-tomentose. Fruit 12′—18′ long, dark brown, pilose and

slightly falcate, with straight thickened margins, 2 or 3 together in

short racemes on stalks 1′—1½′ long, their walls thin and tough,

contracting in drying by a number of corkscrew twists, and falling late

in the autumn or early in winter; seeds oval, ⅓′ long, separated by

thick succulent pulp.

A tree, 75°—140° high, with a trunk 2°—3° or occasionally 5°—6° in

diameter, slender spreading somewhat pendulous branches forming a broad

open rather flat-topped head, and branchlets marked by minute lenticels,

at first light reddish brown and slightly puberulous, soon becoming

lustrous and red tinged with green, and in their second year greenish

brown and armed with stout rigid long-pointed simple or 3-forked spines

at first red, and bright chestnut-brown when fully grown, or rarely

unarmed (var. _inermis_ Pursh.). Bark of the trunk ½′—¾′ thick, divided

by deep fissures into long narrow longitudinal ridges and roughened on

the surface by small persistent scales. Wood hard, strong,

coarse-grained, very durable in contact with the ground, red or bright

red-brown, with thin pale sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual growth;

largely used for fence-posts and rails, for the hubs of wheels, and in

construction.

Distribution. Borders of streams and intervale lands, in moist fertile

soil, usually growing singly or occasionally covering almost exclusively

considerable areas; less commonly on dry sterile gravelly hills; western

slope of the Alleghany Mountains of Pennsylvania, westward through

southern Ontario and southern Michigan to southeastern Minnesota,

southern Iowa, southeastern South Dakota, eastern Nebraska, eastern

Kansas, and Oklahoma to the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River (near Alva,

Woods County) and to creek valleys near Cache, Comanche County (_G. W.

Stevens_), and southward to northern Alabama, Mississippi and western

Florida and to the valley of the Brazos River, eastern Texas; and in the

cañon of Paloduro Creek near Canyon, Randall County, northwestern Texas

(_E. J. Palmer_); in Pennsylvania and West Virginia occasionally on the

eastern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains; attaining its largest size

in the valleys of small streams in southern Indiana and Illinois; now

often naturalized in the region east of the Alleghany Mountains. The

var. _inermis_, the prevailing form in Taney County, southern Missouri.

Often cultivated as an ornamental and shade tree in all countries of

temperate climates.

2. Gleditsia texana Sarg. Locust.

[Illustration: Fig. 558]

Leaves 6′—7′ long, 12—22-foliolulate, with a slender rachis at first

puberulous, ultimately glabrous, or often bipinnate, usually with 6 or 7

pairs of pinnæ, the lower pairs frequently reduced to single large

leaflets; leaflets oblong-ovate, often somewhat falcate, rounded or

acute or apiculate at apex, obliquely rounded at base, finely crenately

serrate, thick and firm in texture, dark green and lustrous above, pale

below, ½′—1′ long, with a short petiolule coated while young, like the

base of the slender orange-colored midrib, with soft pale hairs. Flowers

appearing toward the end of April, the staminate dark orange-yellow, in

slender glabrous often clustered racemes lengthening after the flowers

begin to open and finally 3′—4′ in length; calyx campanulate, with acute

lobes thickened on the margins, villose-pubescent and rather shorter and

narrower than the puberulous petals; stamens with slender filaments

villose near the base and green anthers; pistillate flowers unknown.

Fruit 4′—5′ long, 1′ wide, straight, much compressed, rounded and

short-pointed at apex, full and rounded at the broad base, thin-walled,

dark chestnut-brown, puberulous, slightly thickened on the margins,

many-seeded, without pulp; seeds oval, compressed, dark chestnut-brown,

very lustrous, ½′ long.

A tree, 100°—120° high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 2½° in diameter,

ascending and spreading branches forming a narrow head, and

comparatively slender more or less zigzag branchlets roughened by

numerous small round lenticels, light orange-brown when they first

appear, gray or orange-brown during their first year, ashy gray the

following season, and unarmed. Bark thin and smooth.

Distribution. Only in a single grove on the bottom-lands of the Brazos

River, near the town of Brazoria, Brazoria County, Texas.

3. Gleditsia aquatica Marsh. Water Locust.

[Illustration: Fig. 559]

Leaves 5′—8′ long, 12—20-foliolate, or bipinnate, with 3 or 4 pairs of

pinnæ; leaflets ovate-oblong, usually rounded or rarely emarginate at

apex, unequally cuneate at base, slightly and remotely crenate or often

entire below the middle, glabrous with the exception of a few hairs on

the short stout petiolule, dull yellow-green and lustrous on the upper

surface, dark green on the lower surface, about 1′ long and ⅓′—½′ wide.

Flowers appearing in May and June after the leaves are fully grown on

short stout purple puberulous pedicels, in slender racemes 3′—4′ long;

calyx-tube covered with orange-brown pubescence, the lobes narrow,

acute, slightly pilose on the two surfaces, as long as but narrower than

the green erect petals rounded at apex; filaments hairy toward the base;

anthers large, green; ovary long-stipitate, glabrous. Fruit fully grown

in August, pendent in graceful racemes, obliquely ovoid, long-stalked,

crowned with a short stout tip, thin, 1′—2′ long, 1′ broad, without

pulp, its valves thin, tough, papery, bright chestnut-brown, lustrous

and somewhat thickened on the margins; seeds 1 or rarely 2 or 3, flat,

nearly orbicular, orange-brown, ½′ in diameter.

A tree, 50°—60° high, with a short trunk 2°—2½° in diameter, usually

dividing a few feet from the ground into stout spreading often contorted

branches forming a wide irregular flat-topped head, and glabrous

orange-brown branchlets becoming in their second year gray or reddish

brown, marked by occasional large pale lenticels, and armed with usually

flattened simple or short-branched straight or falcate sharp rigid

spines 3′—5′ long, about ½′ broad at the base, and dark red-brown and

lustrous. Bark ⅛′—¼′ thick, smooth, dull gray or reddish brown, and

divided by shallow fissures into small plate-like scales. Wood heavy,

very hard and strong, coarse-grained, rich bright brown tinged with red,

with thick light clear yellow sapwood of about 40 layers of annual

growth.

Distribution. Eastern South Carolina to Florida, through the coast

region of the Gulf states to the valley of the Brazos River, Texas, and

northward through western Louisiana and southern Arkansas to

northwestern Mississippi, middle Kentucky and Tennessee, the bottoms of

the Mississippi at La Pointe, Saint Charles County, Missouri, western

and southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana; rare east of the

Mississippi River and only in deep river swamps; very abundant and of

its largest size westward on rich bottom-lands; in Louisiana and

Arkansas often occupying extensive tracts submerged during a

considerable part of the year.

9. PARKINSONIA L.

Trees or shrubs, with smooth thin bark and terete branches often armed

with simple or 3-forked spines. Leaves abruptly bipinnate, alternate or

fascicled from earlier axils, short-petiolate, the rachis short and

spinescent, with 2—4 secondary elongated rachises bearing numerous

minute opposite entire leaflets without stipels; stipules short,

persistent and spinescent, or caducous. Flowers perfect on thin

elongated jointed pedicels from the axils of minute caducous bracts, in

slender axillary solitary or fascicled racemes; calyx short-campanulate,

5-lobed, the lobes slightly imbricated or subvalvate in the bud, narrow,

membranaceous, nearly equal, becoming reflexed, deciduous; petals bright

yellow, unguiculate, much longer than the lobes of the calyx, spreading,

the upper petal rather broader than the others and glandular at the base

of the claw; stamens 10, inserted in 2 rows on the margin of the thin

disk, free, slightly declinate, those of the outer row opposite the

sepals and rather longer than the others; filaments villose below the

middle, the upper filament enlarged at base and gibbous on the upper

side; anthers uniform, versatile; ovary short-stipitate, pilose,

contracted into a slender filiform incurved style infolded in the bud

and tipped with a minute stigma; ovules numerous, suspended from the

inner angle of the ovary. Legume linear, torulose, acuminate at the

ends, 2-valved, the valves thin, convex by the growth of the seeds,

contracted between and beyond them, longitudinally striate. Seeds

oblong, suspended longitudinally on a slender funicle; hilum minute,

near the apex; seed-coat thin, crustaceous, light brown; embryo inclosed

on the sides only by thick layers of horny albumen; cotyledons oval,

flat, slightly fleshy, the radicle very short and straight.

Parkinsonia, with four species, is confined to the warm parts of America

and to southern Africa. Two species occur within the limits of the

United States.

The genus is named for John Parkinson (1567—1650), an English botanical

author, and herbalist to James I.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.

Flowers in long slender racemes; petals imbricated in the bud; stamens

shorter than the petals; legume 1—8-seeded, 12′—18′ long; leaves

7′—8′ long; rachis of the pinnæ flat, wing-margined,

50—60-foliolate; branches with spines.

1. P. aculeata (G, H).

Flowers in short racemes; petals valvate in the bud; stamens longer

than the petals; legume 1—2-seeded; leaves about 1′ long; rachis

of the pinnæ terete, 8—12-foliolate; branches without spines.

2. P. microphylla (G, H).

1. Parkinsonia aculeata L. Retama. Horse Bean.

[Illustration: Fig. 560]

Leaves of two forms, short-petiolate, persistent, light green and

glabrous, except for a few hairs on the lower part of the young

secondary rachis, 12′—18′ long; primary leaves on young branches, with

2—4 pinnæ, and a spinescent rachis developing into a stout ridged

persistent short-pointed chestnut-brown spine 1′—1½′ long and marked

near the base by the prominent scars left by the fall of the pinnæ;

stipules persistent, appearing as lateral spiny branches on the spines;

secondary leaves fascicled from the axils of the primary leaves, nearly

sessile with a short terete spinescent rachis and 2 pinnæ; pinnæ flat,

12′—18′ in length, wing-margined, acute at apex, with 25—30 pairs of

ovate or obovate petiolulate leaflets, 1/16′—⅛′ long. Flowers appearing

on the growing branches during the spring and summer, and in the tropics

throughout the year, on slender pedicels ⅓′—½′ in length, in slender

erect racemes 5′—6′ long; petals bright yellow, the upper one marked

near the base on the inner surface with conspicuous red spots; stamens

shorter than the petals. Fruit hanging on pedicels ½′—¾′ in length, in

graceful racemes, 2′—4′ long, long-pointed, dark orange-brown, slightly

pilose, compressed between the remote seeds; seeds ⅓′ long, nearly

terete, with thick albumen and a bright yellow embryo.

A tree, 18°—30° high, with a trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, usually

separating 6°—8° from the ground into slender spreading somewhat

pendulous branches forming a wide graceful head, and slightly zigzag

branchlets puberulous and yellow-green during their first season,

becoming glabrous, gray or light orange color and roughened by lenticels

in their second and third years. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, brown

tinged with red, the generally smooth surface broken into small

persistent plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, with very

thick lighter colored sapwood tinged with yellow.

Distribution. Low moist soil, valley of the lower Rio Grande, Texas;

common in northern Mexico and in the valley of the lower Colorado River,

Arizona; widely distributed in Lower California; naturalized on Key

West, the Bahamas, the West Indian islands, and in many other tropical

countries.

Cultivated in most warm countries as an ornament of gardens, and to form

hedges.

2. Parkinsonia microphylla Torr.

[Illustration: Fig. 561]

Leaves 1′ long, pale, densely tomentose when they unfold, pubescent at

maturity, deciduous at the end of a few weeks; petiole ¼′ long; rachis

short, rarely spinescent; leaflets in 4—6 pairs, distant, entire,

sessile, broad-oblong or nearly orbicular, obtuse or somewhat acute at

apex, oblique at base, ⅙′ long; stipules caducous. Flowers opening in

May or early June before the leaves, on slender pedicels, in racemes 1′

or less long from the axils of leaves of the previous year, pale yellow;

stamens longer than the petals. Fruit persistent on the branches for at

least a year, frequently 1 or 2, rarely 3-seeded, 2′—3′ long, slightly

puberulous, especially toward the base, with a long acuminate often

falcate apex; seeds compressed, ⅓′ long, with a bright green embryo.

An intricately branched tree, occasionally 20°—25° high, with a trunk a

foot in diameter, and stout pale yellow-green rigid branchlets

terminating in a stout spine, covered at first with deciduous tomentum,

slightly puberulous during their first and second seasons, and often

marked by the persistent scales of undeveloped buds. Bark dark orange

color, generally smooth, although sometimes roughened by scattered

clusters of short pale gray horizontal ridges, becoming on old trees ¼′

thick; more often a shrub, frequently only a few feet tall. Wood heavy,

hard, close-grained, dark orange-brown streaked with red, with thick

light brown or yellow sapwood of 25—30 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Deserts of southern Arizona and adjacent regions of

California and Sonora, and in northern Lower California; known to attain

the size and habits of a tree only in the neighborhood of Wickenburg,

Maricopa County, Arizona.

10. CERCIDIUM Tul.

Trees or shrubs, with stout tortuous branches, covered with bright green

bark and armed with slender straight axillary spines, and minute obtuse

buds. Leaves alternate, abruptly pinnate, petiolate, early deciduous;

pinnæ 2 or occasionally 3, 6—8-foliolate; stipules inconspicuous or 0;

leaflets ovate or obovate, without stipels. Flowers perfect in short

few-flowered axillary racemes, solitary or fascicled, with minute

membranaceous early deciduous bracts; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes equal,

acute, reflexed at maturity, their margins scarious, slightly revolute;

petals orbicular or short-oblong, unguiculate, bright yellow, the upper

petal broader and longer clawed than the others, slightly auriculate at

base of the blade, the claw conspicuously glandular at base; stamens 10,

inserted with the petals on the margin of the disk, free, slightly

declinate, exserted; filaments filiform, pilose below, the upper

filament enlarged at base and gibbous on the upper side; anthers

uniform, ovoid, versatile; ovary short-stalked, inserted at the base of

the calyx-tube; styles slender, involute, infolded in the bud, with a

minute terminal stigma; ovules suspended from the angle of the ovary

opposite the posterior petal. Legume linear-oblong, compressed or

somewhat turgid, straight or slightly contracted between the seeds,

thickened on the margins, the ventral suture acute, or slightly grooved,

tipped with the remnants of the style, tardily dehiscent, 2-valved, the

valves membranaceous or subcoriaceous, obliquely veined. Seeds suspended

longitudinally on a long slender funicle, ovoid, compressed, the minute

hilum near the apex; seed-coat thin, crustaceous; embryo compressed,

light green, covered on the sides only by a thin layer of horny albumen;

cotyledons oval, flat, rather fleshy; radicle very short, erect, near

the hilum.

Cercidium is confined to the warmer parts of the New World, where it is

distributed with four or five species from the southern borders of the

United States through Mexico, Central America, and Venezuela to Mendoza.

Of the three species found within the territory of the United States two

are small trees.

Cercidium produces hard wood sometimes used as fuel.

The generic name, from κερκίδιον, refers to the fancied resemblance of

the legume to the weaver’s instrument of that name.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.

Legume compressed, with straight margins; leaflets green, slightly

glandular.

1. C. floridum (E).

Legume somewhat turgid, the margins often slightly contracted between

the seeds; leaflets glaucous.

2. C. Torreyanum (G, H).

1. Cercidium floridum Benth. Green-barked Acacia.

[Illustration: Fig. 562]

Leaves 1′—1½′ long, with 2 or rarely 3 pinnæ, a broad pubescent petiole

and rachis, and oval or somewhat obovate dull green puberulous minutely

glandular leaflets about 1/16′ in length, rounded or slightly emarginate

at apex, and when they unfold covered on the lower surface with

scattered white hairs; petiolules short, stout, pubescent; appearing in

April and deciduous in October. Flowers opening with the leaves, and

produced in successive crops during three or four months, ¾′ in

diameter, on slender pedicels, in 4 or 5-flowered racemes 1½′—2′ long,

with small acute minute membranaceous caducous bracts. Fruit compressed,

oblong, straight or slightly falcate, acute, narrowly and acutely

margined on the ventral suture, glabrous, 2 or 3-seeded, 2′—2½′ long, ½′

broad, tardily dehiscent, the valves papery, yellow tinged with brown on

the outer surface, and bright orange color within; seeds ⅓′ long.

A tree, 18°—20° high, with a short crooked trunk 8′—10′ in diameter,

stout spreading branches covered with thin smooth bright green bark,

forming a low wide head, and branchlets light or dark olive-green,

slightly puberulous at first, soon glabrous, marked by occasional black

lenticels, and armed with slender spines 1′ or less in length. Bark

1/16′ thick, light brown tinged with red, with numerous short horizontal

light gray ridge-like excrescences. Wood light, soft, close-grained,

pale yellow tinged with green, with thick lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Shores of Matagorda Bay to Hidalgo and Valverde Counties,

Texas, and in northern Mexico; not common in Texas; very abundant and a

conspicuous feature of vegetation in Mexico from the mouth of the Rio

Grande to the foothills of the Sierra Madre.

2. Cercidium Torreyanum Sarg. Green-barked Acacia. Palo Verde.

[Illustration: Fig. 563]

Leaves few and scattered, 1′ long, hoary-tomentose when they first

appear, puberulous at maturity, with a slender petiole and 2 pinnæ, with

2 or 3 pairs of oblong obtuse glaucous leaflets narrowed toward the

somewhat oblique base, 1/12′—⅙′ long; unfolding in March and April and

falling almost immediately when fully grown. Flowers ¾′ in diameter, on

slender pedicels ¾′—1′ long, in 4 or 5-flowered racemes about 1′ in

length, with small acute membranaceous caducous bracts. Fruit ripening

and falling in July, 3′—4′ long, ¼′—⅓′ wide, 2—8-seeded, slightly

turgid, often somewhat contracted between the seeds, frequently grooved

on the ventral suture; seeds turgid, ⅓′ long.

A low intricately branched tree, leafless for most of the year, 25°—30°

high, with a short often inclining trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, stout

spreading branches covered with yellow or olive-green bark, forming a

wide open irregular head, and glabrous slightly zigzag light yellow or

pale olive-green and glaucous branchlets armed with thin straight or

curved spines ¼′ long. Bark thin, smooth, pale olive-green, becoming

near the base of old trunks reddish brown, ⅛′ thick, furrowed and

separating into thick plate-like scales. Wood heavy, not strong, soft,

close-grained, light brown, with clear light yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Sides of low cañons and depressions, and sandhills of the

desert; valley of the lower Gila River, Arizona, to the Colorado Desert

of southern California, and southward into Sonora and Lower California;

when in flower in early spring the conspicuous and most beautiful

feature of the vegetation of the Colorado Desert.

11. SOPHORA L.

Trees or shrubs, with minute scaly buds, unarmed terete branches

prolonged by an upper axillary bud, and fibrous roots. Leaves unequally

pinnate, with numerous small or few and ample thin or coriaceous

leaflets; stipules minute, deciduous; stipels often 0. Flowers in

terminal or axillary racemes, with linear minute deciduous bracts and

bractlets; calyx broad-campanulate, often slightly turbinate or obconic

at base, obliquely truncate, the short teeth nearly equal or the 2 upper

subconnate and often somewhat larger than the others; disk cupuliform,

glandular, adnate to the calyx-tube; corolla papilionaceous; petals

white or violet blue, unguiculate; standard obovate or orbicular,

usually shorter than the oblong, suberect keel-petals, as long or rather

longer than the oblong-oblique wings, overlapping each other at the

back, barely united; stamens free, or 9 of them slightly united at base,

uniform; anthers attached on the back near the middle; ovary

short-stipitate, contracted into an incurved style, with a minute

truncate or slightly rounded capitate stigma; ovules numerous, suspended

from the inner angle of the ovary, superposed, amphitropous. Legume

terete, much contracted between the seeds, woody or fleshy, usually

many-seeded, each seed inclosed in a separate cell, indehiscent. Seed

oblong or oval, sometimes somewhat compressed; seed-coat thick,

membranaceous or crustaceous; cotyledons thick and fleshy; radicle short

and straight or more or less elongated and incurved.

Sophora is scattered over the warmer parts of the two hemispheres, with

about twenty species of trees, shrubs or herbs; of the six North

American species two are small trees. Several of the species produce

valuable wood, and from the pods and flower-buds of the Chinese _Sophora

japonica_ L., a dye is obtained used to dye white cloth yellow and blue

cloth green. This tree is often cultivated as an ornament of parks and

gardens in northern China, Japan, the eastern United States, and in

western, central, and southern Europe.

The generic name is from _Sophera_, the Arabic name of some tree with

pea-shaped flowers.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.

Flowers violet blue, in terminal racemes; the upper calyx-lobes larger

than the others and united; legume woody; seeds without albumen;

leaves coriaceous, persistent.

1. S. secundiflora (C, E, H).

Flowers white, in axillary racemes; calyx-lobes equal; legume fleshy;

seeds with albumen; leaves thin, deciduous.

2. S. affinis (C).

1. Sophora secundiflora DC. Frijolito. Coral Bean.

[Illustration: Fig. 564]

Leaves persistent, covered when they unfold, especially on the lower

surface of the leaflets, with silky white hairs, and at maturity 4′—6′

long, with a stout puberulous petiole slightly enlarged at base, and 7—9

oblong-elliptic leaflets rounded, emarginate or sometimes mucronate at

apex, gradually contracted at base into a short thick petiolule,

coriaceous, lustrous and dark yellow-green above, rather paler below,

glabrous or sometimes slightly puberulous along the under side of the

stout midrib, entire, with thickened margins, conspicuously

reticulate-veined, 1′—2½′ long, ½′—1½′ wide, without stipels. Flowers

with a powerful and delicious fragrance, appearing with the young leaves

in very early spring, 1′ long, on stout pedicels sometimes 1′ in length,

from the axils of subulate deciduous bracts ½′ or more long, and

bibracteolate with 2 acute bractlets, in terminal 1-sided canescent

racemes 2′—3′ in length; calyx campanulate, slightly enlarged on the

upper side, the 3 lower teeth triangular and nearly equal, the 2 upper

rather larger and united almost throughout; petals shortly unguiculate,

violet blue or rarely white, the broad erect standard marked on the

inner surface near the base with a few darker spots; ovary coated with

long silky white hairs. Fruit terete, 1′—7′ long, ½′ thick, stalked,

crowned with the thickened remnants of the style, covered with thick

hoary tomentum, indehiscent, 1—8-seeded, with hard woody walls ¼′ thick;

seeds short-oblong, rounded, ½′ long, bright scarlet, with a small pale

hilum and a bony seed-coat; albumen 0; cotyledons thick, orange-colored,

filling the cavity of the seed; radicle short and straight.

A tree, 25°—35° high, with a straight trunk 6′—8′ in diameter,

separating several feet from the ground into a number of upright

branches forming a narrow head, and branchlets coated when they first

appear with fine hairy tomentum, becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous in

their second year and pale orange-brown; more often a shrub, with low

clustered stems. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, orange-colored,

streaked with red, with thick bright yellow sapwood of 10—12 layers of

annual growth. The seeds contain a poisonous alkaloid, sophorin, with

strong narcotic properties.

Distribution. Borders of streams, forming thickets or small groves, in

low rather moist limestone soil; shores of Matagorda Bay, Texas, to the

mountain cañons of New Mexico, and to those of Nuevo Leon and San Luis

Potosí; of its largest size in the neighborhood of Matagorda Bay; south

and west, especially west of the Pecos River, rarely more than a shrub.

Occasionally cultivated in the gardens of the southern states.

2. Sophora affinis T. & G.

[Illustration: Fig. 565]

Leaves deciduous, coated when they unfold with hoary pubescence, 6′—9′

long, with a slender puberulous petiole, and 13—19 elliptic, acute or

obtuse slightly mucronate leaflets contracted into short stout pubescent

petiolules, entire or with slightly wavy thickened margins, thin, pale

yellow-green and glabrous above, paler and covered with scattered hairs

or nearly glabrous below, 1′—1½′ long and ½′ wide, with a prominent

orange-colored midrib, slender primary veins, and conspicuous reticulate

veinlets. Flowers ½′ long, appearing in early spring with the young

leaves, on slender canescent pedicels nearly ½′ long, from the axils of

minute deciduous bracts, in slender pubescent semipendent racemes, 3′—5′

long, from the axils of the leaves at the end of the branches; calyx

short-campanulate, abruptly narrowed at base, somewhat enlarged on the

upper side, slightly pubescent, especially on the margins of the short

nearly triangular teeth; petals short-unguiculate, white tinged with

rose color; standard nearly orbicular, slightly emarginate, reflexed, as

long and twice as broad as the ovate auriculate wing-petals and the

keel-petals; ovary conspicuously stipitate, villose. Fruit ½′—3′ long,

indehiscent, black, more or less pubescent, crowned with the thickened

remnants of the style, 4—8-seeded, or rarely 1-seeded and then

subglobose, with thin fleshy rather sweet walls; persistent on the

branches during the winter; seeds oval, slightly compressed, with a thin

crustaceous bright chestnut-brown seed-coat; cotyledons surrounded by a

thin layer of horny albumen, bright green; radicle long and incurved.

A tree, 18°—20° high, with a trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, dividing into a

number of stout spreading branches forming a handsome round-topped head,

and slender terete slightly zigzag branchlets, orange-brown or dark

brown and slightly puberulous when they first appear, becoming bright

green marked by narrow brown ridges, and in their second year by the

elevated tomentose leaf-scars. Winter-buds depressed, almost surrounded

by the base of the petiole, with broad scales coated on the outer

surface with dark brown tomentum and on the inner surface with thicker

pale tomentum, and persistent on the base of the growing shoot. Bark of

the trunk about ⅛′ thick, dark reddish brown, and broken into numerous

oblong scales, the surface exfoliating in thin layers. Wood heavy, very

hard and strong, light red in color, with thick bright clear yellow

sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Usually on limestone hills, or on the borders of streams,

ravines, or depressions in the prairie, often forming small groves;

valley of the Red River at Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, to the

valley of the Arkansas River, Arkansas, and to southern Oklahoma

(Choctaw and Love Counties), and southward in Texas to the valley of the

San Antonio and upper Guadalupe Rivers (Kerrville, Kerr County).

12. CLADRASTIS Raf.

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 566]

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 567]

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 1/16′ 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 568]

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 569]

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 3/16′ 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 570]

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, 1/16′ 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 571]

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 572]

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 573]

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, 5/12′ 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 574]

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 575]

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 576]

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.