[Illustration: Fig. 605]
Leaves elliptic to elliptic-oblong, obtuse, coarsely and remotely
crenulate-serrate, coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale and
opaque below, 1′—2′ long and ¼′—1′ wide, persistent for two or three
years, generally falling just before the appearance of the new growth of
their third season; petioles short, broad, and grooved. Flowers on
slender club-shaped glabrous pedicels, with minute bractlets at the
base, in short glabrous cymes on branchlets of the previous year, those
of the staminate plant short-stemmed and many-flowered, those of the
pistillate plant sessile and 1 or 2-flowered; calyx-lobes rounded,
obtuse, often slightly ciliate; ovary contracted below the broad flat
stigma. Fruit produced in great abundance, on stems not more than ¼′
long, ripening late in the autumn or in early winter, soon deciduous, or
persistent until spring, scarlet, nearly globose, about ¼′ in diameter;
nutlets obtuse at the ends, and prominently few-ribbed on the back and
sides.
A small much-branched tree, 20°—25° high, with a slender often inclining
trunk rarely more than 6′ in diameter, and stout branchlets standing at
right angles with the stem, slightly angled and puberulous during their
first season, becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous, terete and pale gray
in their second year; generally a tall shrub, with numerous stems
forming dense thickets. Winter-buds minute, obtuse, with narrow dark
brown or often nearly black scales. Bark of the trunk 1/16′—⅛′ thick,
the light red-brown surface broken into thin minute scales. Wood heavy,
hard, close-grained, nearly white, turning yellow with exposure, with
thick lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Southeastern Virginia to the St. John’s River and Cedar
Keys, Florida, and westward to the shores of Matagorda Bay and the
valleys of the upper Rio Blanco and the Guadalupe River, Texas, and to
southern Arkansas; in the Atlantic and east Gulf states rarely far from
salt water and usually not more than 10°—15° high; of its largest size
and of tree-like habit only on the rich bottom-lands of eastern Texas.
The branches covered with the fruit are sold during the winter months
for decorative purposes. An infusion of the leaves, which are emetic and
purgative, was used by the Indians, who formerly visited the coast in
large numbers every spring to drink it.
Occasionally used in the southern states for hedges.
4. Ilex Krugiana Loesen.
[Illustration: Fig. 606]
Leaves ovate, ovate-elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate and abruptly
long-pointed or acute at apex, rounded or obtusely cuneate at base,
entire, with slightly thickened margins subcoriaceous or coriaceous,
glabrous, dark yellow-green and lustrous above, dull beneath,
persistent, 2½′—4′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with a prominent midrib deeply
impressed on the upper side and pale on the lower side, and 6—9 pairs of
slender primary veins connected by thin reticulate veinlets; petioles
slender, ⅓′—¾′ in length; stipules minute, whitish, persistent. Flowers
on slender pedicels, 1/12′—⅙′ long, in the axils of minute acute
scarious deciduous bractlets, in crowded clusters, the staminate
1—3-flowered on short peduncles, the pistillate 1-flowered; calyx about
1/12′ in diameter, 4-lobed, the lobes triangular, suberect, about as
long as the tube, imbricated in the bud; corolla rotate, greenish white,
petals 4, ovate or slightly obovate in the pistillate flower, imbricated
in the bud; stamens 4 in the staminate flower, nearly as long as the
petals; filaments slender, about as long as the oval anthers; in the
pistillate flower much smaller and abortive; ovary 4-celled, ellipsoid;
stigma small, discoid, obscurely 4-lobed; ovary of the staminate flower
subconic, minute and abortive. Fruit on a stout pedicel up to ⅕′ in
length, globose, brownish purple, lustrous, ⅙′ in diameter; sarcocarp
thin; nutlets 4, irregularly 3-seeded, obtusely angled, dark brown.
In Florida a tree, sometimes 30°—40° high, with a tall often crooked
trunk occasionally 4′ in diameter and covered with thin smooth nearly
white bark, becoming on old individuals darker-colored and broken into
narrow scales, and small ascending branchlets green when they first
appear, becoming light gray and finally white, and marked by numerous
round elliptic lenticels; often a shrub.
Distribution. Florida, Homestead and Paradise Keys in the Everglades,
Dade County; in the Bahama Islands, Hayti and San Domingo.
5. Ilex decidua Walt.
[Illustration: Fig. 607]
Leaves deciduous, except on vigorous shoots, fascicled at the end of
short spur-like lateral branchlets, oblong-spatulate or
spatulate-lanceolate, acuminate, obtuse or emarginate at apex, gradually
narrowed below, remotely crenulate-serrate, 2′—3′ long, ⅓′—1′ wide, thin
early in the season, becoming thick and firm at maturity, light green
above and pale and sparingly hairy along the narrow midrib below;
petioles slender, grooved, pubescent, about ¼′ in length; stipules
filiform, membranaceous. Flowers on slender pedicels, those of the
staminate plant often ½′ long and longer than those of the pistillate
plant, in 1 or 2-flowered glabrous cymes crowded at the end of the
lateral branches of the previous season, or rarely solitary on
branchlets of the year; calyx-lobes triangular, with smooth or sometimes
ciliate margins. Fruit on short stout stems, ripening in the early
autumn, often remaining on the branches until the appearance of the
leaves the following spring, globose or depressed-globose, orange or
orange-scarlet, ¼′ in diameter; nutlets narrowed and rounded at base,
acute or acuminate at apex, many-ribbed on the back.
A tree, 20°—30° high, with a slender trunk 6′—10′ in diameter, stout
spreading branches, and slender glabrous pale silver gray branchlets;
more often a tall straggling shrub. Winter-buds minute, obtuse, with
ovate light gray scales. Bark of the trunk rarely more than 1/16′ thick,
light brown, and roughened by wart-like excrescences. Wood heavy, hard,
close-grained, creamy white, with rather lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Borders of streams and swamps in low moist soil;
Gloucester County, Virginia, to western Florida in the region between
the eastern and southern base of the Appalachian Mountains and the
neighborhood of the coast, and through the Gulf states to the valley of
the Colorado River, Texas, and through Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, and
southern Missouri to southern Illinois; usually shrubby east of the
Mississippi River and only arborescent in Missouri, southern Arkansas,
and eastern Texas. In Florida a form (var. _Curtissii_ Fern.) occurs
with leaves only ⅓′—⅔′ long and fruit about ¼′ in diameter.
6. Ilex monticola Gray.
[Illustration: Fig. 608]
Leaves deciduous, ovate to oblong-lanceolate, abruptly narrowed and
acuminate or rarely acute at apex, cuneate or rarely rounded at base,
sharply and rather remotely serrate with minute glandular incurved
teeth, thin, glabrous, or sparingly hairy along the prominent midrib and
veins, 2′—5′ long, ½′—2½′ wide, light green above and pale below;
petioles slender, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers appearing in June when the
leaves are more than half grown, on slender pedicels ½′ long on the
staminate plant and much longer on the pistillate plant, in 1—2-flowered
cymes crowded at the end of lateral spur-like branchlets of the previous
year, or solitary on branchlets of the year; calyx-lobes acute, ciliate;
ovary contracted below the broad flat stigma. Fruit globose, bright
scarlet, nearly ½′ in diameter; nutlets narrowed at the ends,
prominently ribbed on the back and sides.
A tree, 30°—40° high, with a short trunk sometimes 10′—12′ in diameter,
slender branches forming a narrow pyramidal head, and more or less
zigzag glabrous branchlets pale red-brown at first, becoming dark gray
at the end of their first season; more often a low shrub, with spreading
stems. Winter-buds broad-ovoid to subglobose, about ⅛′ long, with ovate
keeled apiculate light brown scales. Bark of the trunk usually less than
1/16′ thick, with a light brown surface roughened by numerous lenticels.
Wood hard, heavy, close-grained, and creamy white.
Distribution. Central and western New York, southward along the
Appalachian Mountains to eastern Tennessee; northern and central
Georgia; coast of South Carolina near Charleston; western Florida
(Mariana, Jackson County, and Wakulla Springs, Wakulla County); Dallas
County, Alabama; northeastern Mississippi (Tishomingo County), and in
West Feliciana and Wynn Parishes, Louisiana; a shrubby form with leaves
soft pubescent beneath (var. _mollis_ Britt.) occurs in western
Massachusetts and Connecticut, and southward to North Carolina.
XXXIV. CELASTRACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and opposite or alternate simple
persistent or deciduous leaves, with or without stipules. Flowers
regular, perfect, polygamous or diœcious, pedicellate in axillary
clusters; calyx 4—5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 4 or
5, imbricated in the bud; stamens 4 or 5; anthers introrse, 2-celled,
the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 2—5-celled; ovules 2 or solitary
in each cell (_6 in Canotia_), anatropous, or subhorizontal (_in
Canotia_). Fruit a capsule or drupe. Seed with copious albumen; embryo
axile.
A family of about thirty-eight genera widely distributed over the
tropical and warm temperate parts of the world, with five arborescent
representatives in the United States.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Leaves opposite, deciduous; parts of the flower in 4’s; fruit a fleshy
capsule enclosed in a colored aril.
1. Evonymus.
Leaves alternate, persistent (_0 in 3_).
Fruit capsular; parts of the flower in 5’s.
Capsule 3—4-valved, loculicidal, its outer coat woody, the valves
apiculate at apex; base of the seed enclosed in a colored
aril.
2. Maytenus.
Capsule 5-valved, septicidal, its outer coat thin and fleshy, the
valves 2-lobed at apex; seed without an aril.
3. Canotia.
Fruit drupaceous; parts of the flower in 4’s; seed without an aril.
Leaves often crenately serrate above the middle; stipules minute,
caducous; fruit usually 1-seeded; branchlets quadrangular.
4. Gyminda.
Leaves entire; stipules 0; fruit 2-seeded; branchlets terete.
5. Schæfferia.
1. EVONYMUS L.
Small generally glabrous trees or shrubs, with usually square sometimes
wing-margined branchlets, bitter drastic bark, slender obtuse or
acuminate winter-buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves opposite, petiolate,
entire, crenate or dentate, deciduous or rarely persistent; stipules
minute, caducous. Flowers perfect or polygamo-diœcious, in dichotomous
axillary usually few-flowered cymes; calyx 4-lobed (in the North
American arborescent species); disk thick and fleshy, cohering with and
filling the short tube of the calyx, flat, 4-angled or lobed, closely
surrounding and adhering to the ovary; petals inserted in the sinuses of
the calyx under the free border of the disk, as many as and much longer
than the calyx-lobes, spreading, deciduous; stamens as many as the
petals and alternate with them, inserted on the summit of the disk;
filaments very short, subulate, erect or recurved; anthers 2-celled, the
cells nearly parallel or spreading below; ovary 4-celled; styles short,
terminating in a depressed stigma; ovules usually 2 in each cell,
ascending from the central angle; raphe ventral, micropyle inferior, or
pendulous, the raphe then dorsal and the micropyle superior. Fruit
capsular, 4-lobed and celled, fleshy, angled or winged, smooth (in the
North American arborescent species), loculicidally 4-valved, the valves
septicidal. Seeds 2 in each cell, or commonly solitary by abortion,
ascending, surrounded by a colored aril; seed-coat chartaceous; albumen
fleshy; embryo axile; cotyledons broad, coriaceous, parallel with the
raphe; the radicle short, inferior.
Evonymus is widely distributed through the northern hemisphere,
extending south of the equator to the islands of the Indian Archipelago
and to Australia. About forty species are distinguished, the largest
number occurring in the tropical regions of southern Asia, and in China
and Japan. Of the four species found within the territory of the United
States one only is a small tree. Many of the species are rich in bitter
and astringent principles, and are drastic and slightly stimulant. Many
are valued as ornaments of gardens and parks.
The generic name is from the classical name of one of the European
species.
1. Evonymus atropurpureus Jacq. Bunting Bush. Wahoo.
[Illustration: Fig. 609]
Leaves ovate-elliptic, acuminate, minutely serrate or biserrate, thin,
puberulous below, 2′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with a stout midrib and
primary veins; turning pale yellow in the autumn and falling in October;
petioles stout, ½′—1′ in length. Flowers appearing from May to the
middle of June, nearly ½′ across, in twice or thrice dichotomous usually
7—15-flowered cymes borne on slender peduncles 1′—2′ long and
conspicuously marked by the scars of minute bracts; calyx-lobes 4,
rounded or rarely acute at apex, mostly entire; petals broad-obovate,
undulate, often erose on the margins; anthers spreading. Fruit ripening
in October, usually persistent on the branches until midwinter, deeply
lobed, ½′ across, with light purple valves; seeds sometimes gibbous on
the dorsal side, broad and rounded above, narrowed below, ¼′ long, with
a thin light chestnut-brown wrinkled coat and a thin scarlet aril.
A tree, rarely 20°—25° high, with a trunk 4′—6′ in diameter, spreading
branches, and slender terete branchlets dark purple-brown at first,
becoming lighter colored in their second season, often covered with
small crowded lenticels, and marked by prominent leaf-scars,
occasionally slightly or on vigorous shoots rarely broadly
wing-margined; more often a shrub, 6°—10° tall. Winter-buds ⅛′ long,
acute, with narrow purple apiculate scales scarious on the margins and
covered by a glaucous bloom. Bark thin, ashy gray, and covered by thin
minute scales. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, white tinged with
orange.
Distribution. Borders of woods in rich soil; western New York to
southern Minnesota, central Iowa, southeastern South Dakota,
northwestern Nebraska, central Kansas, Oklahoma to the valley of the
Canadian River (near Minton, Caddo County), southern Arkansas and
eastern Texas (Dallas County), and southward to eastern Tennessee,
Jackson County, Alabama, and western Florida; in the valley of the upper
Missouri River, Montana; arborescent only in southern Arkansas and
Texas.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornament of gardens in the eastern United
States and in Europe.
2. MAYTENUS Molina.
Small unarmed trees or shrubs with slender branchlets and minute buds.
Leaves alternate often in two ranks, coriaceous, petiolate, persistent;
stipules minute, deciduous. Flowers polygamous, small, white, yellow or
red, axillary, solitary or in cymose or fascicled clusters; calyx
5-lobed; petals 5, spreading; stamens 5, inserted under the orbicular
disk, with undulate margins; filaments filiform; anthers ovoid-cordate;
ovary immersed and confluent with the disk, 2—4-celled; style 0 or
columnar; stigma 2—4-lobed, usually sessile; ovules erect, solitary or
in pairs in each cell. Fruit capsular, coriaceous, 2—4-valved; seed
erect, surrounded at base or entirely in a pulpy aril; testa
crustaceous; albumen fleshy or wanting; cotyledons foliaceous.
Maytenus with some seventy species is widely distributed in the tropical
and subtropical regions of America from southern Florida, where one
species occurs, to Brazil and Chile.
The Chilean _Maytenus boaria_ Molina, a handsome tree of graceful habit,
is occasionally cultivated in California.
The generic name is from Mayten, the Chilean name of one of the species.
1. Maytenus phyllanthoides Benth.
[Illustration: Fig. 610]
Leaves oblong-obovate to elliptic, rounded and rarely emarginate or
acute at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base and entire, deeply
tinged with red when they unfold and at maturity, 1′—1½′ long and ½′—¾′
wide, with thickened often slightly undulate margins, a slender midrib,
obscure primary veins, and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; petioles
stout, ⅙′—¼′ in length. Flowers usually solitary or in compact
fascicles, short-stalked, about 1/12′ in diameter; calyx-lobes rounded
at apex, often persistent under the fruit, reddish, shorter than the
white petals; ovary 3—4-celled. Fruit solitary, short-stalked,
broad-obovoid, 4-angled, rounded and minutely mucronate at apex,
abruptly narrowed below, bright red, ¼′—⅓′ long and broad, 1-celled,
3—4-valved, the valves opening to the base, ridged down the inner
surface with a low ridge developed from the dissepiment, 2—4-seeded;
seed ellipsoid, acute at the ends, 1/12′ long, surrounded at base by an
open bright red aril.
A round-topped tree, rarely 20° high, with a trunk 1°—2° in diameter
(_teste J. K. Small_), and slender alternate glabrous pale gray
branchlets; usually a low shrub.
Distribution. Florida, west coast, Captiva Island, Lee County, to the
neighborhood of Cape Sable; Cocoanut Grove, Dade County, and on many of
the southern keys; on bluffs of Matagorda Bay near Corpus Christi,
Nueces County, Texas; in northern Mexico and Lower California; probably
of its largest size in Florida on Sands Key and on Captiva Island.
3. CANOTIA Torr.
A glabrous leafless tree, with light brown deeply furrowed bark, stout
terete alternate branches terminating in rigid, pale green and striate
spines, their base and those of the peduncles surrounded by black
triangular persistent cushion-like processes minutely papillose on the
surface. Flowers perfect, on slender spreading pedicels jointed below
the middle, 3—7 together, in short-stemmed fascicles or corymbs near the
end of the branches, from the axils of minute ovate subulate bracts;
calyx 5-lobed, minute, persistent, much shorter than the oblong obtuse
white hypogynous petals imbricated in the bud, reflexed at maturity
above the middle, deciduous; stamens 5, hypogynous, opposite the lobes
of the calyx; filaments awl-shaped, rather shorter than the petals,
persistent on the fruit; anthers oblong, cordate, minutely apiculate,
attached below the middle, grooved on the back; ovary raised upon and
confluent with a fleshy slightly 10-angled gynophore,
papillose-glandular on the surface, 5-celled, the cells opposite the
petals, terminating in a fleshy elongated style; stigma slightly
5-lobed; ovules 6 in each cell, inserted in 2 ranks on its inner angle,
subhorizontal; micropyle inferior. Fruit a woody ovoid, acuminate
capsule rounded at base, crowned with the subulate persistent style,
septicidally 5-valved, the valves 2-lobed at apex; outer coat thin,
fleshy; inner coat woody. Seed solitary or in pairs, ascending,
subovoid, flattened; seed-coat subcoriaceous, papillate, produced below
into a subfalcate membranaceous wing; embryo surrounded by thin fleshy
albumen, erect; cotyledons oval, compressed; radicle very short,
inferior.
The genus is represented by a single species.
The generic name is that by which this plant was known to the Mexicans
of Arizona at the time of its discovery.
1. Canotia holacantha Torr.
[Illustration: Fig. 611]
Leaves 0. Flowers ⅛′—¼′ in diameter, appearing from June until October.
Capsule 1′ long; seed about ¾′ in length.
A small shrub-like tree, sometimes 20°—30° high, with a short stout
trunk rarely a foot in diameter; or often a low spreading shrub.
Distribution. Dry gravelly mesas on the Arizona foothills, from the
White Mountain region to the valley of Bill Williams’s Fork in the
northwestern part of the state, and on Providence Mountain in southern
California.
4. GYMINDA Sarg.
Trees or shrubs, with pale quadrangular branchlets and minute acuminate
buds. Leaves opposite, short-petiolate, oblong-obovate, rounded and
sometimes emarginate at apex, entire or remotely crenulate-serrate above
the middle with revolute thickened margins, feather-veined, coriaceous,
persistent; stipules minute, acuminate, membranaceous, caducous. Flowers
unisexual, pedicellate, in axillary pedunculate few-flowered
dichotomously branched cymes bibracteolate at apex; calyx minute,
4-lobed, persistent, with a short urceolate tube and rounded lobes; disk
fleshy, filling the tube of the calyx, cup-shaped, slightly 4-lobed;
petals entire, obovate, white, rounded at apex, reflexed, much longer
than the lobes of the calyx; stamens 4, opposite the sepals, inserted in
the lobes of the disk, exserted, 0 in the pistillate flower; filaments
slender, subulate, incurved; anthers oblong; ovary 2-celled, oblong,
sessile, confluent with the disk, crowned with a large 2-lobed sessile
stigma, rudimentary and deeply cleft in the staminate flower; ovule
solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell; raphe dorsal; micropyle
superior. Fruit drupaceous, 2-celled, 1 or 2-seeded, black or dark blue,
oval or obovoid, crowned with the remnants of the persistent stigma,
often 1-celled by abortion; flesh thin; stone thick, crustaceous. Seed
oblong, suspended; seed-coat membranaceous; albumen thin, fleshy; embryo
axile; cotyledons ovate, foliaceous; radicle superior, next the hilum.
Gyminda with a single species is distributed from southern Florida to
Trinidad and southern Mexico, and is represented in Central America by
what is perhaps a second species.
The generic name is formed by transposing the first three letters of
_Myginda_, to which this plant had been referred.
1. Gyminda latifolia Urb.
_Gyminda Grisebachii_ Sarg.
[Illustration: Fig. 612]
Leaves 1½′—2′ long, ¾′—1′ broad, pale yellow-green. Flowers produced on
shoots of the year from April to June. Fruit ripening in November, ¼′
long.
A tree, sometimes 20°—25° high, with a trunk rarely more than 6′ in
diameter, and branchlets becoming terete during their third season and
covered with thin slightly grooved roughened bright red-brown bark. Bark
of the trunk thin, brown tinged with red, separating into thin minute
scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, dark brown or nearly
black, with thick light brown sapwood of 75—80 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Florida, common and generally distributed over the
southern keys from the Marquesas group to Upper Matecombe Key; in Cuba,
Porto Rico, Trinidad, and southern Mexico. A form (var. _glaucescens_,
Small.) with smaller less coriaceous very glaucous leaves occurs in
Cuba.
5. SCHÆFFERIA Jacq.
Glabrous trees or shrubs, with slender rigid terete branches and small
obtuse buds. Leaves alternate, or fascicled on short spur-like
branchlets, entire, obovate or spatulate, acute and minutely apiculate
or gradually narrowed to the rounded or emarginate apex, cuneate below,
persistent, without stipules. Flowers diœcious, pedicellate in axillary
clusters from buds covered by scale-like persistent bracts; calyx
4-lobed, the lobes orbicular, persistent, much shorter than the 4
hypogynous, oblong, obtuse, white or greenish white petals; stamens 4,
hypogynous, inserted under the margin of the small inconspicuous disk
opposite the lobes of the calyx, wanting in the pistillate flower;
filaments subulate, incurved; anthers oblong-ovoid; ovary 2-celled,
ovoid, sessile, free, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style very
short, gradually enlarged into the large 2-lobed stigma, with spreading
lobes; ovule solitary, ascending; raphe thin, ventral; micropyle
inferior. Fruit a small 2-seeded fleshy drupe, ovoid or obovoid, crowned
with the remnants of the persistent style, indistinctly 2-lobed by
longitudinal grooves, slightly flattened; flesh thin and tuberculate;
nutlets 2, obovoid, rounded at the ends, with a thick bony shell. Seed
solitary, ascending; seed-coat membranaceous; albumen fleshy; cotyledons
broad, foliaceous; radicle very short, inferior, next the hilum.
Schæfferia with four or five species is confined to the New World, with
one species in southern Florida, and another, a small shrub, _Schæfferia
cuneifolia_ A. Gray in the arid region of western Texas and northern
Mexico.
The generic name is in honor of Jakob Christian Schaeffer (1718—1790),
the distinguished German naturalist.
1. Schæfferia frutescens Jacq. Yellow Wood. Box Wood.
[Illustration: Fig. 613]
Leaves bright yellow-green, 2′—2½′ long, ½′-1′ wide, with thick revolute
margins, appearing in Florida in April and persistent on the branches
until the spring of the following year; petioles short and broad.
Flowers opening in spring on branchlets of the year, ⅛′ across, the
staminate generally 3 or 5 together on pedicels rarely more than ⅙′
long, the pistillato solitary or 2 or 3 together on pedicels rather
longer than the petioles. Fruit ripening in Florida in November,
slightly grooved, compressed, bright scarlet, with an acrid disagreeable
flavor.
A glabrous tree, 35°—40° high, with a trunk sometimes 8′—10′ in
diameter, erect branches, and slender many-angled branchlets pale
greenish yellow during their first season, becoming light gray during
their second year and then conspicuously marked by the remains of the
persistent wart-like clusters of bud-scales; or often a tall or low
shrub. Bark of the trunk rarely more than 1/12′ thick, pale brown
faintly tinged with red, the surface divided by long shallow fissures,
and ultimately separating into long narrow scales. Wood heavy,
close-grained, bright clear yellow, with thick rather lighter colored
sapwood; sometimes used as a substitute for boxwood in wood engraving.
Distribution. Florida, upper Matecombe and Old Rhodes Keys, and eastward
on the southern keys, and on the Everglade Keys, Dade County; on the
Bahama Islands, and widely distributed through the West Indies to
Venezuela.
XXXV. ACERACEÆ.
Trees or rarely shrubs, with limpid juice, terete branches, scaly buds,
their inner scales accrescent and marking the base of the branchlets
with ring-like scars, and fibrous roots. Leaves opposite, or on vigorous
shoots rarely in whorls of 3, long-petiolate, simple, palmately
3—7-lobed and nerved or pinnately 3—7-foliolulate, usually without
stipules, deciduous, in falling leaving small U-shaped narrow scars
showing the ends of 3 equidistant fibro-vascular bundles. Flowers
regular, diœciously or monœciously polygamous, rarely perfect or
diœcious, in fascicles produced from separate lateral buds appearing in
early spring before the leaves or in terminal and lateral racemes or
panicles appearing with or later than the leaves; bracts minute,
caducous; calyx colored, generally 5-parted, the lobes imbricated in the
bud; petals usually 5, imbricated in the bud, or 0; disk annular,
fleshy, more or less lobed, with a free margin; stamens 4—10, usually 7
or 8, inserted on the summit or inside of the disk, hypogynous;
filaments distinct, filiform, commonly exserted in the staminate,
shorter and generally abortive in the pistillate flower; anthers oblong
or linear, attached at the base, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening
longitudinally; ovary 2-lobed, 2-celled, compressed contrary to the
dissepiment, wing-margined on the back; styles 2, inserted between the
lobes of the ovary, connate below and divided into 2 linear branches
stigmatose on their inner surface; ovules 2 in each cell, collateral,
rarely superposed, ascending, attached by their broad base to the inner
angle of the cell, anatropous or amphitropous; micropyle inferior. Fruit
composed of 2 samaras separable from a small persistent axis, the
nut-like carpels compressed laterally, produced on the back into a large
chartaceous or coriaceous reticulated obovate wing thickened on the
lower margin. Seed solitary by abortion, or rarely 2 in each cell,
ovoid, compressed, irregularly 3-angled, ascending obliquely, without
albumen; seed-coat membranaceous, the inner coat often fleshy; embryo
conduplicate; cotyledons thin, foliaceous or coriaceous, irregularly
plicate, incumbent or accumbent on the elongated descending radicle
turned toward the hilum.
A family of two genera, one widely distributed, the other, Dipteronia,
distinguished by the broad wings encircling the mature carpels, and
represented by a single Chinese species.
1. ACER L. Maple.
Characters of the family.
Acer with sixty or seventy species is widely distributed over the
northern hemisphere, with a single species extending south of the
equator to the mountains of Java. Acer produces light close-grained
moderately hard wood valued for the interior finish of houses and in
turnery. The bark is astringent, and the limpid sweet sap of some of the
American species is manufactured into sugar.
_Acer_ is the classical name of the Maple-tree.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.
Leaves simple, usually palmately lobed (_sometimes 3-foliolate in 1,
3-lobed at apex in 4_).
Flowers appearing with or after the leaves.
Flowers with petals; sepals distinct.
Inflorescence corymbose.
Flowers in terminal drooping corymbs.
Leaves 3-lobed or parted.
1. A. glabrum (B, F, G).
Leaves palmately 3—5-lobed.
2. A. circinatum (B, G).
Inflorescence racemose.
Flowers in dense erect racemes.
3. A. spicatum (A).
Flowers in drooping racemes.
Ovary and young fruit glabrous; leaves 3-lobed at apex.
4. A. pennsylvanicum (A).
Ovary and young fruit hairy; leaves deeply 5-lobed.
5. A. macrophyllum (G).
Flowers without petals; sepals united; inflorescence corymbose;
pedicels long, pendulous, mostly hairy.
Leaves pale or glaucescent, or green and glabrous beneath.
Leaves green or pale beneath, glabrous or in one form
villose-pubescent on the under side of the veins and on
the petioles.
6. A. saccharum (A, C).
Leaves pale and pubescent, rarely glabrous beneath, their
lobes usually short and obtuse or acuminate.
Lobes of the leaves only slightly lobed or entire; bark of
young trees smooth and pale.
7. A. floridanum (C).
Lobes of the leaves distinctly lobulate; bark of young trees
dark brown and scaly.
8. A. grandidentatum (F, H).
Leaves green and pubescent, rarely glabrous beneath.
Leaves hirsute-pubescent beneath and on the petioles, the
lobes entire or lobulate, the basal sinus often closed
by the lower lobes; bark dark and furrowed.
9. A. nigrum (A).
Leaves pilose-pubescent, rarely glabrous beneath, the lobes
slightly lobulate, the basal sinus open; petioles
glabrous; bark pale and smooth.
10. A. leucoderme (C).
Flowers appearing before the leaves in dense lateral clusters from
separate buds; leaves 5-lobed (_3-lobed in varieties of 12_);
fruit ripening in May or June.
Flowers sessile or short-stalked, without petals; ovary and young
fruit tomentose.
11. A. saccharinum
Flowers on long pedicels, with petals; ovary and young fruit
glabrous.
12. A. rubrum
Leaves 3—7-foliolate; flowers diœcious, without petals.
13. A. Negundo (A, B, C, F, G, H).
1. Acer glabrum Torr. Dwarf Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 614]
Leaves glabrous, thin, rounded in outline, cordate-truncate or cuneate
at base, 3—5-lobed, the middle lobe usually narrowed and entire below
the middle, or often 3-parted or 3-foliolate (f. _trisecta_ Sarg.), with
acute or obtuse doubly serrate lobes, 3′—5′ in diameter, dark green and
lustrous on the upper, paler on the lower surface, with conspicuous
veinlets; petioles stout, grooved, 1′—6′ in length, and often bright
red. Flowers about ⅛′ long on short slender pedicels, in loose
few-flowered glabrous racemose corymbs on slender drooping peduncles
from the end of 2-leaved branchlets, the staminate and pistillate
usually produced separately on different plants; sepals oblong, obtuse,
petaloid, as long as the greenish yellow petals; stamens 7 or 8, with
glabrous unequal filaments shorter than the petals, much shorter or
rudimentary in the pistillate flower; ovary glabrous, with short obtuse
lobes, rudimentary or 0 in the staminate flower; style divided to the
base into 2 spreading stigmatic lobes as long as the petals. Fruit
glabrous, with broad nearly erect or slightly spreading wings ¾′—⅞′
long, often rose-colored during the summer; seeds ovoid, bright
chestnut-brown, about ¼′ long.
A small tree, occasionally 20°—30° high, with a short trunk 6′—12′ in
diameter, small upright branches, and slender glabrous branchlets often
slightly many-angled, pale greenish brown when they first appear,
becoming bright red-brown during their first winter; often a shrub.
Winter-buds acute, ⅛′ long, with bright red or occasionally yellow
scales, those of the inner ranks pale brown tinged with pink, tomentose
on the inner surface, becoming 1½′ long and narrow-spatulate. Bark of
the trunk thin, smooth, and dark reddish brown. Wood heavy, hard,
close-grained, light brown or often nearly white, with thick lighter
colored sapwood.
Distribution. Borders of mountain streams usually at elevations of
5000°—6000°; Rocky Mountains from Montana to Wyoming, the Black Hills of
South Dakota, Sioux County, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, northern
Arizona, and to the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico; in California from
the Siskiyou Mountains along the Sierra Nevada to the East Fork of the
Kaweah River, Kern County, at altitudes of 5000°—6000° at the north and
of 8000°—9000° at the south. Passing into
Acer glabrum var. Douglasii Dippel.
_Acer Douglasii_ Hook.
[Illustration: Fig. 615]
Leaves ovate or oblong-ovate, slightly cordate by a wide shallow sinus,
truncate or rarely rounded at base, 3-lobed with acuminate lobes often
slightly divided into acuminate lobules, the terminal leaflet usually
ovate from a broad base, or occasionally gradually narrowed below and
rhombic in outline and sharply serrate to the base or nearly to the base
of the lobe with long-acuminate teeth pointing forward, dark green
above, paler and often glaucescent below, 3½′—4′ long and 3′—4′ wide,
with 3 prominent nerves extending to the points of the lobes, and
slender veins; petioles glabrous, 1′—3½′ in length. Flowers as in the
species. Fruit with erect or nearly erect wings, ¾′—1′ long and ⅓′—½′
wide.
A tree, occasionally 40° high, with a short trunk 12′—18′ in diameter,
small upright branches and slender bright red-brown branchlets.
Distribution. Coast of southern Alaska (head of Lynn Canal), southward
near the coast to Vancouver Island and western Washington, and eastward
on the high mountains of Washington to the Blue Mountains of eastern
Oregon, western Idaho and northern Montana; on Loomis Creek, Natrona
County, Wyoming.
2. Acer circinatum Pursh. Vine Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 616]
Leaves almost circular in outline, cordate at base by a broad shallow
sinus, or sometimes almost truncate, palmately 7—9-lobed occasionally
nearly to the middle, with acute lobes sharply and irregularly doubly
serrate, and conspicuously palmately nerved, with prominent veinlets,
when they unfold tinged with rose color, and puberulous, especially on
the lower surface and on the petioles, and at maturity glabrous with the
exception of tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the large veins, thin
and membranaceous, dark green above, pale below, and 2′—7′ in diameter;
in the autumn turning orange and scarlet; petioles stout, grooved, 1′—2′
in length, clasping the stem by their large base. Flowers appearing when
the leaves are about half grown, in loose 10—20-flowered umbel-like
corymbs pendent on long stems from the end of slender 2-leaved
branchlets, the staminate and pistillate flowers produced together;
sepals oblong to obovate, acute, villose, purple or red, much longer
than the greenish white broad, cordate petals folded together at apex;
stamens 6-8, with slender filaments villose at base, exserted in the
staminate flower, much shorter than the petals in the pistillate flower;
ovary glabrous, with spreading lobes, in the staminate flower reduced to
a small point surrounded by a tuft of pale hairs; style divided nearly
to the base into long exserted stigmas. Fruit with thin wings, 1½′ long,
spreading almost at right angles, red or rose color like the nutlets in
early summer, ripening late in the autumn; seeds smooth, pale
chestnut-brown, ⅛′¼′ long.
A tree, rarely 30°—40° high, often vine-like or prostrate, with a trunk
10′—12′ in diameter, and glabrous pale green or reddish brown branchlets
frequently covered during their first winter with a glaucous bloom, and
occasionally marked by small lenticels; often a low wide-spreading
shrub. Winter-buds ⅛′ long, rather obtuse, with thin bright red outer
scales rounded on the back, and obovate-spatulate inner scales rounded
at apex, contracted into a long narrow claw, bright rose-colored and
more or less pubescent, especially on the outer surface, and when fully
grown often 2′ long and ¼′ broad. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, bright
red-brown, marked by numerous shallow fissures. Wood heavy, hard,
close-grained, not strong, light brown, sometimes nearly white, with
thick lighter colored sapwood; used for fuel, the handles of axes and
other tools, and by the Indians of the northwest coast for the bows of
their fishing-nets.
Distribution. Banks of streams; coast of British Columbia through
western Washington and Oregon to Mendocino County, and the cañon of the
upper Sacramento River, California; one of the most abundant of the
deciduous-leaved trees of western Washington and Oregon up to altitudes
of 4000° above the sea, and of its largest size on the rich alluvial
soil of bottom-lands, its vine-like stems in such situations springing 4
or 5 together from the ground, spreading in wide curves and sending out
long slender branches rooting when they touch the ground and forming
impenetrable thickets of contorted and interlaced trunks, often many
acres in extent; in California smaller and less abundant, growing along
streams in the coniferous forest or rarely on dry ridges up to an
altitude of 4000° in the northeastern part of the state.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in Europe, and in the
eastern states, and hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
3. Acer spicatum Lam. Mountain Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 617]
Leaves subcordate or sometimes truncate at base, conspicuously 3-nerved,
3 or slightly 5-lobed, with gradually narrowed pointed lobes, and
sharply and coarsely glandular-serrate, when they unfold puberulous on
the upper surface and densely tomentose on the lower surface, and at
maturity thin, 4′—5′ long and broad; turning in the autumn to various
shades of orange and scarlet; petioles slender, enlarged at base, 2′—3′
in length, often becoming scarlet in summer. Flowers opening in June
after the leaves are fully grown, ¼′ diameter, on slender pedicels ½′—¾′
long, the pistillate toward the base and the staminate at the apex of a
narrow many-flowered long-stemmed upright slightly compound pubescent
raceme; calyx-lobes narrow-obovate, yellow, pubescent on the outer
surface, much shorter than the linear-spatulate pointed yellow petals;
stamens 7 or 8, inserted immediately under the ovary, with slender
glabrous filaments as long as the petals in the sterile flower, about as
long as the sepals in the pistillate flower, and glandular anthers;
ovary hoary-tomentose, reduced to a minute point surrounded by a tuft of
pale hairs in the staminate flower; style columnar, almost as long as
the petals, with short stigmatic lobes. Fruit fully grown and bright red
or yellow in July, turning brown late in the autumn, almost glabrous,
with more or less divergent wings about ½′ long; seeds smooth, dark
red-brown, ⅛′ long.
A bushy tree, occasionally 25°—30° high, with a short trunk 6′—8′ in
diameter, small upright branches, and slender branchlets light gray and
pubescent when they first appear, becoming glabrous during the summer,
bright red during their first winter, gray or pale brown the following
season, and blotched or streaked with green toward the base; more often
a tall or low shrub. Winter-buds acute; the terminal ⅛′ long, with
bright red outer scales more or less coated with hoary tomentum, those
of the inner ranks becoming at maturity 1′ or more in length and then
lanceolate, pale and papery; axillary buds much smaller and glabrous or
puberulous. Bark of the trunk very thin, reddish brown, smooth or
slightly furrowed. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown tinged
with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Moist rocky hillsides usually in the shade of other trees,
and really arborescent only on the western slopes of the high mountains
of Tennessee and North Carolina; Newfoundland and Labrador to Hudson
Bay, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, and southward through the northern
states, and westward to Minnesota and northeastern Iowa, and along the
Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in the
northern states.
4. Acer pennsylvanicum L. Striped Maple. Moose Wood.
[Illustration: Fig. 618]
Leaves rounded or cordate at base, palmately 3-nerved, 3-lobed at apex,
with short lobes contracted into a tapering serrate point, and finely
and sharply doubly serrate, when they unfold thin, pale rose color and
coated with ferrugineous pubescence, especially on the lower surface and
on the petioles, and at maturity glabrous with the exception of tufts of
ferrugineous hairs in the axils of the principal nerves on the two
surfaces, thin, pale green above, rather paler below, 5′—6′ long and
4′—5′ wide; turning in the autumn clear light yellow; petioles stout,
grooved, 1½′—2′ in length, with an enlarged base nearly encircling the
branch. Flowers bright canary-yellow, opening toward the end of May or
early in June when the leaves are nearly fully grown, on slender
pedicels ¼′—½′ long, in slender drooping long-stemmed racemes 4′—6′ in
length, the staminate and pistillate usually in different racemes on the
same plant; sepals linear-lanceolate to obovate, ¼′ long and a little
shorter and narrower than the obovate petals; stamens 7—8, shorter than
the petals in the staminate flower, rudimentary in the pistillate
flower; ovary purplish brown, glabrous, in the staminate flower reduced
to a minute point; styles united nearly to the top, with spreading
recurved stigmas. Fruit in long drooping racemes, glabrous, with thin
spreading wings ¾′ long, and marked on one side of each nutlet by a
small cavity; seeds ¼′ long, dark red-brown, and slightly rugose.
A tree, 30°—40° high, with a short trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, small
upright branches, and slender smooth branchlets pale greenish yellow at
first, bright reddish brown during their first winter, and at the end of
two or three years striped like the trunk with broad pale lines; or
often much smaller and shrubby in habit. Winter-buds: the terminal
conspicuously stipitate, sometimes almost ½′ long, much longer than the
axillary buds, covered by two thick bright red spatulate boat-shaped
scales prominently keeled on the back, the inner scales green and
foliaceous, becoming 1½′—2′ long, ½′ wide, pubescent, and bright yellow
or rose color. Bark of the trunk ⅛′—¼′ thick, reddish brown, marked
longitudinally by broad pale stripes, and roughened by many oblong
horizontal excrescences. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown,
with thick lighter colored sapwood of 30-40 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Usually in the shade of other trees, often forming in
northern New England a large part of their shrubby undergrowth; shores
of Ha-Ha Bay, Quebec, westward along the shores of Lake Ontario and the
islands of Lake Huron to northern Wisconsin, and southward through the
Atlantic states and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia;
ascending to altitudes of 5000°; common in the north Atlantic states,
especially in the interior and elevated regions; of its largest size on
the slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains, Tennessee, and of the Blue Ridge
in North and South Carolina.
Sometimes cultivated as an ornamental tree in the northern states, and
occasionally in Europe.
5. Acer macrophyllum Pursh. Broad-leaved Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 619]
Leaves more or less cordate at the broad base, deeply 5-lobed by narrow
sinuses acute in the bottom, the lobes acute or acuminate, the terminal
lobe often 3-lobed, the others usually furnished with small lateral
lobules, the lower lobes much smaller than the others, prominently
3—5-nerved, puberulous when they unfold, especially on the upper surface
along the principal veins, and at maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and
lustrous on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 8′—12′ in
diameter; turning in the autumn bright orange color before falling;
petioles stout, 10′—12′ in length, with enlarged bases united and
encircling the stem and often furnished on the inside with small tufts
of white hairs. Flowers bright yellow, fragrant, ¼′ long, on slender
pubescent often branched pedicels ½′—¾′ in length, the staminate and
pistillate together in graceful pendulous slightly puberulous racemes
4′—6′ long, appearing in April and May after the leaves are fully grown;
sepals petaloid, obovate, obtuse and a little longer and broader than
the spatulate petals; stamens 9—10, with long slender filaments hairy at
base, exserted in the staminate flower and included in the pistillate
flower, and orange-colored anthers; ovary hoary-tomentose, reduced in
the staminate flower to a minute point; styles united at base only;
stigmas long and exserted. Fruit fully grown by the 1st of July and
ripening late in the autumn; nutlets covered with long pale hairs, their
wings 1½′ long, ½′ wide, slightly divergent and glabrous with the
exception of a few hairs on the thickened edge; seeds dark-colored,
rugose and pitted, ¼′ long.
A tree, 80°—100° high, with a tall straight trunk 2°—3° in diameter,
stout often pendulous branches forming a compact handsome head, and
stout branchlets smooth and pale green at first, becoming bright green
or dark red in their first winter, covered more or less thickly with
small longitudinal white lenticels, and in their second summer gray or
grayish brown. Winter-buds obtuse; terminal ¼′ long, with short broad
slightly spreading dark red ciliate outer scales rounded on the back,
those of the inner ranks green and foliaceous, and at maturity 1½′ long,
colored and puberulous; axillary buds minute. Bark of the trunk ½′—¾′
thick, brown faintly tinged with red or bright reddish brown, deeply
furrowed and broken on the surface into small square plate-like scales.
Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, rich brown tinged with red,
with thick lighter colored often nearly white sapwood of 60—80 layers of
annual growth; more valuable than the wood produced by other
deciduous-leaved trees of western North America, and in Washington and
Oregon used in the interior finish of buildings, for furniture, and for
axe and broom-handles.
Distribution. Banks of streams or on rich bottom-lands or the rocky
slopes of mountain valleys; coast of Alaska south of latitude 55° north,
southward along the islands and coast of British Columbia, through
Washington and Oregon west of the Cascade Mountains, and southward along
the coast ranges and the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada to the San
Bernardino Mountains, and to Hot Spring Valley, San Diego County,
California; on the Sierra Nevada usually between altitudes of 2000° and
5000° and on the southern mountains rarely above 3000°; most abundant
and of its largest size in the humid climate and rich soil of the
bottom-lands of southwestern Oregon, forming extensive forests; in
California usually much smaller, especially on the coast ranges.
Generally planted in the Pacific States for shade and as a street tree,
and occasionally in the Eastern States as far north as Long Island, New
York, and in western Europe; not hardy in Massachusetts.
6. Acer saccharum Marsh. Sugar Maple. Rock Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 620]
Leaves rarely in whorls of 3, heart-shaped by a broad sinus, truncate or
sometimes cuneate at base, 3—5-lobed, the lobes usually acute sparingly
sinuate-toothed usually 3-lobulate at apex, with 3—5 conspicuous nerves,
and reticulate veinlets, when they unfold coated below with pale
pubescence, glabrous or more or less pubescent on the nerves below (var.
_Schneckii_ Rehd.) and at maturity, 4′—5′ in diameter, often rather
coriaceous, dark green and opaque on the upper surface, green or pale
(var. _glabrum_ Sarg.) on the lower surface; turning in the autumn
brilliant shades of deep red, scarlet and orange or clear yellow;
petioles slender, glabrous, 1½—3′ in length. Flowers appearing with the
leaves on slender more or less hairy pedicels ¾′—3′ long, in nearly
sessile umbel-like corymbs from terminal leaf-buds and lateral leafless
buds, the staminate and pistillate in the same or in separate clusters
on the same or on different trees; calyx broad-campanulate, 5-lobed by
the partial union of the obtuse sepals, greenish yellow, hairy on the
outer surface; corolla 0; stamens 7—8, with slender glabrous filaments
twice as long as the calyx in the staminate flower and much shorter in
the pistillate flower; ovary obtusely lobed, pale green, covered with
long scattered hairs, in the staminate flower reduced to a minute point;
styles united at base only, with 2 long exserted stigmatic lobes. Fruit
ripening in the autumn, glabrous, with broad thin and usually divergent
wings ½′—1′ long; seeds smooth, bright red-brown, ¼′ long.
A tree, 100°—120° high, with a trunk often 3°—4° in diameter, rising
sometimes in the forest to the height of 60°—70° without branches, or in
open situations developing 8°—10° from the ground stout upright branches
forming while the tree is young a narrow egg-shaped head, ultimately
spreading into a broad round-topped dome often 70°—80° across, and
slender glabrous branchlets green at first, becoming reddish brown by
the end of their first season, lustrous, marked by numerous large pale
oblong lenticels, and in their second winter pale brown tinged with red.
Winter-buds acute, ¼′ long, with purple slightly puberulous outer
scales, and inner scales becoming 1½′ long, narrow-obovate,
short-pointed at apex, thin, pubescent, and bright canary yellow. Bark
of young stems and of large branches pale, smooth or slightly fissured,
becoming on large trunks ½′—¾′ thick and broken into deep longitudinal
furrows, the light gray-brown surface separating into small plate-like
scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, tough, light brown
tinged with red, with thin sapwood of 30-40 layers of annual growth;
largely used for the interior finish of buildings, especially for
floors, in the manufacture of furniture, in turnery, shipbuilding, for
shoe-lasts and pegs, and largely as fuel. Accidental forms with the
grain curled and contorted, known as curly maple and bird’s-eye maple,
are common and are highly prized in cabinet-making. The ashes of the
wood are rich in alkali and yield large quantities of potash. Maple
sugar is principally made from the sap of this tree.
Distribution. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, westward to the Lake of the
Woods, Ontario, and southward through eastern Canada and the northern
states, and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia; in
central Alabama and Mississippi, and westward in the United States to
Minnesota, northeastern South Dakota (coulées of Little Minnesota River,
Roberts County), central and northwestern Iowa, eastern Kansas, central
Oklahoma, and eastern Louisiana; most abundant northward; ascending in
North Carolina the Alleghany Mountains to altitudes of 3000°; the var.
_glabrum_ rare and local in the north from Prince Edwards Island and
Lake St. John, Quebec, to Iowa and southward to Pennsylvania, Ohio and
central Tennessee; more abundant southward; apparently the only form but
not common in South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and
southern Arkansas; the var. _Schneckii_ with leaves glaucous or
glaucescent below and more or less densely pubescent with spreading
hairs, on the under side of the midrib and veins and on the petioles,
southern Indiana and Illinois to western Kentucky and western and middle
Tennessee, northwestern Georgia (near Rome, Floyd County), and to
eastern Missouri southward to Williamsville, Wayne County.
Commonly planted as a shade and ornamental tree in the northern states.
More distinct are the following varieties:
Acer saccharum var. Rugelii Rehd.
[Illustration: Fig. 621]
Leaves thick, 3′—5′ long and 4′—6′ wide, pale and glabrous below,
3-lobed by broad rounded sinuses, rounded or slightly cordate at base,
the lobes long-acuminate, usually entire, the middle lobe occasionally
slightly undulate, the lateral lobes spreading, sometimes furnished near
the base with a short acute lobule.
Distribution. Southeastern Ohio to western Pennsylvania (Kittaning,
Armstrong County) and eastern and middle Tennessee, and to southern
Ontario, the southern peninsula of Michigan, eastern and central
Indiana, southern Illinois, eastern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas
(Eureka Springs, Carroll County); rare and local in its extreme form;
its 3-lobed leaves sometimes appearing on upper branches of trees
bearing on lower branches leaves of the typical Sugar Maple.
Acer saccharum var. sinuosum Sarg.
_Acer sinuosum_ Rehd.
[Illustration: Fig. 622]
Leaves suborbicular, broader than long, 3—5-lobed with short
triangular-ovate to triangular-oblong obtuse lobes, entire or on
vigorous shoots occasionally dentate, usually broad-cordate at base,
often with the nerves of the two lateral lobes projecting into the broad
sinus and forming its base, when they unfold glabrous and purplish
above, loosely hairy below, soon glabrous, and at maturity dark
yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale,
reticulate-venulose and glabrous except in the axils of the principal
veins on the lower surface, 3—5-nerved, usually not more than 1½′ long,
occasionally up to 2¾′ long and 3′ wide; petioles slender, glabrous,
½′—1½′ in length. Flowers appearing with the leaves, on slender glabrous
pedicels, ½′—1¼ long, in 3—8-flowered nearly sessile corymbs; calyx
broad-campanulate or cupulate, with short semiorbicular lobes ciliate on
the margins; petals 0; stamens usually 6, with slender filaments longer
than the calyx of the staminate flower; style divided to below the
middle, with two spreading stigmas. Fruit glabrous, with long and broad
almost horizontally spreading nutlets, convex, smooth, pale
yellow-brown, the wing curved upward.
A tree, rarely more than 20° high with a short trunk 8′—10′ in diameter,
small branches forming an open irregular head, and slender glabrous
branchlets light green above when they first appear, becoming pale
red-brown and marked by pale lenticels during their first season and
ultimately dull gray-brown. Bark of the trunk smooth, pale gray.
Winter-buds small, obtuse, covered with dark brown scales, those of the
inner ranks accrescent, linear-oblong, scarlet or pink, up to 1⅛′ in
length when fully grown.
Distribution. Edwards Plateau of western Texas, banks and bluffs of
Cibolo Creek, near Boerne, Kendall County, on the rocky banks of upper
Saco Creek, Bandera County, and at the base of a high limestone bluff
near Utopia, Uvalde County; rare and local.
7. Acer floridanum Pax. Sugar Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 623]
Leaves rounded, truncate or slightly cordate at the broad base,
3—5-lobed, with short obtuse or acute entire or lobulate lobes, when
they unfold sparingly hairy on the upper surface and hoary-tomentose on
the lower surface, and at maturity thin, dark green and lustrous above,
pale or glaucescent and pubescent below, 1½′—3′ in diameter, and
prominently 3—5-nerved, with stout spreading lateral veins and
conspicuous reticulate veinlets; turning yellow and scarlet in the
autumn before falling; petioles slender, glabrous, or pubescent
generally becoming glabrous, 1½′—3′ in length, with an enlarged base
nearly encircling the branchlet. Flowers appearing with the leaves on
slender elongated sparingly hairy ultimately glabrous or
villose-tomentose (var. _villipes_ Rehd.) pedicels, in many-flowered
drooping nearly sessile corymbs; calyx campanulate, yellow, about ⅛′
long, persistent under the fruit, the short lobes ciliate on the margins
with long pale hairs; corolla 0. Fruit green, sparingly villose until
fully grown, usually becoming glabrous, with spreading occasionally
erect wings ⅜′—¾′ long; seeds smooth, bright red-brown, about ¼′ long.
A tree, occasionally 50°—60° high, with a trunk rarely 3° in diameter,
small erect and spreading branches, and slender glabrous or more or less
densely villose-tomentose (var. _villipes_ Rehdr.) branchlets, light
green when they first appear, becoming rather light red-brown during
their first season, and covered with minute pale lenticels; usually
smaller. Winter-buds obtuse, about ⅛′ long, with dark chestnut-brown
obtuse scales and bright rose-colored linear-spatulate inner scales
often 1′ long when fully grown. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, pale,
becoming near the base of old trees thick, dark, and deeply furrowed.
Distribution. River banks and low wet woods, southeastern Virginia (near
McKinney, Dinwiddie County, _W. W. Ashe_), valley of the Roanoke River
near Weldon, Halifax County, North Carolina, and southward to southern
Georgia and western Florida to Lafayette County; near Selma, Dallas
County, Alabama; West Feliciana Parish and through western Louisiana to
eastern Texas (Harrison and St. Augustine Counties), and southern
Arkansas (Fulton, Hempstead County); the var. _fillipes_ near Raleigh,
Walker County, North Carolina, Calhoun Falls, Abbeville County, South
Carolina, Shell Bluff on the Savannah River, Burke County, Cuthbert,
Randolph County, and Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia; River Junction,
Gadsden County, Florida, and on the San Luis Mountains, southern New
Mexico (_A. brachypterum_ Woot. & Stanl.).
Sometimes planted as a shade-tree; the prevailing tree in the streets
and squares of Raleigh, North Carolina.
8. Acer grandidentatum Nutt. Sugar Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 624]
Leaves cordate or truncate at base, 3-lobed by broad shallow sinuses,
the lobes acute or obtuse, entire or slightly lobulate, sparingly hairy
on the upper surface and thickly coated with dense pale tomentum on the
lower surface when they unfold, and at maturity thick and firm, dark
green and lustrous above, pale and pubescent below, especially on the
stout nerves and veins, or rarely glabrous, 2′—5′ in diameter; turning
in the autumn before falling yellow and scarlet; petioles stout, 1′—2′
in length, glabrous, often red after midsummer, encircling the branchlet
with their large base villose on the inner surface. Flowers appearing
with the leaves on long slender drooping villose pedicels, in
short-stalked corymbs; calyx campanulate, yellow, sparingly hairy with
long pale hairs, about ¼′ long, with broad rounded lobes, often
persistent under the fruit; corolla 0; stamens 7 or 8, much longer than
the calyx, in the pistillate flower shorter than the calyx; ovary
usually glabrous, with long spreading stigmatic lobes, rudimentary in
the staminate flower. Fruit often rose-colored at midsummer, green at
maturity, glabrous or rarely sparingly hairy, with spreading or erect
wings ½′—1′ long; seeds smooth, light red-brown, about ¼′ long.
A tree, occasionally 30°—40° high, with a trunk 8′—10′ in diameter,
stout usually erect branches, and slender glabrous bright red branchlets
marked by numerous small pale lenticels and nearly encircled by the
narrow leaf-scars, with conspicuous bands of long pale hairs in their
axils. Winter-buds acute or acuminate, about 1/16′ long, bright
red-brown, with puberulous-ciliate outer scales and obovate apiculate
inner scales sometimes ½′ long when fully grown. Bark of the trunk thin,
dark brown, separating on the surface into plate-like scales. Wood
heavy, hard, close-grained, bright brown or nearly white, with thick
sapwood.
Distribution. Banks of mountain streams usually at altitudes of
5000°—6000° above the sea; on the Salt River Mountains, western Wyoming;
valley of the Columbia River in northern Montana, southeastern Idaho
(Pocatello, Oneida County), Wasatch Mountains, Utah, mountains of
Arizona and of southern New Mexico; on the Guadalupe Mountains, western
Texas, and on the Wichita Mountains, southwestern Oklahoma (_G. W.
Stevens_); in Coahuila; rare and local.
Occasionally cultivated; hardy in the Arnold Arboretum.
9. Acer nigrum Michx. Black Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 625]
Leaves generally 3 or occasionally 5-lobed, with abruptly short-pointed
acute or acuminate lobes, undulate and narrowed from broad shallow
sinuses and rarely furnished with short lateral spreading lobules,
cordate at base with a broad sinus usually more or less closed by the
approximation or imbrication of the basal lobes, occasionally 3-lobed
with a broad long-acuminate nearly entire terminal lobe, and rounded or
slightly cordate at base (var. _Palmeri_ Sarg.), covered below when they
unfold with hoary tomentum and above with caducous pale hairs, and at
maturity thick and firm in texture, dull green on the upper surface,
yellow-green and soft-pubescent, especially along the yellow veins on
the lower surface, and 5′—6′ long and wide, with drooping sides; turning
bright clear yellow in the autumn; petioles stout, tomentose or
pubescent, sometimes becoming glabrous at maturity, usually pendent,
3′—5′ in length, much enlarged at base, frequently nearly inclosing the
buds, in falling leaving narrow scars almost encircling the branchlet
and furnished in their axils with tufts of long pale hairs; stipules
triangular and dentate or foliaceous, sessile or stipitate, oblong,
acute, tomentose or pubescent, sometimes slightly lobed, frequently 1½′
long. Flowers yellow, about ¼′ long, on slender hairy pedicels 2½′—3′
long, in many-flowered nearly sessile umbel-like corymbs, the staminate
and pistillate in separate or in the same cluster on the same or on
different trees; calyx broad-campanulate, 5-lobed by the partial union
of the sepals, pilose on the outer surface near the base; corolla 0;
stamens 7 or 8, with slender glabrous filaments, in the staminate flower
nearly twice as long as the calyx and in the pistillate flower shorter
than the calyx; ovary obtusely lobed, pale green, covered with long
scattered hairs, minute in the sterile flower. Fruit glabrous, with
convergent or wide-spreading wings ½′—1′ long; seeds smooth, bright
red-brown, ¼′ long.
A tree, sometimes 80° high, with a trunk frequently 3° in diameter,
stout spreading or often erect branches, and stout branchlets marked by
oblong pale lenticels, orange-green and pilose with scattered pale
caducous hairs when they appear, orange or orange-brown and lustrous
during their first year, becoming dull pale gray-brown the following
season. Winter-buds sessile, ovoid, acute, ⅛′ long, with dark red-brown
acute scales hoary-pubescent on the outer surface and often slightly
ciliate on the margins, and yellow puberulous inner scales, ½′—1′ long
at maturity. Bark of young stems and of the branches thin, smooth, pale
gray, becoming on old trunks thick, deeply furrowed, and sometimes
almost black.
Distribution. Valley of the St. Lawrence River in the neighborhood of
Montreal, Quebec, southward to the valley of Cold River, New Hampshire,
through western Vermont and Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut
(near Salisbury, Litchfield County), and westward through northern and
western New York, southern Ontario, Ohio, the southern peninsula of
Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa to southeastern Minnesota,
northeastern South Dakota, western and southern Missouri, eastern
Kansas, and southward through western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and
eastern Kentucky; comparatively rare near Montreal and in New England,
more abundant farther west; almost entirely replacing _Acer saccharum_
in Iowa, and the only Sugar Maple of South Dakota; easily distinguished
in summer by its heavy drooping leaves, and at all seasons of the year
by the orange color of the branchlets; the var. _Palmeri_ in a single
grove at Tunnel Hill, Johnson County, Illinois; southern Indiana
(Shelby, Putnam and Lawrence Counties), and in Clark, Jackson and
Dunklin Counties, Missouri; rare and local.
Occasionally planted in the region where it grows naturally as a
shade-tree.
10. Acer leucoderme Small. Sugar Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 626]
Leaves usually truncate or slightly cordate at base, more or less deeply
divided into 3—5 acute caudate-acuminate lobes coarsely and sinuately
dentate or undulate, when they unfold coated below with long matted pale
caducous hairs, and at maturity thin, dark yellow-green above, bright
yellow-green and pilose-pubescent below, 2′—3½′ in diameter; often
turning in the autumn bright scarlet on the upper surface before
falling; petioles slender, glabrous, 1′—1½′ in length. Flowers yellow,
about ⅛′ long, on slender, glabrous pedicels, in nearly sessile
clusters; calyx campanulate, glabrous or slightly villose, with rounded
ciliate lobes; corolla 0; stamens 7 or 8; filaments villose, longer than
the calyx, much shorter than the calyx in the pistillate flower; ovary
villose; style elongated, with short spreading lobes. Fruit villose,
with long scattered pale hairs until nearly grown, becoming glabrous at
maturity, the wings wide-spreading or divergent, ½′—¾′ long; seeds
smooth, light red-brown, about ¼′ long.
A tree, usually 20°—25° high, with a trunk a foot in diameter,
occasionally 40° high, with a trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, short slender
branches forming a rather compact round-topped head, and slender
glabrous branchlets dark green when they first appear, becoming bright
red-brown and lustrous during their first summer, and marked by numerous
small oblong pale lenticels, gradually growing darker in their second
year and finally light gray-green. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, dark brown,
glabrous, rather more than 1/16′ long, the inner scales becoming bright
crimson and very conspicuous when the tree is in flower. Bark of young
stems and large branches close, light gray or grayish brown, becoming
near the base of old trees dark brown or often nearly black and broken
by deep furrows into narrow ridges covered by closely appressed scales.
Distribution. Banks of streams, rocky gorges, and woods in moist soil;
valley of the Yadkin River, Stanley County, North Carolina; southeastern
Tennessee (Polk County); valley of the Savannah River (Abbeville County,
South Carolina, and Richmond County, Georgia) to central and
northwestern Georgia (near Rome, Floyd County, and Walker County) and to
the valley of the Chattahoochee River to Muscogee County; northern and
central Alabama; western Louisiana (Natchitoches and Sabine Parishes);
southern Arkansas (Baker Springs, Howard County); rare and local; most
abundant in northwestern and central Georgia and northern Alabama.
Occasionally planted as a street tree in the towns of northern Georgia
and Alabama; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
11. Acer saccharinum L. Silver Maple. Soft Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 627]
Leaves truncate or somewhat cordate at base, deeply 5-lobed by narrow
sinuses, with acute irregularly and remotely dentate lobes, the middle
lobe often 3-lobed, 6′—7′ long and nearly as broad, thin, bright pale
green above, silvery white and at first slightly hairy below, especially
in the axils of the primary veins; turning pale yellow in the autumn
before falling; petioles slender, drooping, bright red, 4′—5′ in length.
Flowers greenish yellow, opening during the first warm days of the late
winter or early spring long before the appearance of the leaves, on
short pedicels, in sessile axillary fascicles on shoots of the previous
year, or on short spur-like branchlets developed the year before from
wood of the preceding season, the staminate and pistillate in separate
clusters, on the same or on different trees, and produced from clustered
obtuse buds covered with thick ovate pubescent red and green scales
ciliate on the margins with a thick fringe of long rufous hairs; calyx
slightly 5-lobed, more or less pubescent on the outer surface, long and
narrow in the staminate and short and broad in the pistillate flower;
corolla 0; stamens 3—7, with slender filaments, three times as long as
the calyx of the staminate flower and about as long as the calyx of the
pistillate flower; ovary covered, like the young fruit, with a thick
coat of pubescence, rudimentary in the sterile flower; styles united at
base only, with long exserted stigmatic lobes. Fruit ripening in April
and May when the leaves are nearly grown, on slender drooping pedicels,
1½′—2′ long, glabrous, 1½′ to nearly 3′ long, with thin almost straight
conspicuously falcate divergent wings sometimes ¾′ broad, prominently
reticulate-veined and pale chestnut-brown or rarely bright red; seeds ½′
long, with a pale reddish brown wrinkled coat, germinating as soon as
they fall to the ground, and producing plants with several pairs of
leaves before the end of the summer.
A tree, 90°—120° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, generally
dividing 10°—15° from the ground into 3 or 4 stout upright secondary
stems destitute of branches for a considerable length, brittle pendulous
branchlets light green and covered with lenticels when they first
appear, soon becoming darker, bright chestnut-brown, smooth and lustrous
in the autumn and winter of their first year, and in their second season
pale rose color or gray faintly tinged with red. Winter-buds ⅛′ long,
with thick ovate bright red outer scales rounded on the back, minutely
apiculate, and ciliate on the margins, and acute inner scales pubescent
on the inner surface, becoming pale green or yellow and about 1′ long.
Bark of young stems and large branches smooth and gray faintly tinged
with red, becoming on old trunks ½′—¾′ thick, reddish brown and more or
less furrowed, the surface separating into large thin scales. Wood hard,
strong, close-grained, easily worked, rather brittle, pale brown, with
thick sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual growth; now sometimes used for
flooring and in the manufacture of furniture. Sugar is occasionally made
from the sap.
Distribution. Sandy banks of streams, rarely in deep often submerged
swamps; valley of the St. John’s River (near Fredericton), New
Brunswick, to that of the St. Lawrence in Quebec, and southward through
western Vermont and central Massachusetts to western Florida, Alabama,
and south central Mississippi, and westward through Ontario, New York,
Ohio, the southern peninsula of Michigan and southern Indiana to
Minnesota, southeastern South Dakota, and eastern Nebraska, and through
Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, eastern Kansas, northwestern Arkansas,
and eastern Oklahoma; in western Louisiana (swamp near Alexandria,
Rapides Parish); rare in the immediate neighborhood of the Atlantic
coast and on the high Appalachian Mountains; probably of its largest
size in the valley of the lower Ohio River.
Often cultivated with several forms differing in habit and in the lobing
of the leaves; fast-growing, and largely planted in the eastern states
as a park and street tree.
12. Acer rubrum L. Red Maple. Scarlet Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 628]
Leaves truncate, more or less cordate by a broad shallow sinus, rounded
or cuneate at base, 3—5-lobed by acute sinuses, with irregularly doubly
serrate or toothed lobes, the middle lobe often longer than the others,
when they unfold pubescent especially beneath, and at maturity light
green and glabrous on the upper surface and white or glaucescent and
more or less pubescent or densely tomentose (var. _tomentosum_ Kirch.
[var. _rubrocarpum_ Detmars]) on the lower surface, particularly along
the principal veins, chartaceous or sometimes almost coriaceous, 1½′—6′
long and rather longer than broad; turning in the early autumn to
brilliant shades of scarlet and orange, or clear bright yellow; petioles
slender, glabrous or puberulous, red or green, 2′—4′ in length. Flowers
opening in March and April before the appearance of the leaves, bright
scarlet, dull yellowish red or sometimes yellow (var. _pallidiflorum_
Pax.), on long slender pedicels, in few-flowered fascicles on branches
of the previous year, from clustered obtuse buds, the staminate and
pistillate flowers in separate clusters on the same or on different
trees; sepals oblong, obtuse, as long as and broader than the oblong or
linear petals; stamens 5—8, scarlet or yellow, with slender filaments
exserted in the staminate and included in the pistillate flower; ovary
glabrous on a narrow slightly lobed glandular disk; styles slightly
united above the base, with long exserted stigmatic lobes. Fruit
ripening in the spring or early summer on drooping stems 3′—4′ long,
scarlet, dark red or brown or yellow, with thin erect wings, convergent
at first, divergent at maturity, ½′—1′ long and ¼′—½′ wide; seeds dark
red, with a rugose coat, ¼′ long, germinating as soon as it falls to the
ground.
A tree, 80°—120° high, with a tall trunk 3°—4½° in diameter, upright
branches usually forming a rather narrow head, and branchlets green or
dark red when they first appear, becoming dark or bright red and
lustrous at the end of their first summer and marked by numerous
longitudinal white lenticels, and gray faintly tinged with red in their
second year. Winter-buds obtuse, ⅛′ long, with thick dark red outer
scales, rounded on the back and ciliate on the margins, and inner scales
becoming ¾′—1′ long, narrow-oblong, rounded at apex and bright scarlet.
Bark of young stems and of the branches smooth and light gray, becoming
on old trunks ¼′—½′ thick, dark gray, and divided by longitudinal ridges
separating on the surface into large plate-like scales. Wood very heavy,
close-grained, not strong, light brown often slightly tinged with red,
with thick rather lighter colored sapwood; used in large quantities in
the manufacture of chairs and other furniture, in turnery, for wooden
ware and gun-stocks.
Distribution. Borders of streams, wet swamps, upland forests and rarely
on dry rocky hillsides and sand dunes; Newfoundland, southward to
southern Florida (banks of the Miami River, Dade County, on the east
coast and to Cypress swamps east of Everglade, Lee County, on the west
coast) and westward through Quebec to latitude 49° north, and Ontario to
the sandy shores of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (Brevort, Mackinac
County, on Lake Michigan and White Fish Point, Chippewa County, on Lake
Superior), western Wisconsin, northwestern Minnesota (Buckeye County),
southeastern Iowa (Johnson County), central Oklahoma, and the valley of
the Trinity River, Texas; on the mountains of North Carolina to
altitudes of 4500°; one of the commonest and most generally distributed
trees of eastern North America, ranging between more degrees of latitude
than any other American tree; most abundant southward especially in the
valley of the Mississippi River, and of its largest size in the river
swamps of the lower Ohio and its tributaries; in the north often
covering with small trees low wet swamps; on the sand dunes and ridges
of northern Michigan reduced to a low shrub. On var. _tomentosum_ leaves
usually 5-lobed, cordate or rarely rounded at base, with glabrous or
pubescent petioles and branchlets; widely distributed but rare; near
Cranberry Island, Buckeye Lake, Licking County, Ohio; Biltmore, Buncombe
County, North Carolina; neighborhood of Augusta, Richmond County,
Georgia; top of Flagstaff Mountain, Barclay, Talladega County, Alabama;
Panther Burn, Sharkey County, Mississippi; near Little Rock, Pulaski
County, Arkansas; near Page, Leflore County, Oklahoma, and Larissa,
Cherokee County, Texas; connected by trees of this variety with
pubescent branchlets and winter-buds, and broad-ovate 3—5-lobed slightly
cordate leaves and pubescent petioles with
Acer rubrum var. Drummondii Sarg.
[Illustration: Fig. 629]
Leaves often broader than long, usually 5-lobed, cordate or truncate at
base, 3′—6′ long and wide, with a stout midrib and veins, until nearly
fully grown covered above with scattered hairs and clothed below with
thick snow-white tomentum, and more or less pubescent during the season;
petioles stout, hoary-tomentose, 1¼′—4′ in length, becoming nearly
glabrous in the autumn. Flowers bright scarlet. Fruit ripening with or
before the unfolding of the leaves late in March or in April, bright
scarlet, with convergent wings 1¼′—2½′ long and ½′—¾′ wide.
A tree, usually not more than 30°—35° high, with small erect branches
forming a narrow head and slender branchlets coated when they first
appear with matted pale hairs, becoming glabrous and dark reddish brown
in their second season.
Distribution. Deep swamps, eastern Louisiana to the valley of the Neches
River (Beaumont, Jefferson County, and Concord, Hardin County), eastern
Texas and northward through southern and eastern Arkansas to western
Mississippi, western Tennessee and Kentucky, southeastern Missouri
(Butler, Stoddard, Dunklin and Mississippi Counties), southern Illinois
(Gallatin, Pulaski and Richland Counties), and southwestern Indiana
(swamp eighteen miles west of Decker, Knox County, _C. C. Deam_). A form
growing at Hattiesburg, Forrest County, Mississippi, at Glen Gordon,
Covington, St. Tammany Parish, and Chopin, Natchitoches Parish,
Louisiana, near Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas, and at Poplar Bluff,
Butler County, Missouri, with 3-lobed leaves rounded at base (f.
_rotundatum_ Sarg.) shows in the shape of the leaves a transition from
the var. _Drummondii_ to
Acer rubrum var. tridens Wood. Red Maple.
_Acer carolinianum_ Britt., not Walt.
[Illustration: Fig. 630]
Leaves obovate, usually narrowed from above the middle to the rounded or
rarely cuneate base, 3-lobed at apex, with acute or acuminate erect or
slightly spreading lobes, simple or furnished with short lateral
secondary lobes, remotely serrate except toward the base, with incurved
glandular teeth, and often ovate by the suppression of the lateral lobes
and acute or acuminate, thick and firm in texture, glaucous and usually
pubescent or rarely tomentose or tomentulose below, 2′—3′ long and
1½′—2½′ wide; petioles slender, glabrous or pubescent. Flowers sometimes
tawny yellow. Fruit usually much smaller and rarely also yellow.
Distribution. Usually with the species; Massachusetts and central New
York, southward usually in the coast region and the middle districts to
western Florida, along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Trinity
River, Texas, and through western Louisiana, and Arkansas to
northeastern Mississippi, southern Missouri, western Tennessee and
Kentucky and southern Illinois; in North Carolina occasionally ascending
on the Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of 3000°; often the prevailing
Red Maple in southern Missouri and northwestern Louisiana; in the swamps
of western Florida and southwestern Georgia the form with leaves densely
tomentose below and pubescent petioles prevails.
13. Acer Negundo L. Box Elder. Ash-leaved Maple.
[Illustration: Fig. 631]
Leaves usually 3, rarely 5—7-foliolate, with a slender glabrous petiole
2′—3′ in length, the enlarged base often furnished with a minute rim of
deciduous white hairs, and in falling leaving a large conspicuous scar
surrounding the stem; leaflets ovate to elliptic or obovate, acuminate,
and often long-pointed at apex, rounded or cuneate and often
unsymmetrical at base, coarsely and irregularly serrate usually only
above the middle or nearly entire, and occasionally slightly and
irregularly lobulate; when they unfold more or less hoary-tomentose
below and slightly pubescent above, and at maturity thin, light green,
paler on the lower than on the upper surface, glabrous above,
villose-pubescent along the under side of the midrib and veins, often
furnished with conspicuous tufts of axillary hairs, otherwise glabrous
or slightly pubescent below, 2½′—4′ long, and 1½′—2½′ wide, on slender
glabrous petiolules, that of the terminal leaflet ¾′—1′ long and much
longer than those of the smaller lateral leaflets. Flowers on slender
glabrous or rarely hairy pedicels, minute, apetalous, yellow-green, the
staminate and pistillate on separate trees, expanding just before or
with the leaves from buds developed in the axils of the last leaves of
the previous year, the staminate fascicled, the pistillate in narrow
drooping racemes, sometimes furnished near the base with one or two
smaller 3-lobed or rarely elliptic leaves; calyx 5-lobed, hairy,
campanulate in the staminate flower, much smaller in the pistillate
flower and divided to the base into 5 narrow sepals; corolla 0; stamens
4—6, with slender exserted hairy filaments and long linear anthers
narrowed and apiculate at apex, 0 in the pistillate flower; ovary on a
narrow rudimentary disk, pubescent, only partly inclosed by the calyx;
style separating from the base into 2 long stigmatic lobes. Fruit
attaining nearly its full size in summer, pendent on glabrous stems
1′—2′ long, in graceful racemes 6′—8′ in length, ripening in the autumn,
deciduous from the stems persistent on the branches until the following
spring, 1½′—2′ long, with narrow acute pubescent nutlets diverging at an
acute angle and constricted below into a stipe-like base, and thin
reticulate straight or falcate wings undulate toward the apex; seeds
narrowed at the ends, smooth, bright red-brown, ½′ long.
A tree 50°—70° high, with a trunk 2°—4° in diameter, dividing near the
ground into a number of stout wide-spreading or erect branches, and
slender pale green lustrous glabrous branchlets. Winter-buds terminal
acute, ⅛′ long, rather longer than the obtuse lateral buds, the scales
tomentose, those of the inner pairs accrescent, becoming 1′ long at
maturity, deciduous, leaving conspicuous scars visible at the base of
the branchlet for two or three years. Bark of the trunk ¼′—½′ thick,
pale gray or light brown and deeply divided into broad rounded ridges
separating on the surface into short thick scales. Wood light, soft,
close-grained, not strong, creamy white, with thick hardly
distinguishable sapwood; occasionally manufactured into cheap furniture,
and sometimes used for the interior finish of houses, for wooden ware,
cooperage, and paper pulp. Small quantities of maple sugar are
occasionally made from this tree.
Distribution. Banks of streams and lakes, and the borders of swamps;
western Vermont, western Massachusetts and Connecticut, central New York
and southwestern Ontario, and southward to west-central Florida
(Hernando County) and westward to Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri,
eastern Kansas, Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, western Louisiana, and
eastern and southern Texas to the valley of the lower Rio Blanco.
Often planted in the United States, especially in the western states and
in eastern Canada, and in western and northern Europe, especially the
varieties with variegated leaves.
Passing into the following varieties:
Var. violaceum Kirch., with slender pale or bluish violet glabrous
branchlets covered with a glaucous bloom and rather larger winter-buds.
Leaves 3—11, usually 3—7-foliolulate, the leaflets slightly thicker,
lanceolate to oblong-ovate or obovate, often entire or irregularly
dentate, occasionally lobed, the terminal leaflet sometimes 3-lobed,
usually pubescent and furnished with tufts of axillary hairs on the
lower surface. Fruit glabrous, usually constricted at the base. Western
Massachusetts through Ohio to northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and
South Dakota, and to northern and southwestern Missouri; in Nez Perces
County, Idaho.
Var. texanum Pax., with branchlets covered with pale tomentum. Leaves
3-foliate, the leaflets ovate, or the terminal obovate, acuminate,
short-pointed at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, coarsely serrate
above the middle or entire, only slightly and irregularly lobed, early
in the season villose along the midrib and veins above and thickly
coated below with matted pale hairs, and at maturity nearly glabrous on
the upper surface and covered below with loose pubescence, 3′—4′ long
and 2′—3′ wide. Fruit puberulous, constricted into a short stipe-like
base. Western and southwestern Missouri, southeastern Kansas, Arkansas,
Oklahoma and eastern Texas to the valley of the San Antonio River.
Passing into forma _latifolia_ Sarg. differing only in its glabrous
branchlets, and distributed from eastern Texas through Louisiana to
western Mississippi, western North Carolina, Virginia and southern Ohio.
Var. interior Sarg., with branchlets covered with close pale pubescence,
or rarely nearly glabrous. Leaves trifoliate, with puberulous petioles,
rachis and petiolules, the long-stalked leaflets ovate to lanceolate, or
the terminal sometimes obovate, acuminate and long-pointed at apex,
cuneate, rounded or cordate at base, coarsely serrate, sometimes
distinctly 3-lobed at base, glabrous or villose on the midrib below, or
in Arizona sometimes sparingly pubescent on the lower surface, 3′—4′
long and 1½′—4′ wide. Fruit glabrous, not at all, slightly or at the
north conspicuously constricted at the base. Southern Manitoba,
Saskatchewan and Alberta to Wyoming, and through the mountain regions of
Colorado and Utah to New Mexico and Arizona.
Var. arizonicum Sarg., with glabrous branchlets thickly covered with a
glaucous bloom. Leaves thin, 3-foliolulate; petioles slender, glabrous,
1¾′—3′ long, often turning bright red late in summer; leaflets
oblong-ovate to rhombic, acuminate and long-pointed at apex, rounded or
cuneate at base, coarsely serrate, often slightly lobed near the middle,
glabrous with the exception of conspicuous tufts of axillary hairs,
2½′—4′ long, 1½′—2′ wide; petiolules slender, glabrous, usually bright
red, that of the terminal leaflet ¾′—1′ long, the others not more than
⅛′ in length. Fruit in glabrous racemes 3′ or 4′ long, the body
glabrous, spreading, not constricted at base. A tree, 20°—25° high. Bark
fissured. Mountain cañons, central and southern Arizona up to 8000°
altitude, and in Socorro County, New Mexico. More distinct is
Acer Negundo var. californicum Sarg.
[Illustration: Fig. 632]
Leaves trifoliate with tomentose or nearly glabrous rachis and
petiolules; leaflets oblong-ovate to rhombic, acuminate and long-pointed
at apex, cuneate or unsymmetrically rounded at base, coarsely serrate
above the middle, or nearly entire, when they unfold hoary-tomentose
below and densely pubescent above, occasionally deeply lobed, glabrous
on the upper surface except along the midrib and veins, thickly coated
on the lower surface with matted pale hairs and furnished with large
axillary tufts. Fruit on pubescent pedicels, puberulous or nearly
glabrous, not constricted or rarely slightly constricted at base.
A tree, 20°—50° high, with dark bark, hoary-tomentose branchlets and
winter-buds.
Distribution. California, valley of the lower Sacramento River and the
interior valleys of the coast ranges from the Bay of San Francisco to
Santa Barbara County and in elevated cañons on the western slopes of the
San Bernardino Mountains; widely distributed but nowhere abundant.
Occasionally planted in California.
XXXVI. HIPPOCASTANACEÆ.
Trees or rarely shrubs, with stout terete branchlets conspicuously
marked by triangular leaf-scars, fetid bark, thick fleshy roots, and
large scaly winter-buds, the inner scales accrescent with the young
shoots and often brightly colored. Leaves opposite, digitately compound,
without stipules, deciduous; leaflets 3—9, lanceolate or ovate, serrate,
pinnately veined. Flowers polygamo-monœcious, showy, white, red, or pale
yellow, on stout jointed pedicels from the axils of minute caducous
bracts, racemose or nearly unilateral on the branches of large terminal
thyrsi or panicles, appearing later than the leaves, only those near the
base of the branches of the inflorescence perfect and fertile; calyx 5
or rarely 2-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, unequal, campanulate
or tubular, the lobes imbricated in the bud, mostly oblique or
posteriorly gibbous at base; disk hypogynous, annular, depressed, lobed,
more or less gibbous posteriorly; petals 4 or 5, imbricated in the bud,
alternate with the lobes of the calyx, deciduous, the anterior petal
often abortive, unguiculate, the margins of the claw commonly involute;
stamens 6—8, rarely 5, generally 7, inserted on the disk, free, unequal;
filaments filiform; anthers ellipsoid, glandular-apiculate, attached on
the back below the middle, introrse, 2-celled, the contiguous cells
opening longitudinally; ovary sessile, oblong or lanceolate, 3-celled,
echinate or glabrous, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style
slender, elongated, generally more or less curved; stigma terminal,
entire, mostly acute; ovules 2 in each cell, borne on the middle of its
inner angle, amphitropous, the upper ascending, the micropyle inferior,
the lower pendulous, the micropyle superior. Fruit an echinate or smooth
coriaceous capsule, 3-celled and loculicidally 3-valved, the cells
1-seeded by abortion, often by suppression 1 or 2-celled, and then 1 or
2-seeded, the remnants of the abortive cells and seeds commonly visible
at its maturity. Seeds without albumen, round when one is developed, or,
when more than one, flattened by mutual pressure; seed-coat coriaceous,
dark chestnut-brown or pale orange-brown, smooth and lustrous, with a
broad opaque light-colored hilum; embryo filling the cavity of the seed;
cotyledons very thick and fleshy, often conferruminate, unequal,
incurved on the short conic radicle, remaining under ground in
germination; plumule conspicuously 2-leaved.
The Horsechestnut family is composed of the widely distributed genus
Aesculus and of Billia Peyr., a genus of two species of Mexican and
Central American trees, differing from Aesculus in its 3-foliolate
leaves.
1. AESCULUS L.
Characters of the family; leaves 5—9-foliolate.
Aesculus with fifteen or sixteen species, is represented in the floras
of the three continents of the northern hemisphere and is most abundant
in the southeastern United States. It produces soft straight-grained
light-colored wood and bitter and astringent bark. The seeds contain a
bitter principle, aesculin. _Aesculus Hippocastanum_ L., of the
mountains of Greece, the common Horsechestnut of gardens, is largely
planted as an ornamental tree in all countries with temperate climates,
and now occasionally grows spontaneously in the eastern states.
The generic name is the classical name of an Oak-tree.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF NORTH AMERICA.
Winter-buds without a resinous covering. Pavia.
Calyx campanulate (_occasionally tubular in 3_); margins of the
petals ciliate, eglandular; flowers usually yellow. Octandræ.
Fruit covered with prickles; flowers yellow; petals nearly equal
in length, shorter than the stamens.
1. A. glabra (A, C).
Fruit without prickles; flowers yellow or red; petals unequal in
length, longer than the stamens.
Pedicels and calyx glandular-villose.
2. A. octandra (A, C).
Pedicels and calyx without glandular hairs.
3. A. georgiana (C).
Calyx tubular; margins of the unequal petals without hairs,
glandular; fruit without prickles. Eupaviæ.
Lower surface of the leaves glabrous or slightly pubescent along
the midrib; flowers red; seeds dark chestnut-brown.
4. A. Pavia (C).
Lower surface of the leaves tomentose or pubescent; flowers red
and yellow, red, or in one form yellow; seed light
yellow-brown.
5. A. discolor (C).
Winter-buds resinous; petals nearly equal in length, shorter than the
stamens; fruit without prickles. Calothyrsus.
6. A. californica (G).
1. Aesculus glabra Willd. Ohio Buckeye. Fetid Buckeye.
[Illustration: Fig. 633]
Leaves with a slender petiole 4′—6′ long and enlarged at the end, a
rachis often furnished on the upper side with clusters of dark brown
chaff-like scales surrounding the base of the petiolules, and 5 rarely 7
(var. _Buckleyi_ Sarg.) oval-oblong or obovate acuminate leaflets
gradually narrowed to the elongated entire base, finely and unequally
serrate above, at first sessile, becoming slightly petiolulate at
maturity, covered on the lower surface like the petioles when they first
appear with floccose deciduous hairs most abundant on the midrib and
veins, and at maturity glabrous with the exception of a few hairs along
the under side of the conspicuous yellow midrib and in the axils of the
principal veins, or rarely covered below with close dense pubescence
persistent during the season (var. _pallida_, Kirch.); yellow-green,
paler on the lower than on the upper surface, 4′—6′ long and 1½′—2½′
wide; turning yellow in the autumn before falling. Flowers pale
yellow-green, mostly unilateral, ½′—1½′ long or more than twice as long
as the pedicels, appearing in April and May in clusters 5′—6′ long and
2′—3′ wide, and more or less densely covered with pubescence, with short
usually 4—6-flowered branches; calyx campanulate; petals nearly equal,
puberulous, the thin limb about twice as long as the claw, in the
lateral pair broad-ovate or oblong, and in the superior pair
oblong-spatulate, much narrower, sometimes marked with red stripes;
stamens usually 7, with long exserted curved pubescent filaments and
orange-colored slightly hairy anthers; ovary pubescent, covered with
long slender deciduous prickles thickened and tubercle-like at base.
Fruit on a stout stem ½′—1′ long, ovoid or irregularly obovoid, pale
brown, 1′—2′ long, with thin or sometimes thick valves, roughened by the
enlarged persistent bases of the prickles of the ovary; seeds 1′—1½′
broad.
A tree, occasionally 70° high, with a trunk rarely 2° in diameter, small
spreading branches, and branchlets orange-brown and covered at first
with short fine pubescence, soon glabrous, reddish brown, and marked by
scattered orange-colored lenticels; usually much smaller, and rarely
more than 30° high. Winter-buds ⅔′ long, acuminate, with thin nearly
triangular pale brown scales, the outer bright red on the inner surface
toward the base, those of the inner pair strap-shaped, prominently
keeled on the back, minutely apiculate and slightly ciliate along the
margins, and at maturity 1½′—2′ long and bright yellow. Bark of young
stems and of the branches dark brown and scaly, becoming on old trees ¾′
thick, ashy gray, densely furrowed, and broken into thick plates
roughened on the surface by numerous small scales. Wood light, soft,
close-grained, not strong, often blemished by dark lines of decay,
nearly white, with thin dark-colored sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual
growth; used in the manufacture of artificial limbs, wooden ware, wooden
hats, and paper pulp; occasionally sawed into lumber. An extract of the
bark has been used as an irritant of the cerebro-spinal system.
Distribution. River-bottoms and the banks of streams in rich moist soil;
western slopes of the Alleghany Mountains, western and southwestern
Pennsylvania to northern Alabama, and westward to central and southern
Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, northern and central Missouri and
northeastern Kansas; nowhere abundant; most common and of its largest
size in the valley of the Tennessee River in Tennessee and northern
Alabama.
A shrubby form (var. _micrantha_ Sarg.) with flowers not more than ½′
long near Fulton, Hempstead County, Arkansas. In southern Missouri,
Arkansas and probably Oklahoma _Aesculus glabra_ is replaced by the var.
_leucodermis_ Sarg. with glabrous leaves pale green or glaucescent
below. A tree occasionally 60° high, well distinguished from the type by
the smooth pale nearly white bark of the trunk and large branches,
becoming on old trunks light brown and separating into oblong flakes,
and by its later flowers; the var. _pallida_ in Iowa, Missouri and
Arkansas; the var. _Buckleyi_ in Jackson County, Missouri, eastern
Kansas, Ohio and Mississippi.
The Ohio Buckeye is occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in
the eastern United States and Europe; hardy as far north as eastern
Massachusetts.
× _Aesculus Bushii_ Schn., probably a hybrid of _Aesculus discolor_ var.
_mollis_ Sarg. and _Aesculus glabra_ var. _leucodermis_ Sarg., has been
found in the neighborhood of Fulton, Hempstead County, Arkansas; and
what is evidently a hybrid of _Aesculus discolor_ var. _mollis_ and the
typical form of _Aesculus glabra_ occurs near Starkville, Oktibbeha
County, Mississippi.
× _Aesculus mississippiensis_ Sarg., a probable hybrid between _Aesculus
glabra_ and _Aesculus Pavia_ with characters intermediate between those
of its supposed parents, occurs near Brookville, Noxubee County,
Mississippi. The mingling of a species of the Octandræ and of the
Eupaviæ in these hybrids of Aesculus is shown by the presence of both
hairs and glands on the margins of the petals.
2. Aesculus octandra Marsh. Sweet Buckeye.
[Illustration: Fig. 634]
Leaves with slender or slightly pubescent petioles 4′—6′ long, and 5—7
elliptic or obovate-oblong leaflets, acuminate and usually abruptly
long-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, sharply
and equally serrate, glabrous above except on the midrib and veins
sometimes clothed with reddish brown pubescence, when they unfold more
or less canescent-pubescent on the lower surface, becoming glabrous at
maturity, with the exception of a few pale or rufous hairs along the
stout midrib and in the axils of the principal veins, dark yellow-green,
duller on the lower than on the upper surface, 4′—6′ long, and 1½′—2½′
wide; petiolules 1/12′—½′ in length; turning yellow in the autumn before
falling. Flowers opening in early spring when the leaves are about half
grown, 1′—1½′ long, pale or dark yellow, rarely red, pink or
cream-colored (var. _virginica_ Sarg.), on short glandular-villose
pedicels mostly unilateral on the branches of the pubescent clusters
5′—7′ in length; calyx campanulate, glandular-villose; petals connivent,
very unequal, puberulent, the claws villose within, limb of the superior
pair spatulate, minute, the long claws exceeding the lobes of the calyx,
those of the lateral pair obovate or nearly round and subcordate at
base; stamens usually 7, rather shorter than the petals, with straight
or inclining subulate villose filaments; ovary pubescent. Fruit 2′—3′
long, generally 2-seeded, with thin smooth or slightly pitted pale brown
valves; seeds 1½′ to nearly 2′ wide.
A tree, sometimes 90° high, with a tall straight trunk 2½°—3° in
diameter, small rather pendulous branches, and glabrous or nearly
glabrous branchlets orange-brown when they first appear, becoming in
their second year pale brown and marked by numerous irregularly
developed lenticels. Winter-buds ⅔′ long, rather obtuse, with
broad-ovate pale brown outer scales rounded on the back, minutely
apiculate, ciliate, and slightly covered with a glaucous bloom, the
inner scales becoming sometimes 2′ long, bright yellow or occasionally
scarlet. Bark of the trunk about ¾′ thick, dark brown, divided by
shallow fissures and separating on the surface into small thin scales.
Wood light, soft, close-grained, difficult to split, creamy white, with
thick hardly distinguishable sapwood; used in the manufacture of
artificial limbs, for wooden ware, wooden hats, paper pulp, and
occasionally sawed into lumber.
Distribution. Rich river-bottoms and mountain slopes; southwestern
Pennsylvania (Alleghany, Greene and Fayette Counties), southward along
the mountains to east Tennessee, and northwestern Georgia, and westward
to north central Ohio (near Plymouth, Richard County), southeastern and
southern Indiana (near Aurora, Dearborn County, and on the banks of Dry
River near Leavenworth, Crawford County, _C. C. Deam_) and to southern
Illinois (near Golconda, Pope County, shrub 6′—12′ high, _E. J.
Palmer_); the var. _virginica_ at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
Occasionally cultivated in the parks of the eastern United States and
Europe.
× _Aesculus hybrida_ DC., with red and yellow flowers, believed to be a
hybrid of _Aesculus octandra_ and _Aesculus Pavia_, appeared in the
Botanic Garden at Montpelier in France early in the nineteenth century,
and in many varieties is cultivated in Europe and occasionally in the
eastern United States.
3. Aesculus georgiana Sarg.
[Illustration: Fig. 635]
Leaves with slender glabrous petioles 4½′—6′ in length, and 5 leaflets
oblong-obovate, abruptly acuminate and long-pointed at apex, gradually
narrowed and acuminate at base, finely often doubly serrate with rounded
teeth pointing forward, sparingly covered early in the season,
especially on the upper side of the midrib and veins, with short
caducous hairs, yellow-green above, green, glabrous and lustrous or
pubescent (var. _pubescens_ Sarg.) below, 4½′—6′ long, 1½′—2½′ wide,
with a stout orange-colored midrib and 20—30 pairs of slender primary
veins; petiolules stout, puberulous early in the season, ¼′—½′ in
length. Flowers opening in April and May 1′—1⅛′ long, on slender
puberulous pedicels, in broad pubescent panicles, 4′—6′ in length; calyx
campanulate or tubular, puberulous, about 5/12′ in diameter, red on the
upper side, pale yellow on the lower side or entirely red or yellow,
5-lobed, the lobes oblong-ovate, narrowed and rounded at apex, finely
serrate on the margins; petals connivent, obovate, rounded at apex,
gradually narrowed below, those of the superior and lateral pairs very
unequal in size, puberulous and glandular on the outer surface,
pubescent on the inner surface, ciliate on the margins, bright yellow or
red, their claws furnished on the margins with long white hairs, those
of the superior pair as long as the lateral petals; stamens 7, shorter
than the petals; filaments villose, especially below the middle; ovary
covered with matted pale hairs; styles exserted, villose. Fruit on stout
pendulous pedicels, globose, usually 1-seeded, 1′—1¼′ in diameter, with
thin light brown slightly pitted valves; seed globose, dark
chestnut-brown.
A tree, 25°—30° high, with a trunk 6′—10′ in diameter, slender erect and
spreading branches and stout glabrous branchlets, orange-green and
marked by pale lenticels when they first appear, becoming light reddish
brown in their first winter; more often a large or small round-topped
shrub 3°—5° tall and broad. Bark of the trunk thin, dark brown, the
surface separating into small thin scales. Winter-buds about ⅓′ long,
with light reddish brown scales, narrowed, rounded and short-pointed at
apex. The common Buckeye of the Piedmont region of North and South
Carolina and northern Georgia.
Distribution. Central North Carolina (Durham and Orange Counties),
southward to eastern (Richmond County) and central Georgia; northern
Alabama (Madison, Etowah and Tuscaloosa Counties), and near Pensacola,
Escambia County, Florida. The var. _pubescens_ occasionally arborescent
in habit, common in the woods west of Augusta, Richmond County, and in
De Kalb, Rabun and Floyd Counties, Georgia, ranging northward to Orange
County, North Carolina, and ascending on the Blue Ridge to altitudes of
3000°; in northern Alabama.
× _Aesculus Harbisonii_ Sarg., a probable hybrid between _A. discolor_
var. _mollis_ and _A. georgiana_, has appeared in the Arnold Arboretum
among plants of _A. georgiana_ raised from seeds collected near Stone
Mountain, De Kalb County, Georgia.
A distinct form of _Aesculus georgiana_ is
Aesculus georgiana var. lanceolata Sarg.
[Illustration: Fig. 636]
Leaves with glabrous petioles 3½′—5½′ in length, and 5 lanceolate or
slightly oblanceolate leaflets long-acuminate at apex, cuneate at base,
and finely glandular-serrate, when the flowers open early in May thin
yellow-green above, pale below, glabrous with the exception of
occasional hairs on the under side of the slender midrib and of minute
axillary tufts, 6′—8′ long and 1¼′—1½′ wide; petiolules 1/12′—⅙′ in
length. Flowers on stout puberulous pedicels, bright red, in narrow
crowded clusters, 8′—10′ long; calyx narrow-campanulate, otherwise as in
the type. Fruit not seen.
A tree 25°—30° high, with a short trunk 6′—10′ in diameter, small erect
and spreading branches forming a narrow head, and slender glabrous
branchlets orange-brown when they first appear, becoming dark gray-brown
and marked by pale lenticels in their second year.
Distribution. Georgia, rich woods near Clayton, Rabun County.
4. Aesculus Pavia L. Red-flowered Buckeye.
[Illustration: Fig. 637]
Leaves with slender petioles glabrous or puberulous early in the season
and 4′—7′ long, and 5 short-petiolulate, oblong-obovate, acuminate
leaflets, gradually narrowed at base, coarsely often doubly serrate
above with incurved teeth, slightly pubescent early in the season along
the upper side of the midrib and veins, and glabrous or slightly
pubescent below, and at maturity thin, lustrous and glabrous, dark green
on the upper surface, pale yellow-green on the lower surface, often
furnished with conspicuous tufts of axillary hairs, 3½′—6′ long and
1¼′—1¾′ wide, with a thin midrib and from 18—30 pairs of slender primary
veins. Flowers in narrow pubescent panicles, 4½′—8′ in length, on
slender pubescent pedicels; calyx tubular, dark red, puberulous on both
surfaces, minutely lobed, the lobes rounded, much shorter than the light
red petals; petals connivent, unequal, oblong-obovate, rounded at apex,
glandular on the outer surface and on the margins, gradually narrowed
below into a long slender villose claw; claw of the lateral petals about
as long or shorter than the calyx, those of the superior pair much
longer than the calyx, their blades not more than one-third as large as
the blades of the lateral pair; stamens exserted; filaments villose like
the ovary. Fruit obovoid or subglobose, light brown, smooth, generally
pitted, usually 1 or 2-seeded, pendulous on slender stems; seeds usually
about 1′ in diameter, dark chestnut-brown and lustrous with a small
hilum.
Occasionally a tree, rarely 40° high, with a tall trunk 8′—10′ in
diameter covered with smooth dark bark, large erect branches forming an
open head, and stout light orange-brown branchlets marked in their
second year by conspicuous emarginate scars of fallen leaves showing the
ends of 3 fibro-vascular bundles; usually a shrub, often flowering when
not more than 3′ high.
Distribution. Southeastern Virginia, southward to western Florida to the
valley of the Suwanee River (near Old Town, Lafayette County), and
westward to eastern Louisiana, usually in the neighborhood of the coast;
in Alabama ranging inland to Jefferson and Dallas Counties and in
Louisiana to West Feliciana Parish; in southern Kentucky (near Bowling
Green, Warren County).
5. Aesculus discolor Pursh. Buckeye.
[Illustration: Fig. 638]
Leaves with slender grooved villose or pubescent usually ultimately
glabrous petioles 4′ or 5′ long, and 5 oblong-obovate or elliptic
leaflets, acuminate and usually long-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed
and acuminate at the entire base, finely or coarsely and sometimes
doubly crenulate-serrate above, dark green, lustrous and glabrous except
along the slender yellow midrib and veins on the upper surface, lighter
colored and tomentulose or tomentose on the lower surface, 4′—5′ long,
1½′—2′ wide, nearly sessile or raised on slender petiolules up to ½′ in
length. Flowers opening from the first to the middle of April, usually
¾′—1′ long, on slender pubescent pedicels much thickened on the fruit,
sometimes ¼′ long, and mostly aggregated toward the end of the short
branches of the narrow pubescent inflorescence 6′—8′ in length; calyx
red, rose color or yellow more or less deeply tinged with red, tubular,
short and broad or elongated, puberulous on the outer surface, tomentose
on the inner surface, with rounded lobes; petals yellow, shorter than
the stamens, connivent, unequal, oblong-obovate, rounded at apex,
puberulous on the outer surface and glandular on the margins with minute
dark glands, those of the superior pair about half as wide as those of
the lateral pair, with claws much longer than the calyx; filaments and
ovary villose. Fruit ripening and falling in October, usually only a few
fruits maturing in a cluster, generally obovoid or occasionally
subglobose, mostly 2-seeded, 1½′—2½′ long, with very thin, light brown
slightly pitted valves; seeds light yellow-brown, sometimes 1½′ in
diameter, with a comparatively small hilum and a thin shell.
Rarely arborescent and occasionally 25° high, with a straight trunk 6′
or 7′ in diameter, stout branches forming a narrow symmetric head, and
slender branchlets marked by numerous small pale lenticels, green and
puberulous at first, becoming gray slightly tinged with red during their
first winter and only slightly darker in their second year; usually a
small or large shrub. Winter-buds broad-ovoid, obtusely pointed, about
¼′ long, with rounded apiculate light red-brown scales. Bark thin,
smooth, and pale.
Distribution. Rich woods; Shell Bluff on the Savannah River, Burke
County, Georgia; near Birmingham, Jefferson County, and Selma, Dallas
County, Alabama; near Campbell, Dunklin County, Missouri; Comal Springs,
New Braunfels County, and Sutherland Springs, Wilson County, Texas; rare
and local, and found as a tree only near Birmingham, Alabama; more
abundant is the var. _mollis_ Sarg. (_Aesculus austrina_ Small) with
bright red flowers; a tree up to 25° or 30° high, or more often a large
or small shrub; valley of the lower Cape Fear River (near Wilmington,
New Hanover County), North Carolina, southward near the coast to the
neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina, through Georgia to the
neighborhood of Rome, Floyd County, and southward to western Florida; in
Alabama widely distributed from Jefferson County southward; widely
distributed in Mississippi except in the neighborhood of the Gulf coast,
to West Feliciana Parish, eastern Louisiana; more common and generally
distributed in western Louisiana, and through eastern Texas to the
valley of the San Antonio River (neighborhood of San Antonio, Bexar
County) and to that of the upper Guadalupe River (near Boerne, Kendall
County), ranging northward through Arkansas to southern Missouri and
western Tennessee.
On the Edwards Plateau of western Texas _Aesculus discolor_ is
represented by the var. _flavescens_ Sarg., with yellow flowers,
appearing a few days earlier than those of the var. _mollis_; a shrub
9′—12′ high, or often much smaller; interesting as the only form of
Eupaviæ with yellow flowers; San Marcos, Hays County, common on the
slopes above Comal Springs, near New Braunfels, Comal County, near
Boerne, Kendall County (with the var. _mollis_), Kerrville, Kerr County,
and Cancan, Uvalde County.
6. Aesculus californica Nutt. Buckeye.
[Illustration: Fig. 639]
Leaves with slender grooved petioles 3′—4′ long, and 4—7 usually 5
oblong-lanceolate acuminate leaflets narrowed and acuminate or rounded
at base, sharply serrate, 4′—6′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, dark green above,
paler below, slightly pubescent when they first appear, becoming
glabrous or nearly so, on petiolules ½′—1′ long; falling early, often by
midsummer. Flowers white or pale rose color, 1′—1¼′ long, appearing from
May to July when the leaves are fully grown, on short pedicels mostly
unilateral on the long branches of the densely flowered long-stemmed
pubescent cluster 3′—9′ in length; calyx 2-lobed, slightly toothed, much
shorter than the narrow oblong petals; stamens 5—7, with long erect
exserted slender filaments and bright orange-colored anthers; ovary
densely pubescent. Fruit obovoid, often somewhat gibbous on the outer
side, with thin smooth pale brown valves, usually 1-seeded, 2′—3′ long,
on a slender stalk ¼′—½′ in length; seeds pale orange-brown, 1½′—2′
broad.
A tree, rarely 20°—30° high, with a short trunk occasionally 4°—5° in
diameter, often much enlarged at base, stout wide-spreading branches,
forming a round-topped head, and branchlets glabrous and pale reddish
brown when they first appear, becoming darker in their second season;
more often a shrub, with spreading stems 10°—15° high forming broad
dense thickets. Winter-buds acute, covered with narrow dark brown scales
rounded on the back and thickly coated with resin. Bark of the trunk
about ¼′ thick, smooth, and light gray or nearly white. Wood soft,
light, very close-grained, white or faintly tinged with yellow, with
thin hardly distinguishable sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. California, borders of streams, valley of the south fork
of the Salmon River, Siskiyou County, south along the coast ranges to
San Luis Obispo County and on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada,
usually at altitudes between 2000° and 2500°, occasionally to 5000°, to
the northern slopes of Tejon Pass, Kern County, and to Antelope Valley,
Los Angeles County.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the Pacific states,
and in western and southern Europe.
XXXVII. SAPINDACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with alternate pinnate petiolate persistent or
deciduous leaves, without stipules. Flowers regular or irregular,
polygamo-diœcious, polygamo-monœcious or polygamous; calyx of 4 or 5
sepals or lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 4 or 5 imbricated in the
bud; disk annular, fleshy, 5-lobed, or unilateral and oblique; stamens
usually 7—10, inserted on the disk; filaments free; anthers introrse,
2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 2—4 or 3-celled;
styles terminal; stigmas capitate or lobed; ovule solitary or 2 in each
cell, anatropous or amphitropous. Fruit a drupe or capsule. Seed usually
solitary, without albumen; seed-coat bony, coriaceous or crustaceous.
Of the one hundred and twenty-six genera of this family, which is
chiefly confined to the tropics and is more abundant in the Old than in
the New World, four have arborescent representatives in the United
States.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Fruit baccate.
Fruit dark orange-color or yellow, with thin semitranslucent
coriaceous flesh; ovules 1 in each cell of the ovary; leaflets
subcoriaceous to coriaceous.
1. Sapindus.
Fruit purple, with thick juicy flesh; ovules 2 in each cell of the
ovary; leaflets thin, persistent.
2. Exothea.
Fruit a drupe; leaves 3-foliolate, persistent.
3. Hypelate.
Fruit a 3-valved capsule; leaves 4 or 5, rarely 3-foliolate,
deciduous.
4. Ungnadia.
1. SAPINDUS L. Soapberry.
Trees or shrubs, with terete branches, without a terminal bud, marked by
large obcordate leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 equidistant
fibro-vascular bundles, small globose axillary buds often superposed in
pairs, the upper bud the larger, and thick fleshy roots. Leaves equally
or rarely unequally pinnate. Flowers regular, minute, polygamo-diœcious,
on short pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, in ample
axillary or terminal panicles; sepals 4 or 5, unequal, slightly united
at base; petals 4 or 5, equal, alternate with the sepals, inserted under
the thick edge of the annular fleshy entire crenately lobed disk,
unguiculate, naked or furnished at the summit of the claw on the inside
with a 2-cleft scale, deciduous; stamens usually 8 or 10, inserted on
the disk immediately under the ovary, equal; filaments subulate or
filiform, often pilose, exserted in the staminate, much shorter in the
pistillate flower; anthers oblong, attached near the base; pistils 2 or
3, united; ovary sessile, entire or 2—4-lobed, 2—4-celled, narrowed into
a short columnar style, rudimentary in the staminate flower; stigma
2—4-lobed, the lobes spreading; ovule solitary in each cell, ascending
from below the inner angle of the cell; raphe ventral; micropyle
inferior. Fruit baccate, coriaceous, 1—3-seeded, usually formed of 1
globose coriaceous carpel, with the rudiments of the others remaining at
its base, or of 2 or sometimes 3 carpels more or less connate by their
base and then 2—3-lobed. Seed solitary in each carpel, obovoid or
globose; seed-coat bony, smooth, black or dark brown; tegmen
membranaceous or fleshy; hilum oblong, surrounded by an ariloid tuft of
long pale silky hairs; embryo incurved or straight; cotyledons thick and
fleshy, incumbent; radicle very short, inferior, near the hilum.
Sapindus is widely distributed through the tropics, especially in Asia,
occasionally extending into colder regions. About forty species have
been distinguished; of these three are found within the territory of the
United States.
Sapindus contains a detersive principle which causes the pulp of the
fruit to lather in water, and makes it valuable as a substitute for
soap. The bark, which is bitter and astringent, has been used as a
tonic. The seeds of several of the species are strung for chaplets and
bracelets and are used as buttons.
The generic name, from _sapo_ and _Indus_, refers to the detersive
properties and use of the first species known to Europeans, a native of
the West Indies.
CONSPECTUS OF THE SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
Leaves persistent.
Rachis of the leaf interrupted-winged, with usually broad wings;
leaflets 4—9, oblong-lanceolate and acute to elliptic-ovate or
oblong, tomentulose below; petals without scales; fruit
globose, orange-brown.
1. S. saponaria (D).
Rachis of the leaf without wings narrow-margined or marginless;
leaflets 7—13, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, often somewhat
falcate, glabrous below; petals with scales; fruit somewhat
oblong, dorsally keeled, yellow.
2. S. marginatus (C).
Leaves deciduous, their rachis without marginal borders; leaflets
8—18, lanceolate, mostly falcate, soft-pubescent or ultimately
glabrous below; petals with scales; fruit globose, not keeled,
turning black in drying.
3. S. Drummondii (C, E).
1. Sapindus saponaria L.
[Illustration: Fig. 640]