An intricately branched almost leafless tree or shrub, with thin

red-brown scaly bark, stout alternate glabrous branchlets covered with

pale green bark and terminating in a sharp rigid straight or slightly

curved spine. Leaves minute, early deciduous, alternate, narrow-obovate,

rounded at apex. Flowers perfect, on slender club-shaped puberulous

pedicels from the axils of minute scarious deciduous bracts, in short

umbel-like racemes below the end of the branches; calyx of 3 or 5 minute

sepals imbricated in the bud, deciduous; petals 4, convolute in the bud,

hypogynous, obovate or oblong, subunguiculate, white, much longer than

the sepals; disk 0; stamens 8, free, hypogynous, as long as the petals;

filaments thickened in the middle, subulate at the ends; anthers oval,

attached on the back near the base, 2-celled, the cells opening

longitudinally; ovary ovoid, 2-celled, contracted at base into a short

stalk and above into a simple subulate style; stigma terminal, obtuse,

slightly emarginate; ovules numerous, adnate in several series to the

fleshy placenta, horizontal or dependent, anatropous. Fruit a 2-celled

berry, black at maturity, subglobose, tipped with the remnants of the

pointed style; flesh thin and succulent, the cells 1 or 2-seeded by

abortion. Seed vertical, circinate-cochleate; seed-coat crustaceous,

slightly rugose, striate; albumen thin; embryo annular; cotyledons

semiterete; the radicle ascending.

The family is represented by a single genus.

1. KŒBERLINIA Zucc.

Characters of the family.

Kœberlinia with one species is North American.

The generic name is in honor of L. Koeberlin, a German botanist.

1. Kœberlinia spinosa Zucc.

[Illustration: Fig. 680]

Leaves not more than ⅛′ long. Flowers appearing in May and June, about

¼′ in diameter. Fruit 3/16′—¼′ in diameter.

A bushy tree, rarely 20°—25° high, with a short stout trunk sometimes

6°—8° long and a foot in diameter; more often a low branching shrub

forming impenetrable thickets often of considerable extent. Wood very

hard, heavy, close-grained, dark brown somewhat streaked with orange,

becoming almost black on exposure, with thin yellow or nearly white

sapwood of 12—15 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Dry gravelly mesas and foothills; valleys of the upper

Colorado River (Big Springs, Howard County), and of the lower Rio

Grande, Texas, westward through southern Texas and New Mexico to

southern Arizona, and southward through northern Mexico, and in Lower

California (San Jorge).

XLIV. CARICACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with bitter milky juice, and alternate long-petiolate

persistent simple or digitately compound leaves, without stipules.

Flowers unisexual or perfect, the perianth of the male and female

flowers dissimilar; stamens in two series, inserted on the corolla;

filaments free; anthers introrse. Fruit baccate.

The Pawpaw family with two genera is tropical American and Mexican, a

single representative of the family reaching the shores of southern

Florida.

1. CARICA L.

Short-lived trees, with erect simple or rarely branched stems composed

of a thin shell of soft fibrous wood surrounding a large central cavity

divided by thin soft cross partitions at the nodes, and covered with

thin green or gray bark marked by the ring-like scars of fallen

leaf-stalks, and stout soft fleshy roots. Leaves simple, palmately lobed

or digitate, crowded toward the top of the stem and branches, large,

flaccid, subpeltately palmately nerved, and usually deeply and often

compoundly lobed. Flowers regular, monœcious or polygamo-diœcious,

white, yellow, or greenish white, in axillary cymose panicles, the

staminate elongated, pedunculate, and many-flowered, the pistillate

abbreviated and few or usually 3-flowered, generally unisexual and

diœcious, occasionally polygamo-diœcious, each flower in the axil of a

minute ovate acute bract; calyx minute, 5-lobed, the lobes alternate

with the petals; corolla of the staminate flower salverform,

gamopetalous, the tube elongated, 5-lobed, the lobes oblong or linear,

contorted in the bud; stamens 10; filaments free, those of the outer row

alternate with the lobes of the corolla and elongated, the others

alternate with them and abbreviated; anthers 2-celled, erect, opening

longitudinally, often surmounted by their slightly elongated connective;

ovary rudimentary, subulate; pistillate flower, calyx minute, 5-lobed,

persistent under the fruit; corolla polypetalous, petals 5,

linear-oblong, erect, ultimately spreading above the middle, deciduous;

ovary free, sessile, 1-celled or more or less spuriously 5-celled; style

0 or abbreviated; stigmas 5, linear, radiating, dilated and subpalmately

lobed at apex; ovules indefinite, inserted in two rows on the placenta,

anatropous, long-stalked; micropyle superior; raphe ventral;

hermaphrodite flower, corolla gamopetalous, tubular-campanulate, the

lobes erect and spreading or subreflexed; stamens 10, in 2 ranks, or 5;

ovary obovoid-oblong, longer than the tube of the corolla, more or less

spuriously 5-celled below. Fruit slightly 5-lobed, l-celled or more or

less completely 5-celled, filled with soft pulp, many-seeded, that

produced from the hermaphrodite flower long-stalked, pendulous, usually

unsymmetric, gibbous, and smaller than that from the pistillate flower.

Seeds ovoid, inclosed in membranaceous silvery white sac-like arils,

occasionally germinating within the fruit; seed-coat crustaceous,

closely investing the membranaceous inner coat, the outer coat becoming

thick, rugose, succulent, and ultimately dry and leathery; embryo in the

axis of fleshy albumen; cotyledons ovate, foliaceous, compressed, longer

than the terete radicle turned toward the minute pale subbasilar hilum.

Carica with about twenty species is distributed from southern Florida

through the West Indies to southern Brazil and Argentina, and from

southern Mexico to Chile. One species grows probably indigenously in

Florida. The milky juice of Carica contains papain, which has the power

of digesting albuminous substances, and the leaves are often used in

tropical countries to make meat tender.

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

1. Carica Papaya L. Pawpaw.

[Illustration: Fig. 681]

Leaves ovate or orbicular, deeply parted into 5—7 lobes divided more or

less deeply into acute lateral lobes, these secondary divisions entire

or rarely lobed, the lowest lobes forming a deep basal sinus, thin,

flaccid, yellow-green, 15′—24′ in diameter, with broad flat yellow or

orange-colored primary veins radiating from the end of the petiole

through the lobes, and small secondary veins extending to the point of

the lateral lobes and connected by conspicuous reticulate veinlets;

petioles stout, yellow, hollow, enlarged and cordate at base, sometimes

becoming 3°—4° in length before the leaves fall. Flowers often beginning

to appear on plants only 3° or 4° high and a few months old, produced

continuously throughout the year, the staminate in clusters on slender

spreading or pendulous peduncles 4′—12′ long, the pistillate in

1—3-flowered short-stalked cymes; staminate flowers fragrant, filled

with nectar, their corolla ¾′—1¼′ long, with a slender tube and acute

lobes; anthers oblong, orange-colored, surmounted by the rounded

thickened end of the connective, those of the inner row almost sessile

and one third larger than those of the outer row, shorter than their

flattened filaments covered, like the connectives, with long slender

white hairs; pistillate flowers about 1′ long, with erect petals,

without staminodia; ovary ovoid, ivory-white, slightly and obtusely

5-angled, 1-celled, and narrowed into a short slender style crowned by a

pale green stigma divided to the base into 5 radiating lobes dilated and

3-nerved at apex. Fruits hanging close together against the stem at the

base of the leaf-stalk, obovoid to ellipsoid, and obtusely

short-pointed, yellowish green to bright orange color; in southern

Florida not more than 4′ long and 3′ thick, and usually smaller, with a

thick skin closely adherent to the sweet insipid flesh forming a thin

layer outside the central cavity; seeds full and rounded, about 3/16′

long; outer portion of the seed-coat rugose at first when the fruit is

fully grown but still green, ivory-white, very succulent, and usually

separable from the smooth paler chestnut-brown lustrous interior

portion, the outer part turning black as the fruit ripens and becoming

adherent to the inner portion closely investing the thin lustrous light

red-brown inner coat.

A short-lived tree, in Florida attaining a height of 12°—15°, with a

trunk seldom more than 6′ in diameter; in the West Indies and other

tropical countries often twice as large, with a trunk occasionally

dividing into a number of stout upright branches. Bark thin, light

green, becoming gray toward the base of the stem.

Distribution. Florida from the southern shores of Bay Biscayne on the

west coast and of Indian River on the east coast to the southern keys,

growing sparingly in rich hummocks; common in all the West Indian

islands, in southern Mexico, and in the tropical countries of South

America; now naturalized in most of the warm regions of the world, where

it is universally cultivated for its fruit, which is considered one of

the most wholesome of all tropical fruits, and has been much improved by

selection.

XLV. CACTACEÆ.

Succulent trees or shrubs, with copious watery juice, numerous spines

springing from cushions of small bristles (_areolæ_), and minute

caducous alternate leaves, or leafless. Flowers large and showy,

perfect, usually solitary; calyx of numerous spirally imbricated sepals

forming a tube, those of the inner series petal-like; corolla of

numerous imbricated petals, in many series; stamens inserted on the tube

of the calyx, very numerous, in several series, with slender filaments

and introrse 2-celled oblong anthers, the cells opening longitudinally;

pistil of several united carpels; ovary 1-celled, with several parietal

placentas; styles united, terminal; stigmas as many as the placentas;

ovules numerous, horizontal, anatropous. Fruit a fleshy berry. Seeds

numerous, with albumen; cotyledons foliaceous; radicle turned toward the

hilum.

The Cactus family with twenty genera and a very large number of species

is most abundant in the dry region adjacent to the boundary of the

United States and Mexico, with a few species ranging northward to the

northern United States and southward to the West Indian islands, Brazil,

Peru, Chile and the Galapagos Islands. Two of the genera have

arborescent representatives in the flora of the United States.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Branches and stems columnar, ribbed, continuous; leaves 0;

flower-bearing and spine-bearing areolæ distinct; flowers close

above spine-bearing areolæ; tube of the flower elongated; seeds

dark-colored.

1. Cereus.

Branches jointed, tuberculate; leaves scale-like; flower-bearing and

spine-bearing areolæ not distinct; tube of the flower short and

cup-shaped; seeds pale.

2. Opuntia.

1. CEREUS Haw.

Trees or shrubs, with columnar ribbed stems, and buds on the back of the

ridges from the axils of latent leaves, geminate, superposed, the upper

producing a branch or flower, the lower arrested and developed into a

cluster of spines surrounded by an elevated cushion or areola of chaffy

tomentose scales. Flowers lateral, elongated, the calyx-lobes forming an

elongated tube, those of the outer ranks adnate to the ovary,

scale-like, only their tips free, those of the inner ranks free,

elongated; petals cohering by their base with the top of the calyx-tube,

larger than its interior lobes, spreading, recurved; stamens numerous;

filaments adnate by their base to the tube of the calyx, those of the

interior ranks free, the exterior united into a tube; style filiform,

divided into numerous radiating linear branches stigmatic on the inner

face; stalks of the ovules long and slender, becoming thick and juicy in

the fruit. Seeds with very thin albumen; embryo straight; cotyledons

abbreviated, hooked at apex; radicle conic.

Cereus with at least two hundred species inhabits the dry southwestern

region of North America, the West Indies, tropical South America, and

the Galapagos Islands. Of the numerous species found within the

territory of the United States only one assumes the habit and size of a

tree. The fruit of several species is edible, and the ribs of the

durable woody frames of the stems of the large arborescent species are

used for the rafters of houses and for fuel. Many of the species are

planted in warm dry countries in hedges to protect cultivated fields,

and others are popular garden plants valued for their beautiful flowers,

which are sometimes nocturnal and exceedingly fragrant.

The generic name relates to the candle-like form of the stem of some of

the species.

1. Cereus giganteus Engelm. Suwarro.

[Illustration: Fig. 682]

Leaves 0. Flowers 4′—4½′ long and 2½′ wide, opening from May to July in

great numbers near the top of the stem, each surrounded on the lower

side by the radial spines of the cluster below it; ovary ovoid, 1′ long,

rather shorter than the stout tube of the flower, and covered, like the

base of the tube, by the thick imbricated green outer scale-like sepals,

with small free triangular acute scarious mucronate tips, furnished in

their axils with short tufts of rufous hairs and occasionally with

clusters of chartaceous spines, gradually passing into thin oblong-ovate

or obovate larger sepals, mucronate or rounded at apex and closely

imbricated in many ranks; petals 25—35, obovate-spatulate, obtuse,

entire, thick and fleshy, creamy white, ⅔′ long and much reflexed after

anthesis; stamens, with linear anthers emarginate at the ends, and

filaments united for half their length to the walls of the calyx-tube,

those of the exterior rows joined below into a long tube, surrounding

the stout columnar style glandular at base and divided at apex into

12—15 green stigmas. Fruit ripening in August, ovoid or slightly

obovoid, 2½′ long and 1⅓′ wide, truncate and covered at apex by the

depressed pale scar left by the falling of the flower, light red at

maturity, separating into 3 or 4 fleshy valves bright red on their inner

surface and inclosing the bright scarlet juicy mass of the enlarged

funiculi and innumerable seeds; seeds obovoid, rounded, ⅙′ long,

lustrous, dark chestnut-brown.

A tree, 50°—60° high, with a trunk sometimes 2° in diameter, thickest

below the middle and tapering gradually toward the ends, marked by

transverse superficial lines into rings 4′—8′ long, representing the

amount of annual longitudinal growth, 8—12-ribbed at base with obtuse

ribs 4′—5′ broad, and at summit 18—20-ribbed with obtuse deep compressed

ribs, branchless or furnished above the middle with a few, usually 2 or

3, stout alternate or sometimes opposite upright branches shorter but

otherwise resembling the principal stem composed of a thick tough green

epidermis, a fleshy covering 3′—6′ thick saturated with bitter juice,

and a circle of bundles of woody fibres making, with annual layers of

exogenous growth, dense tough elastic columns placed opposite the

depressions between the ribs, ½′—3′ in diameter and frequently united by

branches growing at irregular intervals between them, the woody frame

remaining standing after the death of the plant and the decomposition of

its fleshy covering. Areolæ pale, elevated, about ½′ in diameter,

bearing clusters of stout straight spines with a large dark fulvous

base, sulcate or angled, tinged with red, with thick stout spines in the

centre of each cluster, the 4 basal horizontal or slightly inclined

downward, the lowest being the longest and stoutest and sometimes 1½′

long and 1/12′ thick, the upper shorter, more slender and slightly

turned upward, with a row of shorter and thinner radial spines 12—16 in

number surrounding the central group. Wood of the columns strong, very

light, rather coarse-grained, with numerous conspicuous medullary rays,

and light brown tinged with yellow; almost indestructible in contact

with the ground, little affected by the atmosphere and largely used for

the rafters of houses, for fences, and by Indians for lances, bows, etc.

The fruit is consumed in large quantities by Indians.

Distribution. Low rocky hills and dry mesas of the desert; valley of

Bill Williams River through central and southern Arizona to the valley

of the San Pedro River and to the eastern border of the Colorado Desert

between the Needles and Yuma, Yuma County, Arizona, and southward in

Sonora.

2. OPUNTIA Adans.

Trees or usually shrubs, in the arborescent species of the United States

with subcylindric or clavate articulate tuberculate branches, covered

with small sunken stomata, and containing tubular reticulated woody

skeletons, and thick fleshy or fibrous roots. Leaves scale-like, terete,

subulate, caducous, bearing in their axils oblong or circular

cushion-like areolæ of chaffy or woolly scales terminal on the branches

and furnished above the middle with many short slender slightly attached

sharp barbed bristles and toward the base with numerous stout barbed

spines surrounded in some species, except at apex, by loose papery

sheaths. Flowers diurnal, lateral, produced from areolæ on branches of

the previous year between the bristles and spines, sessile, cup-shaped;

sepals flat, erect, deciduous; corolla rotate; petals obovate, united at

base, spreading; stamens shorter than the petals; filaments free or

slightly united below; anthers oblong; style cylindric, longer than the

stamens, obclavate below, divided at apex into 3—8 elongated or lobulate

lobes stigmatic on the inner face. Fruit sometimes proliferous, covered

by a thick skin, succulent and often edible, or dry, pyriform, globose

or ellipsoid, concave at apex, surmounted by the marcescent tube of the

flower, tuberculate, areolate, or rarely glabrous, truncate at base,

with a broad umbilicus at apex. Seeds immersed in the pulpy placentas,

compressed, discoid, often margined with a bony raphe; testa pale, bony,

sometimes marked by a narrow darker marginal commissure; embryo coiled

around the copious or scanty albumen; cotyledons large; radicle thin,

obtuse.

Opuntia with many species is distributed from southern New England

southward in the neighborhood of the coast to the West Indies, and

through western North America to Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, the

largest number of species occurring near the boundary of the United

States and Mexico. Of the species of the United States at least three

attain the size and habit of small trees. Cochineal is derived from a

scale-insect which feeds on the juices of some of the Mexican species,

and the fruit of several species is refreshing and is consumed in

considerable quantities in semitropical countries. The large-growing

species with flat branches are employed in many countries to form hedges

for the protection of gardens and fields; and the branches saturated

with watery juice are sometimes stripped of their spines and bristles

and fed to cattle.

_Opuntia_ is the classical name of some plant which grew in the

neighborhood of the city of Opus in Bœotia.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Tubercles of the branches full and rounded below the areolæ.

Joints pale olive color, easily separable, their tubercles broad,

mammillate; spines yellow; flowers pink; fruit proliferous,

usually spineless, often sterile.

1. O. fulgida (H).

Joints green or purple, their tubercles narrow, ovoid; spines white

to reddish brown; flowers purple; fruit yellow, sparingly

spinescent, rarely proliferous.

2. O. spinosior (H).

Tubercles of the branches not full and rounded below the areolæ;

joints elongated, dark green or purple, their tubercles

elongated; spines brown or reddish brown; flowers green, tinted

with red or yellow; fruit green, spinescent, rarely proliferous.

3. O. versicolor (H).

1. Opuntia fulgida Engelm. Cholla.

[Illustration: Fig. 683]

Leaves light green, gradually narrowed to the acuminate apex, ½′—1′

long. Flowers appearing from June to September, the earliest from

tubercles at the end of the branches of the previous year, the others

from the terminal tubercles of the immature fruit developed from the

earliest flowers of the season, 1′ in diameter when fully expanded, with

ovaries nearly 1′ long, 8—10 obtuse crenulate sepals, 5 erect stigmas,

and 8 light pink petals, those of the outer ranks cuneate, retuse,

crenulate on the margins, shorter than the lanceolate acute petals of

the inner ranks, the whole strongly reflexed at maturity. Fruit

proliferous, oval, rounded, 1′—1¼′ long and nearly as broad, more or

less tuberculate, conspicuously marked by large pale tomentose areolæ

bearing numerous small bristles, usually spineless or occasionally armed

with small weak spines, hanging in pendulous clusters usually of 6 or 7

and occasionally of 40—50 fruits in a cluster, one growing from the

other in continuous succession, the first the largest and containing

perfect seeds, the others frequently sterile, dull green when fully

ripe, with dry flesh, falling usually during the first winter or

occasionally persistent on the branches during the second season, and

then developing flowers from the tubercles; seeds compressed, thin, very

angular, 1/12′—⅙′ in diameter.

A tree, with a more or less flexuous trunk occasionally 12° in height

and sometimes a foot in diameter, a symmetric head of stout

wide-spreading branches and thick pendulous joints sometimes almost

hidden by the long conspicuous spines and beginning to develop their

woody skeletons during their second or occasionally during their third

season, the terminal or ultimate joints ovoid or ovoid-cylindric, tumid,

crowded at the end of the limbs, pale olive color, 3′—8′ long, often 2′

in diameter, with broad ovoid-oblong tubercles, ½′—¾′ in length. Areolæ

of pale straw-colored tomentum and short slender pale bristles, each

areola bearing at first 5—15 stout stellate-spreading light yellow

spines of nearly equal length, ¾′-1′ long and inclosed in loose lustrous

sheaths, additional spines developing in succeeding years at the upper

margin of the areolæ, the tubercles of old branches being sometimes

furnished with from 40-60 spines persistent on the branches for 4-6

years. Bark of the trunk and of the large limbs about ¼′ thick,

separating freely on the surface into large thin loosely attached scales

varying in color from brown to nearly black on the largest stems, and

unarmed, the spines mostly falling with the outer layers from branches

3′—4′ thick. Wood of old trunks light, hard, pale yellow, with broad

conspicuous medullary rays, well marked layers of annual growth, and a

thick pith.

Distribution. Plains of Arizona south of the Colorado plateau, and in

the adjacent region of Sonora; not rare; apparently most abundant and of

its largest size in the United States on the mesas near Tucson, Pima

County, at altitudes between 2000° and 3000°.

2. Opuntia spinosior Toumey. Tassajo.

[Illustration: Fig. 684]

Leaves terete, tapering gradually to the setulose apex, about ¼′ long,

remaining on the branches from four to six weeks. Flowers opening in

April and May and remaining open for two or three days, 2′—2½′ in

diameter, with ovaries about 1′ long, obovate sepals, broad-obovate dark

purple petals, sensitive red stamens, and a 6—9-parted stigma. Fruits

clustered at the end of the branches of the previous year, persistent

during the winter and occasionally during the following summer and then

sometimes proliferous, oval or rarely globose or hemispheric, frequently

2′ long and 1½′ thick, with yellow acrid flesh and 20—30 tubercles very

prominent during the summer, nearly disappearing as the fruit ripens and

enlarges, leaving it marked only by the small oval areolæ covered with

short bristles, and bearing numerous slender spines deciduous in

December as the fruit begins to turn yellow; seeds nearly orbicular,

slightly or not at all beaked, ⅙′—⅕′ in diameter, and marked by linear

conspicuous commissures.

A tree, with an erect trunk occasionally 10° high and 5′-10′ in

diameter, numerous stout spreading limbs forming an open irregular head,

and branches with joints 4′—12′ long and ¾′—1′ thick, covered with a

thick epidermis varying from green to purple, and usually developing

woody skeletons during their second season, their tubercles prominent,

compressed, ovoid, ⅓′—½′ long. Areolæ oval, clothed with pale tomentum

and short light brown bristles, their spines 5—15 on the tubercles of

young joints and 30—50 on those of older branches, and slender, white to

light reddish brown, closely invested in white glistening sheaths,

stellate-spreading, ½′—¾′ long, those in the interior sometimes

considerably longer than the radial spines. Bark of the trunk and of the

larger limbs about ¼′ thick, spineless, nearly black, broken into

elongated ridges, and finally much roughened by numerous closely

appressed scales. Wood light, soft, pale reddish brown, and

conspicuously reticulate, with conspicuous medullary rays and well

defined layers of annual growth; sometimes used in the manufacture of

light furniture, canes, picture-frames, and other small articles.

Distribution. Widely scattered over the mesas of southern Arizona south

of the Colorado plateau and of the adjacent regions of Sonora.

3. Opuntia versicolor Coult.

[Illustration: Fig. 685]

Leaves terete, abruptly narrowed to the spinescent apex, ⅓′—½′ long,

persistent on the branches from four to six weeks. Flowers opening in

May, about 1½′ in diameter, with ovaries ⅝′ long, broad-ovate acute

sepals, and narrow obovate petals rounded above and green tinged with

red or with yellow. Fruit usually clavate, 2′—2½′ long, nearly 1½′ in

diameter, with areolæ generally only above the middle and usually

furnished with 1—3 slender reflexed persistent spines about ½′ long, or

occasionally spineless, rarely nearly spherical and only about ¾′ in

diameter, ripening from December to February, and at maturity the same

color as the joint on which it grows, usually withering, drying, and

splitting open on the tree, or remaining fleshy and persistent on the

branches until the end of the following summer, and sometimes through a

second winter, or often becoming imbedded in the end of a more or less

elongated joint; seeds irregularly angled, with narrow commissures.

A tree, with an erect trunk occasionally 6°—8° high and 8′ in diameter,

numerous stout irregularly spreading or often upright branches, and

cylindric terminal joints generally 6′—12′ but sometimes 2° in length,

¾′—1′ in diameter, and covered with a thick dark green or purple

epidermis, marked by linear flattened tubercles, their woody skeletons

usually formed during their second season. Areolæ large, oval, clothed

with gray wool, generally bearing a cluster of small bristles, and

slender stellate-spreading brown or reddish brown spines, with close

early deciduous straw-colored sheaths, 4—14 and on old tubercles 20—25

in number, the inner 1—4 in number, usually deflexed and unequal in

length, the longest about ⅓′ long and longer than the radial spines.

Bark of the trunk and of the large branches smooth, light brown or

purple, usually unarmed, ½′—¾′ thick, finally separating into small

closely appressed black scales. Wood reticulate, hard, compact, light

reddish brown and rather lustrous, with thin conspicuous medullary rays,

well-defined layers of annual growth, and thick pale or nearly white

sapwood.

Distribution. Foothills and low mountain slopes of southern Arizona and

northern Sonora; very abundant.

XLVI. RHIZOPHORACEÆ.

Glabrous trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, and usually opposite

coriaceous entire persistent leaves, with interpetiolar stipules.

Flowers in axillary clusters; calyx-lobes valvate in the bud,

persistent; petals inserted on the tube of the calyx and as many as its

lobes; stamens inserted at the base of a conspicuous disk; anthers

2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistil of 2—5 united

carpels; ovary 2—5-celled; ovules usually 2 in each cell, suspended from

its apex, collateral, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior.

Fruit usually indehiscent, 1-celled and 1-seeded.

The Mangrove family is tropical, with most of its seventeen genera

confined to the Old World.

1. RHIZOPHORA L. Mangrove.

Trees, with pithy branchlets, thick astringent bark, and adventitious

fleshy roots. Leaves ovate or elliptic, glabrous, petiolate; stipules

elongated, acuminate, infolding the bud, caducous. Flowers perfect,

yellow or creamy white, sessile or pedicellate, bibracteolate, the

bractlets united into an involucral cup, in pedunculate dichotomously or

trichotomously branched clusters, the base of their branches surrounded

by an involucre of 2 ovate 3-lobed persistent bracts, or 1-flowered;

calyx 4-lobed, the lobes acute, coriaceous, ribbed on the inner surface

and thickened on the margins, two or three times longer than the

turbinate globose tube, reflexed at maturity, persistent; petals 4,

induplicate in the bud, alternate with and longer than the calyx-lobes,

inserted on a fleshy disk-like ring in the mouth of the calyx-tube,

involute on the margins, coated on the inner surface with long pale

hairs, or flat and naked, caducous; stamens 8—12; filaments short or 0;

anthers attached at the base, introrse, elongated, connivent, areolate;

ovary partly inferior, conic, 2-celled, contracted into two subulate

spreading styles stigmatic at apex. Fruit a conic coriaceous berry

surrounded by the reflexed calyx-lobes and perforated at the apex by the

germinating embryo. Seed germinating in the fruit before falling, the

apex surrounded by a thin albuminous cup-like aril; seed-coat thick and

fleshy; embryo surrounded by a thin layer of albumen; cotyledons dark

purple; radicle elongated, clavate, and when fully grown separating from

the narrow exserted woody tube inclosing the plumule and developed from

the cotyledons after the ripening of the fruit.

Rhizophora with three species is widely and generally distributed on the

shores of tidal marshes in the tropical regions of the two hemispheres,

one specie reaching those of southern Florida. It possesses astringent

properties; the bark has been used in tanning leather, in dyeing, and as

a febrifuge. The wood is hard, durable, and dark-colored. By means of

the aerial germination of its seeds and in its power to develop roots

from trunks and branches, Rhizophora is especially adapted to maintain

itself on low tidal shores and is an important factor in protecting and

extending them into the ocean. Roots springing from the stems at a

considerable distance above the ground and arching outward descend into

the water and fix themselves in the mud beneath, while roots growing

down from the branches enter the ground and gradually thicken into

stems. The fully grown radicle ready to put forth roots and leaves, and

often 10′—12′ long, is thicker and heavier at the root end than at the

other, and in detaching itself from the cotyledons and in falling the

heavy end sticks in the mud, while the plumule at the other end, held

above the shallow surface of the water, soon unfolds its leaves.

The generic name, from ῥίζα and φέρειν, was used by early authors to

designate various climbing plants with thickened roots.

1. Rhizophora Mangle L.

[Illustration: Fig. 686]

Leaves ovate or elliptic, rounded or acute at apex, gradually narrowed

at base, dark green and very lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the

lower surface, 3½′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with slightly thickened

margins, a broad midrib, and reticulate veinlets; persistent for one or

two years; petioles ½′—1½′ in length; stipules lanceolate, acute, 1½′

long, deciduous as the leaf unfolds. Flowers produced through the year,

1′ in diameter, pedicellate, in 2 or 3-flowered clusters on peduncles

1½′ long from the axils of young leaves; petals pale yellow, coated on

the inner surface with long pale hairs; stamens 8 with villose

filaments. Fruit 1′ long, rusty brown, slightly roughened by minute

bosses, the hard woody thick-walled tube developed from the cotyledons

protruding ½′—⅔′ from its apex after the germination of the seed,

covering the plumule, and holding the dark brown radicle marked with

occasional orange-colored lenticels and when fully grown 10′—12′ long

and ¼′—⅓′ thick near the apex.

A round-topped bushy tree, with spreading branches usually 15°—20° high,

forming almost impenetrable thickets with its numerous aerial roots, or

occasionally 70°—80° high, with a tall straight trunk clear of branches

for more than half its length, a narrow head, and stout glabrous dark

red-brown branchlets, becoming lighter colored in their second year and

then conspicuously marked by large oval slightly elevated leaf-scars.

Bark of young stems and of the branches smooth, light reddish brown,

becoming on old trunks ⅓′—½′ thick, and gray faintly tinged with red,

the surface irregularly fissured and broken into thin appressed scales.

Wood exceedingly heavy, hard, close-grained, strong, dark reddish brown

streaked with lighter brown, with pale sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual

growth; used for fuel and wharf-piles.

Distribution. Shores of Florida from Mosquito Inlet on the east coast

and Cedar Keys on the west coast to the southern keys; most abundant

south of latitude 29°, following the coast with wide thickets and

ascending the rivers for many miles; on Cape Sable and the shores of Bay

Biscayne sometimes growing at a little distance from the coast on ground

not submerged by the tide, and here attaining its largest size, with

tall straight trunks and few aerial roots; on Bermuda, the Bahamas, the

Antilles, the west coast of Mexico, lower California, the Galapagos

Islands, and from Central America along the northeast coast of South

America to the limits of the tropics.

XLVII. COMBRETACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with astringent juice, naked buds, and alternate or

opposite simple entire coriaceous persistent leaves, without stipules.

Flowers regular, perfect, or polygamous; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes

valvate in the bud; petals 5, valvate in the bud, inserted at the base

of the calyx, or 0; disk epigynous; stamens 5—10, inserted on the limb

of the calyx; filaments slender, filiform, distinct, exserted; anthers

introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 1-celled;

style slender, subulate; stigma minute, terminal, entire; ovules usually

2, suspended from the apex of the cell, collateral, anatropous; raphe

ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, often crowned with the

accrescent calyx. Seed solitary; albumen 0; embryo straight, with

convolute cotyledons; radicle minute, turned toward the hilum.

Of the fifteen genera of this family, widely distributed through the

tropics, three have arborescent representatives in southern Florida.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Corolla 0; leaves alternate.

Calyx persistent; flowers in spikes; seeds without wings.

1. Bucida.

Calyx deciduous; flowers in capitate heads; seeds winged.

2. Conocarpus.

Corolla of 5 petals; calyx persistent; leaves opposite.

3. Laguncularia.

1. BUCIDA L.

A tree or shrub, with terete often spinescent branchlets. Leaves crowded

at the end of spur-like lateral branchlets much thickened and roughened

by the large elevated crowded leaf-scars, alternate, obovate to

oblong-lanceolate, rounded and slightly emarginate or minutely apiculate

at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, coriaceous, bluish

green on the upper surface and yellow-green on the lower surface,

pubescent while young, especially beneath, and glabrous at maturity with

the exception of rufous hairs on the under surface of the stout midrib,

and on the short stout petiole. Flowers perfect, greenish white, hairy

on the outer surface, sessile in the axils of minute bracts, in lax

elongated axillary clustered rufous-pubescent spikes; calyx-tube ovoid,

constricted above the ovary, the limb campanulate, 5-lobed, the lobes

valvate in the bud, persistent; petals 0; stamens 10, in two ranks,

inflexed in the bud, unequal, 5 longer than the others and inserted

opposite the calyx-lobes under the hairy 5-lobed disk, the others

shorter, alternate with them and inserted higher on the calyx-tube;

filaments incurved near the apex; anthers minute, sagittate; ovary

included in the tube of the calyx; style thickened and villose at the

base; ovules suspended on an elongated slender funiculus. Fruit ovoid,

conic, oblique, and more or less falcate, irregularly 5-angled,

coriaceous, light brown, puberulous on the outer surface, with thin

membranaceous flesh inseparable from the crustaceous stone porous toward

the interior. Seed ovoid, acute; seed-coat coriaceous, chestnut-brown;

cotyledons fleshy; radicle superior.

Bucida with a single species is confined to tropical America, where it

is distributed from southern Florida and the Bahama Islands through the

West Indies to Guiana and Central America.

The generic name is from βοῦς, in allusion to the fancied resemblance of

the fruit to the horns of an ox.

1. Bucida Buceras L. Black Olive-tree.

[Illustration: Fig. 687]

Leaves 2′—3′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, their petioles ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers

appearing in Florida in April, ⅛′ long, on spikes 1½′—3′ in length.

Fruit about ⅛′ long.

A tree, with a single straight trunk, or often with a short prostrate

stem 2°—3° in diameter, producing several straight upright secondary

stems 40°—50° high and 12′—18′ in diameter, stout branches spreading

nearly at right angles with the trunk and forming a broad head, and

branchlets clothed when they first appear with short pale rufous

pubescence mostly persistent for two or three years, becoming light

reddish brown and covered with bark separating into thin narrow shreds.

Bark of the trunk and of the large branches thick, gray tinged with

orange-brown, and broken into short appressed scales. Wood exceedingly

heavy, hard, close-grained, light yellow-brown sometimes slightly

streaked with orange, with thick clear pale yellow sapwood of 30—40

layers of annual growth. The bark has been used in tanning leather.

Distribution. Florida, only on Elliott’s Key; widely distributed in

brackish marshes through the West Indies to the shores of the Caribbean

Sea and the Bay of Panama.

2. CONOCARPUS L.

A tree or shrub, with angled branchlets. Leaves alternate,

short-petiolate, narrow-ovate or obovate, acute, gradually contracted

and biglandular at base, glabrous or sericeous. Flowers perfect, minute,

in dense capitate heads in narrow leafy terminal panicles, with acute

caducous bracts and bractlets coated with pale hairs, on stout

hoary-tomentose peduncles bibracteolate near the middle; calyx-tube

truncate, obliquely compressed at base, clothed with pale hairs, the

limb campanulate, parted to the middle, the lobes ovate, acute, erect,

pubescent on the outer and puberulous on the inner surface, deciduous;

petals 0; disk 5-lobed, hairy; stamens usually 5, inserted in 1 rank, or

rarely 7 or 8 in 2 ranks; anthers cordate, minute; style thickened and

villose at base. Fruits scale-like, broad-obovoid, pointed, recurved,

and covered at apex with short pale hairs, densely imbricated in ovoid

reddish heads; flesh coriaceous, corky, produced into broad lateral

wings; stone thin-walled, crustaceous, inseparable from the flesh. Seed

irregularly ovoid; seed-coat membranaceous, pale chestnut-brown.

The genus consists of a single species of tropical America and Africa.

The generic name, from χῶνος and καρπὸς, is in allusion to the cone-like

shape of the heads of fruits.

1. Conocarpus erecta L. Buttonwood.

[Illustration: Fig. 688]

Leaves slightly puberulous on the lower surface when they first appear

or coated with pale silky persistent pubescence (var. _sericea_, DC.),

2′—4′ long, ½′—1½′ wide, lustrous, dark green or pale on the upper

surface, paler on the lower surface, with a broad orange-colored midrib,

obscure primary veins, and reticulate veinlets; petioles stout, broad,

½′ in length. Flowers produced throughout the year, in heads ⅓′ in

diameter on peduncles ½′—1½′ in length, in panicles 6′—12′ long. Cone of

fruit about 1′ in diameter.

A tree, 40°—60° high, with a trunk 20′—30′ in diameter, small branches

forming a narrow regular head, and slender branchlets conspicuously

winged, light red-brown, usually glabrous, or silky pubescent (var.

_sericea_, DC.), becoming terete and marked by large orbicular

leaf-scars in their second year; or sometimes a low shrub, with

semiprostrate stems. Bark of the trunk dark brown, divided by irregular

reticulating fissures into broad flat ridges broken on the surface into

small thin appressed scales. Wood very heavy, hard, strong,

close-grained, dark yellow-brown, with thin darker colored sapwood of

about 10 layers of annual growth; burning slowly like charcoal and

highly valued for fuel. The bark is bitter and astringent, and has been

used in tanning leather, and in medicine as an astringent and tonic.

Distribution. Low muddy tide-water shores of lagoons and bays; Florida,

Cape Canaveral and Cedar Keys to the southern keys; of its largest size

in Florida on Lost Man’s River near Cape Sable; at its northern limits a

low shrub; common on the Bahama Islands, in the Antilles, on the shores

of Central America and tropical South America, on the Galapagos Islands,

and on the west coast of Africa.

3. LAGUNCULARIA Gærtn.

A tree, with scaly bark, terete pithy branchlets, and naked buds. Leaves

opposite, glabrous, thick and coriaceous, oblong or elliptic, obtuse or

emarginate at apex, marked toward the margin with minute tubercles;

their petioles conspicuously biglandular. Flowers usually perfect or

polygamo-monœcious, minute, flattened, greenish white, sessile, in

simple terminal axillary tomentose spikes generally collected in leafy

panicles, with ovate acute hoary-tomentose bracts and bractlets;

calyx-tube turbinate, with 5 prominent ridges opposite the lobes of the

limb and 5 intermediate lesser ridges, furnished near the middle with 2

minute appendages, and coated with dense pale tomentum, the limb

urceolate, 5-parted to the middle, the divisions triangular, obtuse or

acute, erect, persistent; disk epigynous, flat, 10-lobed, the 5 lobes

opposite the petals broader than those opposite the calyx-lobes, hairy;

petals 5, nearly orbicular, contracted into a short claw inserted on the

bottom of the calyx-limb, ciliate on the margins, caducous; stamens 10,

inserted in 2 ranks; anthers cordate, apiculate; ovary 1-celled; style

short, crowned with a slightly 2-lobed capitate stigma. Fruit 10-ribbed,

coriaceous, hoary-pubescent, elongated, obovoid, flattened, crowned with

the calyx-limb, unequally 10-ribbed, the 2 lateral ribs produced into

narrow wings, 1-seeded; flesh coriaceous, corky toward the interior,

inseparable from the thin-walled crustaceous stone dark red and lustrous

on the inner surface. Seed suspended, obovoid or oblong; seed-coat

membranaceous, dark red; radicle elongated, slightly longer and nearly

inclosed by the green cotyledons.

Laguncularia consists of a single species of tropical America and

Africa.

The generic name is from _laguncula_, in allusion to the supposed

resemblance of the fruit to a flask.

1. Laguncularia racemosa Gærtn. Buttonwood. White Mangrove.

[Illustration: Fig. 689]

Leaves slightly tinged with red when they unfold, and at maturity dark

green on the upper and lighter green or pale on the lower surface,

1½′—2½′ long and 1′—1½′ wide; petioles red, ½′ in length. Flowers ¼′

long, in hoary-tomentose spikes produced throughout the year from the

axils of young leaves and 1½′—2′ long. Fruit about ½′ long.

A tree, 30°—60° high, with a trunk 12′—20′ in diameter, stout spreading

branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender glabrous

branchlets somewhat angled at first, often marked with minute pale spots

and dark red-brown, becoming in their second year terete, light reddish

brown or orange color, thickened at the nodes, and marked by conspicuous

ovate leaf-scars; or northward in Florida a low shrub. Bark of the trunk

¼′ thick, brown slightly tinged with red, the surface broken into long

ridge-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, dark

yellow-brown, with lighter colored sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual

growth. The bark contains a large amount of tannic acid and is sometimes

used in tanning leather, and is astringent and tonic.

Distribution. Muddy tidal shores of bays and lagoons; southern Florida

from Cape Canaveral and Cedar Keys to the southern keys; common and of

its largest size in Florida on the shores of Shark River, Monroe County;

common in Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Antilles, tropical Mexico and

Central America, tropical South America and western Africa.

XLVIII. MYRTACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs abounding in pungent aromatic volatile oil, with minute

scaly buds. Leaves opposite, simple, mostly entire, pellucid-punctate,

penniveined, persistent, the slender obscure veins arcuate and united

within the thickened revolute margins; stipules 0. Flowers perfect,

regular; calyx 4—5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, or lid-like

and deciduous; petals 2—5, imbricated in the bud, inserted on the margin

of the disk, or 0; stamens very numerous, inserted in many ranks with

the petals; filaments slender, inflexed in the bud, exserted; anthers

introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 2—4-celled;

style simple, filiform, crowned with a minute stigma; ovules numerous or

2 or 3 in each cell, attached on a central placenta, anatropous or

semianatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit baccate,

crowned with the persistent calyx-lobes, 1—4-seeded. Seeds without

albumen; seed-coat membranaceous.

The Myrtle family with seventy-four genera is chiefly tropical and

Australasian, with representatives in southern Europe, extratropical

Africa, and extratropical South America. Two genera are represented by

small trees in the flora of southern Florida. To this family, beside the

Myrtle, belong the Australian Eucalypti, large and important

timber-trees largely planted in California, and the Guava, cultivated in

Florida for its fruit.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Calyx closed in the bud by a lid-like deciduous limb; petals 0.

1. Calyptranthes.

Calyx 4 or 5-lobed with persistent lobes; petals 4 or 5.

2. Eugenia.

1. CALYPTRANTHES Sw.

Aromatic trees or shrubs, with terete or angled branchlets. Leaves

complanate in the bud, penniveined, petiolate. Flowers minute, in

subterminal and axillary pedunculate many-flowered panicles, their

primary and secondary branches often racemose, the ultimate branches

cymose; calyx-tube turbinate, produced above the ovary, closed in the

bud by a slightly 4 or 5-lobed lid-like orbicular limb, opening in

anthesis by a circumscissile line, the limb at first attached laterally,

finally deciduous; disk lining the tube of the calyx; petals 2—5,

minute, or 0; ovary 2 or 3-celled; ovules 2 or 3 in each cell,

collateral, ascending, anatropous. Fruit 2—4-seeded. Seed subglobose or

short-oblong; seed-coat shining; cotyledons foliaceous, contortuplicate;

radicle elongated, incurved.

Calyptranthes with eighty species is confined to tropical America, with

two species reaching southern Florida.

The generic name is from χαλύπτρα and ἄνθη, in reference to the peculiar

lid-like limb which closes the calyx before the opening of the flower.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Leaves acuminate, pubescent below; petioles up to ½′ in length;

inflorescence and young branchlets covered with silky rufous

tomentum.

1. C. pallens (D).

Leaves abruptly pointed or obtuse at apex, glabrous; petioles not more

than ⅙′ in length; inflorescence and young branchlets glabrous.

2. C. Zuzygium (D).

1. Calyptranthes pallens Griseb.

_Chytraculia Chytraculia_ Sudw.

[Illustration: Fig. 690]

Leaves oblong or oblong-ovate, acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed and

cuneate at base, pellucid-punctate above, marked with dark glands below,

when they unfold pink or light red and covered with pale silky hairs,

and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper

surface, coated with pale pubescence on the lower surface, 2½′—3′ long

and ½′—¾′ wide, with a broad midrib orange-colored beneath; petioles

stout, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers sessile, ⅛′ long, in long-stalked

many-flowered clusters 2½′—3′ long and wide, covered like their bracts

and the flower-buds with silky rufous pubescence, with slender

divaricate branches, the ultimate divisions 3-flowered; petals 0. Fruit

short-oblong or nearly globose, dark reddish brown and puberulous, with

thin dry flesh; seeds short-oblong, rounded at the ends.

A tree, in Florida 20°—25° high, with a trunk 3′—4′ in diameter, small

branches forming a narrow head, and slender branchlets at first

wing-angled between the nodes and coated with short rufous silky

tomentum, becoming in their second or third year terete, thickened at

the nodes, light gray tinged with red and covered with small thin

scales. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, with a generally smooth light

gray or almost white surface occasionally separating into irregular

plate-like scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, brown tinged

with red, with lighter colored sapwood of 30—40 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Lake Worth, in the neighborhood of Bay

Biscayne, Dade County, and on Big Pine Key, Elliott’s Key, Key Largo and

Key West; on the Bahama Islands, on many of the Antilles and in southern

Mexico.

2. Calyptranthes Zuzygium Sw.

[Illustration: Fig. 691]

Leaves elliptic, abruptly or gradually narrowed into a blunt point or

obtuse at apex, cuneate at base, entire, covered with minute pellucid

dots, glabrous, dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface,

paler on the lower surface, 1½′—2¼′ long and ⅗′—1¼′ wide, with a broad

low midrib and slender primary veins arcuate and connected within the

slightly revolute somewhat undulate margins; petioles deeply grooved,

⅛′—⅙′ in length. Flowers on slender pedicels ⅙′—⅕′ long, in axillary

1—3-branched few-flowered axillary cymes ¾′ long and ½′ wide, on slender

peduncles 1′—1¼′ in length, the ultimate divisions of the inflorescence

1—3-flowered; petals wanting; style rather longer than the stamens.

Fruit about ⅓′ in diameter.

A tree, in Florida sometimes 40° high, with a tall trunk 4′ or 5′ in

diameter, covered with smooth pale gray bark, small branches and slender

terete ascending ashy gray branchlets.

Distribution. Florida, Paradise and Long Keys in the Everglades, Dade

County; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba, Jamaica and Hayti.

2. EUGENIA L.

Trees or shrubs, with hard durable wood and scaly bark. Flowers often

large and conspicuous, on short bibracteolate pedicels, in axillary

racemes or fascicles or dichotomously branched cymes, with minute

caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx campanulate, scarcely produced

above the ovary, the limb 4 or rarely 5-lobed; petals usually 4, free

and spreading; ovary 2 or rarely 3-celled; ovules numerous in each cell,

semianatropous. Fruit 1—4-seeded. Seeds globose or flattened; seed-coat

membranaceous or cartilaginous; embryo thick and fleshy; cotyledons

thick, more or less conferruminate into a homogeneous mass; radicle very

short, turned toward the hilum.

Eugenia with some five hundred species is common in all tropical

regions, with eight species reaching the shores of southern Florida, of

these 6 are small trees. Several species are valued for their stimulant

and digestive properties; some produce useful timber or edible fruit,

and others are cultivated for the beauty of their flowers. Cloves are

the flower-buds of _Eugenia aromatica_ Baill., a native of the Molucca

Islands; and _Eugenia Jambos_ L., the Rose Apple, of southeastern Asia,

is cultivated in all tropical countries as a shade-tree and for its

delicately fragrant fruit.

The generic name commemorates the interest in botany and gardening taken

by Prince Eugène of Savoy, who built the Belvidere Palace near Vienna in

the beginning of the eighteenth century, and made a collection of rare

plants in its gardens.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Flowers in axillary racemes or fascicles.

Flowers in short solitary or clustered axillary racemes.

Leaves ovate or obovate, rounded at apex, short-petiolate; fruit

subglobose to short-oblong.

1. E. buxifolia (C, D).

Leaves ovate, contracted at apex into a broad point, distinctly

petiolate; fruit globose, black, ½′ in diameter.

2. E. axillaris (C, D).

Flowers in axillary fascicles.

Leaves usually broad-ovate, narrowed at apex into a short point,

subcoriaceous; fruit subglobose, rather broader than high,

⅔′—1′ in diameter, becoming black at maturity.

3. E. rhombea (D).

Leaves oblong-ovate, narrowed at apex into a long point,

coriaceous; fruit subglobose to obovoid, ¼′—⅓′ long, bright

scarlet.

4. E. confusa (D).

Flowers in dichotomously branched cymes. (_Anamomis._)

Leaves ovate or obovate; cymes usually 3-flowered; flowers not more

than ¼′ in diameter; fruit black.

5. E. dicrana (D).

Leaves oblong or broad-elliptic; cymes 3—15-flowered; flowers up to

½′ in diameter; fruit red.

6. E. Simpsonii (D).

1. Eugenia buxifolia Willd. Gurgeon Stopper. Spanish Stopper.

[Illustration: Fig. 692]

Leaves ovate or obovate, rounded at apex, sessile or narrowed into a

short thick petiole, occasionally slightly and remotely

crenulate-serrate above the middle, thick and coriaceous, dark green on

the upper surface, yellow-green and marked with minute black dots on the

lower surface, 1′—1½′ long and about 1′ wide, with a narrow conspicuous

midrib; usually unfolding in November and remaining on the branches

until the end of their second winter, and often turning red or partly

red before falling. Flowers appearing in Florida from midsummer until

early autumn, ⅛′ in diameter, on short thick pedicels, in short

rufous-pubescent racemes clustered in the axils of old or fallen leaves,

with minute lanceolate acute persistent bracts, and broad-ovate acute

bractlets immediately below the flowers; calyx glandular-punctate,

pubescent on the outer surface, with 4 ovate rounded lobes much shorter

than the 4 ovate white petals rounded at apex, ciliate on the margins,

and glandular-punctate. Fruit subglobose to short-oblong, black,

glandular-roughened, crowned with the large calyx-lobes, usually

1-seeded, and about ⅓′ in diameter, with thin aromatic flesh; seeds ⅛′

in diameter, with a thick pale brown lustrous cartilaginous coat and a

pale olive-green embryo.

A shrubby tree, in Florida rarely 20° high, with a short trunk

occasionally a foot in diameter, small mostly erect branches, and terete

slender branchlets coated at first with rufous pubescence, becoming at

the end of a few months ashy gray or gray tinged with red, and often

more or less twisted or contorted. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ⅛′

thick, light brown tinged with red, and broken into small thick square

scales. Wood very heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, close-grained, dark

brown shaded with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 15—20

layers of annual growth; sometimes used for fuel.

Distribution. Florida, Cape Canaveral to the southern keys, and on the

west coast from the banks of the Caloosahatchee River to Cape Sable; one

of the commonest plants on the keys, forming on coral rock a large part

of the shrubby second growth now occupying ground from which the

original forest has been removed; on the Bahama Islands and on several

of the Antilles.

2. Eugenia axillaris Willd. Stopper. White Stopper.

[Illustration: Fig. 693]

Leaves ovate, gradually or abruptly narrowed at apex into a short wide

point, rounded at the narrowed base, thick and coriaceous, dark green on

the upper surface, paler and covered with minute black dots on the lower

surface, 1½′—2½′ long and ½′ wide, with a broad midrib deeply impressed

above; petioles stout, slightly winged, about ⅓′ in length. Flowers

appearing at midsummer, about ⅛′ in diameter, in short axillary racemes,

on stout pedicels 1/16′—½′ long, covered with pale white hairs, and

furnished near the middle or toward the apex with 2 acute minute

persistent bractlets; calyx glandular-punctate, covered on the outer

surface with pale hairs, 4-lobed, with ovate rounded lobes shorter than

the 4 ovate glandular white petals. Fruit ripening in succession from

November to April, globose, black, glandular-punctate, usually 1-seeded,

½′ in diameter, edible, rather juicy, with a sweet agreeable flavor;

seeds subglobose, ¼′ in diameter, with a pale brown chartaceous coat,

and light olive-green cotyledons.

A tree, 20°—25° high, with a trunk occasionally a foot in diameter,

small branches, and terete stout rigid ashy gray branchlets often

slightly tinged with red and covered with small wart-like excrescences;

or toward the northern limits of its range a low shrub. Bark of the

trunk about ⅛′ thick and divided by irregular shallow fissures into

broad ridges finally separating on the surface into small thin light

brown scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, very close-grained, brown often

tinged with red, with thin darker colored sapwood of 5—6 layers of

annual growth.

Distribution. Florida, shores of the St. John’s River to the southern

keys; nowhere common; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the

Antilles.

3. Eugenia rhombea Kr. & Urb. Stopper.

[Illustration: Fig. 694]

Leaves broad-ovate, narrowed into a broad point rounded at apex, and

abruptly or gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, when they unfold

thin and light red, and at maturity subcoriaceous, conspicuously marked

with black dots, olive-green on the upper surface and paler on the lower

surface, 2′—2½′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with a narrow midrib; unfolding in

Florida in May; petioles narrow-winged, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers ½′ in

diameter, appearing in Florida in April or May on slender glandular

pedicels ⅓′—⅔′ long and furnished at apex with 2 lanceolate acute

persistent bractlets ciliate on the margins, in sessile axillary

many-flowered clusters; calyx-tube much shorter than the limb divided

into 4 glandular narrow lobes rounded at apex and one half the length of

the broad-ovate rounded glandular white petals. Fruit ripening in

Florida from September to November, ⅔′—1′ in diameter, slightly

glandular-roughened, orange color, with a bright red cheek when fully

grown, becoming black at maturity; flesh thin and dry; seeds almost

globose, nearly ½′ in diameter, with a thick pale chestnut-brown

lustrous coat and olive-green cotyledons.

A tree, 20°—25° high, with a trunk usually a foot in diameter, small

branches, and slender terete branchlets at first light purple and

covered with a glaucous bloom, becoming ashy gray or almost white. Bark

of the trunk about 1/16′ thick, with a smooth light gray surface

slightly tinged with red. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, light brown,

with hardly distinguishable sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, Key West and Umbrella Key; on the Bahama Islands

and on many of the Antilles.

4. Eugenia confusa DC. Red Stopper.

[Illustration: Fig. 695]

Leaves oblong-ovate, abruptly or gradually contracted into a long narrow

point rounded or acute at apex, cuneate or occasionally rounded at base,

thin and light red when they unfold, and at maturity dark green and very

lustrous on the upper surface, paler and marked with minute black dots

on the lower surface, 1½′—2′ long and ⅓′—⅔′ wide, with a thick

orange-colored midrib barely impressed above and prominent reticulate

veinlets; petioles stout, about ¼′ in length. Flowers barely ⅛′ in

diameter, appearing in September on slender pedicels ¼′—½′ long and

furnished near the apex with 2 minute acute bractlets, in many-flowered

axillary clusters; calyx glandular-punctate, with 4 ovate acute lobes

much shorter than the 4 broad-ovate rounded white petals. Fruit ripening

in March and April, subglobose to obovoid, bright scarlet, ¼′—⅓′ long,

glandular-roughened, usually solitary and 1-seeded, with thin dry flesh;

seed nearly globose, about ⅛′ in diameter, with a thin crustaceous light

brown lustrous coat and an olive-green embryo.

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

upright branches forming a narrow compact head, and slender terete ashy

gray branchlets. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, bright cinnamon-red,

separating freely into small thin scales. Wood very heavy, exceedingly

hard, strong, close-grained, bright red-brown, with thick dark-colored

sapwood of 50—60 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Florida, rich hummocks near the shores of Bay Biscayne,

Dade County, and on Old Rhodes and Elliotts Keys; on the Bahama Islands

and on several of the Antilles.

5. Eugenia dicrana Berg. Naked Wood.

_Anamomis dichotoma_ Sarg.

[Illustration: Fig. 696]

Leaves ovate or obovate, acute or rounded and occasionally emarginate at

apex, cuneate at base, chartaceous when they unfold, becoming

subcoriaceous, glabrous, covered with minute black dots, 1′—1¼′ long and

½′—⅔′ wide, with a stout midrib; petioles stout, enlarged at base,

coated at first with silky hairs, finally glabrous. Flowers appearing in

Florida in May, ¼′ in diameter, in cymes produced near the end of the

branches, in the axils of leaves of the year, on slender peduncles

coated with pale silky hairs, sometimes 1-flowered and not longer than

the leaves, more often longer than the leaves, dichotomously branched

and 3-flowered, with 1 flower at the end of the principal division in

the fork of its branches, or occasionally 5—7-flowered by the

development of peduncles from the axils of the bracts of the secondary

divisions of the inflorescence, each branch of the inflorescence

furnished immediately beneath the flower with 2 lanceolate acute

bractlets nearly as long as the calyx-tube; calyx hoary-tomentose, the

lobes ovate, rounded at apex and much shorter than the ovate acute

glandular-punctate white petals. Fruit ripening in Florida in August,

reddish brown, ¼′ long, obliquely oblong, obovate or subglobose,

roughened by minute glands; flesh thin, rather dry and aromatic; seeds

reniform, light brown, exceedingly fragrant.

A tree, 20°—25° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, and slender terete

branchlets light red and coated with pale silky hairs when they first

appear, becoming glabrous in their second year and covered with light or

dark brown bark separating into small thin scales; or often a shrub,

with numerous slender stems. Bark of the trunk 1/16′—⅛′ thick, with a

smooth light red or red-brown surface separating into minute thin

scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, light brown or red, with

thick yellow sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Florida, rocky woods, Mosquito Inlet to Cape Canaveral on

the east coast, and from the banks of the Caloosahatchee River to the

shores of Cape Romano on the west coast, on Key West, and in the

neighborhood of Bay Biscayne, Dade County; on the Bahama Islands and on

several of the Antilles.

6. Eugenia Simpsonii Sarg.

_Anamomis Simpsonii_ Small.

[Illustration: Fig. 697]

Leaves oblong, rounded and abruptly short-pointed or occasionally

emarginate at apex, cuneate at base, or broad-elliptic, silky pubescent

and ciliate on the margins when they unfold, soon glabrous, and at

maturity coriaceous, dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper

surface, paler and dull on the lower surface, 1½′—2′ long and ½′—1′

wide, with a prominent midrib impressed on the upper side and obscure

spreading primary veins united before reaching the thickened revolute

entire margins of the leaf; petioles covered at first with snowy white

tomentum, soon glabrous, slender, ⅛′—¼′ in length. Flowers fragrant,

about ½′ in diameter, sessile in lateral 3—15-flowered cymes on slender

finely appressed-pubescent peduncles longer or shorter than the

subtending leaves, their bractlets acuminate and ⅓′ long; calyx-tube

short-obconic, thickly covered with silky white hairs, the lobes rounded

at apex, green, punctate, two of them orbicular-reniform, the others

orbicular-ovate, shorter than the white concave, obovate to suborbicular

erose ciliate sparingly punctate petals. Fruit ellipsoid, red, mostly

⅓′—⅖′ long; seed reniform, usually solitary.

A tree, occasionally 60°—70° high, with a trunk 15′—16′ in diameter,

small erect and spreading smooth gray-brown or reddish brown branches

forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender branchlets covered when

they first appear with snowy white tomentum, soon glabrous, and bright

or dull reddish brown, and marked in their second year with the nearly

orbicular elevated conspicuous scars of fallen leaves. Bark of the trunk

thin, smooth, reddish, marked by pale blotches.

Distribution. Florida, Arch Creek Hummock north of Little River, and on

Paradise and Long Keys in the Everglades, Dade County.

XLIX. MELASTOMACEÆ.

Trees, shrubs, or herbs with watery juice. Leaves opposite, rarely

verticellate, 3—9-nerved, usually petiolate; stipules 0. Flowers

regular, perfect, usually showy, rarely fragrant, in terminal clusters;

calyx usually 4 or 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals as

many as the lobes of the calyx, inserted on its throat, imbricated or

convolute in the bud; stamens as many or twice as many as the petals,

inserted in 1 series with them, often inclined or decimate; anthers

2-celled, attached at the base, opening by a terminal pore; ovary 2 or

many-celled; style terminal, simple, straight or declinate; stigma

capitate, simple or lobed; ovules numerous, minute, anatropous. Fruit

capsular or baccate, inclosed in the calyx-tube; seeds minute; testa

coriaceous or crustaceous; hilum lateral or basal; embryo without

albumen.

This family with 164 genera and a large number of species is chiefly

confined to the tropics, and is most abundant in those of South America.

1. TETRAZYGIA A. Rich.

Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets. Leaves opposite, petiolate,

oblong-ovate to ovate-lanceolate, entire or denticulate, 3—5-nerved,

persistent, scurfy, like the young branchlets, peduncles and calyx-tube.

Flowers perfect in many-flowered terminal panicles or corymbs;

calyx-tube urceolate or globose, adnate to the ovary, the limb

constricted above the ovary and dilated below the apex, the lobes short

or elongated; petals obovate, obtuse, convolute in the bud; stamens

twice as many as the petals; filaments subulate; anthers

linear-subulate, erect or slightly recurved, attached at base, 2-celled,

opening by a minute pore at apex, their connective not extended below

the cells; ovary 3—6-celled; style filiform, curved, exserted,

surrounded at base by a short sheath 8—10-toothed at apex; ovules

indefinite, minute, sessile on an axile placenta. Fruit a 3 or 4-celled

berry, crowned by the persistent tube of the calyx; seeds numerous,

minute, obpyramidal, thickened and incurved at apex; testa coriaceous,

slightly pitted; hilum basal; cotyledons thick; radicle short, turned

toward the hilum.

Tetrazygia with 14 species is confined to the West Indies and southern

Florida where one species has been discovered, the only tree of the

great family of the Melastomaceæ found in the United States.

The generic name is from τέτρα and ζυγόν in allusion to the often

4-parted flowers.

1. Tetrazygia bicolor Cogn.

[Illustration: Fig. 698]

Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, gradually narrowed and rounded at

base, 3-nerved, entire, undulate and slightly thickened on the revolute

margins, dark green on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface,

3′—4½′ long and 1′—1¾′ wide; petioles stout, ¾—1′ in length. Flowers

appearing from March to May, ⅘′ in diameter, short-stalked, in open

cymose panicles; calyx urceolate, 4 or 5-lobed, the lobes nearly

obsolete; petals 4 or 5, oblong-obovate, reflexed after anthesis, white;

ovary 3-celled, style surrounded at base by a short sheath 10-toothed at

apex. Fruit ripening in late autumn or early winter, oblong to ovoid,

conspicuously constricted at apex, ¼′—⅓′ in length and ⅙′—⅕′ in

diameter.

In Florida a shrub, or in the dense woods of the keys of the Everglades

a slender tree, often 30° high, with an erect trunk 3′ or 4′ in

diameter, covered with thin light gray-brown slightly fissured bark,

small spreading branches becoming erect toward their apex and gracefully

drooping leaves; or in the sandy soil of open Pine-woods often less than

3° in height.

Distribution. Florida, on the Everglade Keys, Dade County; on the Bahama

Islands and in Cuba.

L. ARALIACEÆ.

Trees, shrubs, or herbs, with watery juice and scaly buds. Leaves

alternate, compound or simple, petiolate, with stipules. Flowers in

racemose or panicled umbels; parts of the flower in 5’s; disk epigynous;

ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell, anatropous; raphe

ventral, the micropyle superior. Fruit baccate. Seeds, with albumen.

The Aralia family with fifty-four genera is chiefly tropical, with a few

genera extending beyond the tropics into the northern hemisphere,

especially into North America and eastern Asia. The widely distributed

and largely extratropical genus Aralia is represented by one arborescent

species in the flora of the United States. Hedera, the Ivy, of this

family, is commonly cultivated in the temperate parts of the United

States, and some species of Panax and Acanthopanax from eastern Asia are

found in gardens in the northeastern states.

1. ARALIA L.

Aromatic spiny trees and shrubs, with stout pithy branchlets, and thick

fleshy roots, or bristly or glabrous perennial herbs. Leaves digitate or

once or twice pinnate, the pinnæ serrulate; stipules produced on the

expanded and clasping base of the petiole. Flowers perfect,

polygamo-monœcious or polygamo-diœcious, on slender jointed pedicels,

small, greenish white; calyx-tube coherent with the ovary, the limb

truncate, repand or minutely toothed, the teeth valvate in the bud;

petals imbricated in the bud, inserted by their broad base on the margin

of the disk, ovate, obtuse or acute and slightly inflexed at apex;

stamens inserted on the margin of the disk, alternate with the petals;

filaments filiform; anthers oblong or rarely ovoid, attached on the

back, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary

2—5-celled; styles 2—5, in the fertile flower distinct and erect or

slightly united at base, spreading and incurved above the middle, or

incurved from the base and sometimes inflexed at apex, crowned with

large capitate stigmas, in the sterile flower short and united. Fruit

fleshy, laterally compressed or 3—5-angled, crowned with the remnants of

the style; nutlets 2—5, orbicular, ovoid or oblong, compressed,

crustaceous, light reddish brown, 1-seeded. Seed compressed; seed-coat

thin, light brown, adnate to the thin fleshy albumen; cotyledons

ovate-oblong, as long as the straight radicle.

Aralia with forty species is confined to North America and Asia.

The name is of obscure meaning.

1. Aralia spinosa L. Hercules’ Club.

[Illustration: Fig. 699]

Leaves clustered at the end of the branches, twice pinnate, 3°—4° long

and 2½° wide, with a stout light brown petiole 18′—20′ in length,

clasping the stem with an enlarged base and armed with slender prickles,

or occasionally unarmed; pinnæ unequally pinnate, usually with 5 or 6

pairs of lateral leaflets and a long-stalked terminal leaflet, and often

furnished at base with a pinnate or simple leaflet; leaflets ovate,

acute, dentate or crenate, cuneate or more or less rounded at base,

short-petiolulate, when they unfold lustrous, bronze-green, and slightly

pilose on the midrib and primary veins, and at maturity thin, dark green

above, pale beneath, 2′—3′ long and 1½′ wide, with a thin midrib

occasionally furnished with small prickles and slender primary veins

nearly parallel with their margins; in the autumn turning light yellow

before falling; stipules acute, about 1′ long, at first puberulous on

the back and ciliate on the margins. Flowers 1/16′ long, appearing at

midsummer on long slender pubescent straw-colored pedicels, in

many-flowered umbels arranged in compound panicles, with light brown

puberulous branches becoming purple in the autumn, forming a terminal

racemose cluster 3°—4° long, and rising solitary or 2 or 3 together

above the spreading leaves; bracts and bractlets lanceolate, acute,

scarious, persistent; petals white, acute, inflexed at apex; ovary often

abortive; styles connivent. Fruit ripening in autumn, black, ⅛′ in

diameter, globose, 3—5-angled, crowned with the blackened styles, with

thin purple very juicy flesh; seeds oblong, rounded at the ends, about

1/10′ long.

A tree, 30°—35° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, stout

wide-spreading branches, and branchlets ½′—⅔′ in diameter, armed like

the branches and young trunks with stout straight or slightly incurved

orange-colored scattered prickles, and nearly encircled by the

conspicuous narrow leaf-scars marked by a row of prominent

fibro-vascular bundle-scars, light orange-colored in their first season,

lustrous and marked irregularly with oblong pale lenticels, becoming

light brown in their second year, with bright green inner bark; more

often a shrub, with a cluster of unbranched stems 6°—20° tall.

Winter-buds: terminal conic, blunt at apex, ½′—¾′ long, with thin

chestnut-brown scales; axillary triangular, flattened, about ¼′ long and

broad. Bark of the trunk dark brown, about ⅛′ thick, and divided by

broad shallow fissures into wide rounded ridges irregularly broken on

the surface. Wood close-grained, light, soft, brittle, brown streaked

with yellow, with lighter colored sapwood of 2 or 3 layers of annual

growth. The bark of the roots and the berries are stimulant and

diaphoretic, and are sometimes used in medicine and in domestic

practice.

Distribution. Deep moist soil in the neighborhood of streams; southern

Pennsylvania to southern Indiana, southeastern Iowa and southeastern

Missouri, and southward to northern Florida, western Louisiana, and

eastern Texas; probably of its largest size on the foothills of the Big

Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states and

in western Europe; hardy in eastern Massachusetts.

LI. NYSSACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, scaly buds, alternate entire

dentate or serrate deciduous leaves, without stipules. Flowers diœcious,

polygamo-diœcious or perfect; staminate, calyx minute, 5-toothed or

lobed; petals 5 or more, imbricated in the bud, or 0; stamens as many,

twice as many, or fewer than the petals, usually in 2 series; filaments

sometimes of 2 lengths, elongated, filiform or subulate; disk fleshy,

depressed at apex; pistillate flowers, calyx-tube adnate to the ovary;

petals 5 or more, imbricated in the bud; ovary 1-celled or 6—10-celled;

ovule solitary, pendulous from the apex of the cell, anatropous;

micropyle superior; disk epigynous, pulvinate, the apex depressed or

convex, or 0; style subulate, curved or spirally involute at apex, or

2-parted, or conic and divided into as many stigmatic lobes as the cells

of the ovary. Fruit drupaceous or subsamaroid, crowned with the remnants

of the calyx, 1-celled and 1-seeded, or 3—5-celled, the cells thin,

4-seeded; seed pendent, testa membranaceous or thin, albumen fleshy;

cotyledons foliaceous or thin; radicle cylindric.

Nyssaceæ with 3 genera, Nyssa L., Camptotheca Decne. and Davidia Baill.

and 8 species is confined to eastern North America, western China,

Thibet, the Himalayas and the Malay Archipelago.

1. NYSSA L.

Trees, with leaves conduplicate in the bud, petiolate, sometimes

remotely angulate or toothed, mostly crowded at the end of the branches.

Flowers polygamo-diœcious, minute, greenish white; staminate on slender

pedicels from the axils of minute caducous bracts, in simple or compound

clusters on long axillary peduncles bibracteolate near the middle or at

the apex or sometimes without bractlets; calyx disciform or cup-shaped,

the limb 5-toothed; petals 5, imbricated in the bud, equal or unequal,

ovate or linear-oblong, thick, inserted on the margin of the conspicuous

pulvinate entire or lobed disk, erect; stamens 5—12, exserted; filaments

filiform; anthers oblong; ovary 0; pistillate flowers on axillary

peduncles, in 2 or few-flowered clusters, sessile or nearly so, in the

axils of conspicuous bracts and furnished with 1 or 2 small lateral

bractlets, or solitary and surrounded by 2—4 bractlets; calyx-tube

campanulate, sometimes slightly urceolate, the limb 5-toothed; petals

small, thick, and spreading; stamens 5—10; filaments short; anthers

fertile or sterile; disk less developed than in the staminate flower,

depressed in the centre; ovary 1 or 2-celled; style terete, elongated,

recurved, stigmatic toward the apex or the inner face; raphe ventral.

Fruit drupaceous, short-oblong, fleshy, urceolate at apex; flesh thin,

oily, acidulous; stone thick-walled, bony, terete or compressed, ribbed

or winged, 1 or rarely 2-celled, usually 1-seeded. Seed filling the

cavity of the stone; seed-coat pale; embryo straight.

Nyssa with six species is confined to the eastern United States and to

southern and eastern Asia, where one species is distributed from the

eastern Himalayas to the island of Java and another occurs in central

and western China. The American species produce tough wood, with

intricately contorted and twisted grain.

_Nyssa_, the name of a nymph, was given to this genus from the fact that

one of the species grows in water.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.

Pistillate flowers in 2 or few-flowered clusters, their calyx

disciform; fruit blue, not more than ⅔′ long; stone with broad

rounded ribs.

Stone indistinctly ribbed; leaves linear-oblong to oval or obovate.

1. N. sylvatica (A, C).

Stone prominently ribbed; leaves oblanceolate to oblong or elliptic.

2. N. biflora (C).

Pistillate flowers solitary, their calyx cup-shaped; fruit 1′ or more

long.

Fruit red; stone with prominent wings; leaves oblong-oval or

obovate, usually obtuse at apex.

3. N. ogeche (C).

Fruit purple; stone with acute ridges; leaves oval or oblong, acute

or acuminate at apex.

4. N. aquatica (A, C).

1. Nyssa sylvatica Marsh. Tupelo. Pepperidge. Sour Gum.

[Illustration: Fig. 700]

Leaves crowded at the end of lateral branchlets or remote on vigorous

shoots, linear-oblong, lanceolate, oval or obovate, acute or acuminate

or sometimes contracted into a short broad point at apex, cuneate or

occasionally rounded at base, entire, with slightly thickened margins,

or rarely coarsely dentate, coated when they unfold with rufous

tomentum, especially on the lower surface, or pubescent or sometimes

nearly glabrous, and at maturity thick and firm, dark green and lustrous

above, pale and often villose below, principally along the broad midrib

and on the primary veins, 2′—5′ long and ½′—3′ wide; turning early in

autumn bright scarlet on the upper surface only; petioles slender or

stout, terete or wing-margined, ciliate, ¼′—1½′ in length, and often

bright red. Flowers appearing in early spring when the leaves are about

one third grown on slender pubescent or tomentose peduncles ½′—1½′ long,

staminate in many-flowered dense or lax compound heads, pistillate in 2

to several-flowered clusters, sessile in the axils of conspicuous often

foliaceous bracts, and furnished with 2 smaller acute hairy bractlets;

calyx of the staminate flower disciform; petals thick, ovate-oblong,

acute, rounded at apex, erect or slightly spreading, early deciduous;

stamens exserted in the staminate flower, shorter than the petals in the

pistillate flower; stigma stout, exserted, reflexed above the middle, 0

in the staminate flower. Fruit ripening in October, 1—3 from each

flower-cluster, ovoid, ⅓′—⅔′ long, dark blue, with thin acrid flesh;

stone light brown, ovoid, rounded at base, pointed at apex, terete or

more or less flattened, and 10—12-ribbed, with narrow indistinct pale

ribs rounded on the back.

A tree, with thick hard roots and few rootlets, often surrounded by

root-sprouts, occasionally 100° or rarely 125° high, with a trunk

sometimes 5° in diameter, numerous slender pendulous tough flexible

branches forming a head sometimes short, cylindric and flat-topped,

sometimes low and broad, or on trees crowded in the forest narrow,

pyramidal or conic, and sometimes inversely conic and broad and flat at

the top, and branchlets when they first appear light green to orange

color, and in their first winter nearly glabrous or pale or

rufous-pubescent, light red-brown marked by minute scattered pale

lenticels and by small lunate leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3

conspicuous groups of fibro-vascular bundles, later becoming darker and

developing short stout spur-like lateral branchlets; generally in the

northern and extreme southern states much smaller, and rarely more than

50°-60° tall. Winter-buds obtuse, ¼′ long, with ovate acute apiculate

dark red puberulous imbricated scales, those of the inner ranks

accrescent, bright-colored at maturity, and marking the base of the

branchlet with obscure ring-like scars. Bark of the trunk ¾′—1½′ thick,

light brown often tinged with red, and deeply fissured, the surface of

the ridges covered with small irregularly shaped scales. Wood heavy,

soft, strong, very tough, not durable, light yellow or nearly white,

with thick lighter colored sapwood of 80—100 layers of annual growth;

used for the hubs of wheels, rollers in glass factories, ox-yokes,

wharf-piles, and sometimes for the soles of shoes.

Distribution. Borders of swamps in wet imperfectly drained soil, and

often especially southward on high wooded mountain slopes; valley of the

Kennebec River, Maine, to southern Ontario, central Michigan,

southeastern Missouri and eastern Oklahoma, and southward to northern

Florida, and to the valley of the Brazos River, Texas; of its largest

size on the southern Appalachian Mountains.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states, but

difficult to transplant except when very young. The first tree in the

eastern states to assume autumn colors of the leaves.

2. Nyssa biflora Walt.

[Illustration: Fig. 701]

Leaves oblanceolate, oblong, elliptic or rarely ovate, acute or

acuminate or occasionally rounded at the narrow apex, cuneate or rounded

at the gradually narrowed base, and entire, when they unfold

silky-villose above and hoary-tomentose beneath, soon becoming glabrous,

dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler and sometimes

glaucous on the lower surface, 2′—4′ long and ¾′—1′ wide, with a

prominent midrib and numerous slender veins; petioles stout, ¼′—½′ in

length. Flowers appearing when the leaves are nearly fully grown;

staminate on slender villose pedicels, in many-flowered loose clusters

on slender hairy peduncles 1′—1½′ in length; pistillate in pairs on

rather stouter peduncles usually about 1′ long; calyx of the staminate

flower disciform; petals oblong-ovate, rounded at apex, white, erect or

slightly spreading, early deciduous. Fruit solitary or in pairs, on

peduncles 1′—1½′ in length, oval or ellipsoid, dark blue, lustrous,

about ⅓′ long, with acrid pulp; stone oval, compressed, narrowed at the

ends, and prominently ribbed.

A tree, rarely more than 30° high, with a slender trunk gradually

tapering upward from a swollen and much enlarged base, small spreading

branches forming a narrow pyramidal or round-topped head, branchlets

slightly villose when they first appear, soon glabrous, bright reddish

brown in their first winter, becoming darker the following year, and

numerous erect thick roots rising above the surface of the water.

Winter-buds acute, dark red-brown, puberulous, and about ⅛′ long, the

inner scales hoary-tomentose. Bark about 1′ thick, deeply furrowed, gray

to very dark reddish brown.

Distribution. Small Pine-barren ponds of the coastal plain from North

Carolina to central and eastern Florida, southern Alabama and

Mississippi, and western Louisiana (near Lake Charles, Calcasieu

Parish).

3. Nyssa ogeche Marsh. Ogeechee Lime. Sour Tupelo.

[Illustration: Fig. 702]

Leaves oblong, oval or obovate, acute, rounded or rarely obtuse, and

apiculate at apex, gradually or abruptly cuneate or sometimes rounded at

base, and entire, covered on the lower surface when they unfold with

thick hoary tomentum and on the upper surface with short scattered pale

hairs, and at maturity thick and firm, dark green, lustrous and slightly

pilose above, pale below, 4′—6′ long and 2′—2½′ wide, with a stout

midrib, 9 or 10 pairs of primary veins covered on the lower side with

rufous pubescence or often nearly glabrous, and obscure reticulate

veinlets; petioles stout, grooved, ½′—1′ in length. Flowers appearing in

March and April; staminate in capitate clusters on slender hairy

peduncles ½′ long, bibracteolate near the middle, and developed from the

axils of the inner scales of the terminal bud, covered with long pale

hairs on the outer surface of the short obscurely 5-toothed cup-shaped

calyx and on the oblong petals rounded at apex; filaments longer than

the petals; anthers oval and conspicuously tuberculate-roughened;

pistillate solitary, 1/16′ long, on short stout woolly peduncles from

the axils of bud-scales, and furnished at apex with 2 acute hairy

bractlets; calyx coated, like the minute rounded spreading petals, with

hoary tomentum; stamens included, with short filaments, and small mostly

fertile anthers; style stout, exserted, reflexed from near the base.

Fruit bright or dull red, on slender tomentose stems enlarged at apex

and ½′—⅔′ long, ripening in July and August, and sometimes persistent on

the branches until after the falling of the leaves, oblong or obovoid,

1′—1½′ in length, tipped with the thickened and pointed remnants of the

style; flesh thick, juicy, very acid; stone oblong, compressed, narrowed

at the ends, rounded at base, acute at apex, with walls produced into 10

or 12 broad thin papery white wings, about 1′ long, and 1 or rarely

2-seeded.

A tree, rarely 60°—70° high, with 1 or several stems occasionally 2° in

diameter, spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and

slender branchlets coated when they first appear with rufous tomentum,

light reddish brown or green tinged with red and puberulous during their

first summer, turning gray or reddish brown in their first winter, and

marked by large lunate or nearly triangular leaf-scars displaying the

ends of 3 groups of fibro-vascular bundles; often a shrub, with numerous

slender clustered diverging stems. Winter-buds obtuse, ⅛′ long, with

ovate apiculate imbricated scales rounded on the back and clothed with

thick hoary tomentum, those of the inner ranks becoming at maturity

ovate-oblong or obovate, rounded at apex, bright red, and ½′—¾′ long.

Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, irregularly fissured, with a dark

brown surface broken into thick appressed persistent plate-like scales.

Wood light, soft, tough, not strong, white, with thin hardly

distinguishable sapwood of about 10 layers of annual growth. A preserve

with an agreeable subacid flavor, known as Ogeechee limes, is sometimes

made from the fruit in Georgia and South Carolina. The flowers abound in

nectar, and are much visited by bees.

Distribution. Deep often inundated river swamps or their borders; South

Carolina in the neighborhood of the coast, through the valley of the

lower Ogeechee River, Georgia; in northern and in western Florida to the

mouth of the Choctawhatchee River (_R. H. Harper_), and in the valley of

the lower Apalachicola River; rare and local.

4. Nyssa aquatica Marsh. Cotton Gum. Tupelo Gum.

[Illustration: Fig. 703]

Leaves oblong-ovate, acute or acuminate and often long-pointed at apex,

cuneate, rounded, or subcordate at base, entire or remotely and

irregularly angulate-toothed, the teeth often tipped with a long slender

mucro, when they unfold light red and coated below and on the petioles

with pale tomentum and pubescent above, especially on the broad thick

midrib, and at maturity thick and firm, dark green and lustrous on the

upper surface, pale and more or less downy-pubescent on the lower

surface, 5′—7′ long and 2′—4′ wide, with 10—12 pairs of primary veins

forked near the margins and connected by conspicuous cross veins;

petioles stout, grooved, hairy, enlarged at base, 1½′—2½′ in length.

Flowers appearing in March and April on a long slender hairy peduncle

from the axil of an inner scale of the terminal bud; staminate in dense

capitate clusters, their peduncle furnished near the middle and

occasionally at apex with long linear ciliate bractlets; calyx-tube

cup-shaped, obscurely 5-toothed, one third as long as the oblong erect

petals rounded at apex and much shorter than the stamens; pistillate

solitary, surrounded by 2—4 strap-shaped scarious ciliate bractlets

often ½′ long and more or less united below into an involucral cup;

calyx-tube oblong and much longer than the ovate minute spreading

petals; stamens included, with small mostly fertile anthers; style

stout, tapering, reflexed above the middle, and revolute into a close

coil. Fruit ripening early in the autumn, on slender drooping stalks

3′—4′ in length, oblong or slightly obovoid, crowned with the pointed

remnants of the style, dark purple, marked by conspicuous scattered pale

dots, and 1′ long, with thick tough skin and thin acid flesh; stone

obovoid, rounded at the narrow apex, pointed at base, flattened, light

brown or nearly white, and about 10-ridged, the ridges acute and

wing-like, with thin separable margins, and sometimes united by short

intermediate ridges.

A tree, 80°—100° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter above the greatly

enlarged tapering base, comparatively small spreading branches forming a

narrow oblong or pyramidal head, stout pithy branchlets dark red and

coated with pale tomentum when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous

or nearly so, and in their first winter light or bright red-brown and

marked by small scattered pale lenticels and by the conspicuous elevated

nearly orbicular leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 large

fibro-vascular bundles, and thick corky roots. Winter-buds: terminal

nearly globose, with broad ovate light chestnut-brown scales keeled on

the back and rounded and apiculate at apex, those of the inner ranks

accrescent and at maturity oblong-ovate or oblong-obovate, rounded at

apex, 1′ or more long, and bright yellow; axillary minute, obtuse,

nearly imbedded in the bark. Bark of the trunk about ¼′ thick, dark

brown, longitudinally furrowed, and roughened on the surface by small

scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, difficult to split,

light brown or often nearly white, with thick sapwood sometimes composed

of more than 100 layers of annual growth; used in the manufacture of

wooden-ware, broom-handles, and wooden shoes, and largely for fruit and

vegetable boxes. The wood of the roots is sometimes employed instead of

cork for the floats of nets.

Distribution. Deep swamps inundated during a part of every year; coast

region of the Atlantic states from southeastern Virginia to northern

Florida, through the Gulf states to the valley of the Nueces River,

Texas, and through Arkansas and southern and southeastern Missouri to

western Kentucky and Tennessee, and to the valley of the lower Wabash

River, Illinois; of its greatest size in the Cypress-swamps of western

Louisiana and eastern Texas.

LII. CORNACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, scaly buds, and alternate or

opposite deciduous leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect or

polygamo-diœcious; calyx 4 or 5-toothed, petals 4 or 5; stamens inserted

on the margin of the epigynous disk; anthers oblong; introrse, 2-celled,

the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 1 or 2-celled; ovule solitary,

suspended from the interior angle of the apex of the cell, anatropous;

micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, 1 or 2-seeded. Seed oblong-ovoid;

seed-coat membranaceous; embryo in copious fleshy albumen; cotyledons

foliaceous; radicle terete, turned toward the hilum.

The widely distributed Cornel family with ten genera, more numerous in

temperate than in tropical regions, has arborescent representatives of

the genus Cornus in North America.

1. CORNUS L. Dogwood.

Trees and shrubs, with astringent bark, opposite or rarely alternate

deciduous leaves conduplicate or involute in the bud. Flowers small,

perfect, white, greenish white or yellow; calyx-tube minutely 4-toothed,

the teeth valvate in the bud; disk pulvinate, depressed in the centre,

or obsolete; petals 4, valvate in the bud, oblong-ovate, inserted on the

margin of the disk; stamens 4, alternate with the petals; filaments

slender, exserted; ovary 2-celled; style exserted, simple, columnar,

crowned with a single capitate or truncate stigma; raphe dorsal. Fruit

ovoid or oblong; flesh thin and succulent; nut bony or crustaceous,

2-celled, 2 or sometimes 1-seeded. Seed compressed; embryo straight or

slightly incurved.

Cornus with nearly fifty species is widely distributed through the three

continents of the northern hemisphere, and south of the equator is

represented in Peru by a single species. Of the sixteen or seventeen

species of the United States four are arborescent. Cornus is rich in

tannic acid, and the bark and occasionally the leaves and unripe fruit

are used as tonics, astringents, and febrifuges. Of exotic species,

_Cornus mas_, L., is often planted in the eastern states as an

ornamental tree, and its edible fruit is used in Europe in preserves and

cordials. The wood of Cornus is hard, close-grained, and durable, and is

used in turnery and for charcoal.

The generic name, from _cornu_, relates to the hardness of the wood

produced by plants of this genus.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Flowers greenish, in a dense cymose head surrounded by a conspicuous

corolla-like involucre of 4—6 white or rarely red scales, from

terminal buds formed the previous summer; fruit ovoid, bright

red, rarely yellow.

Heads of flower-buds inclosed by the involucre during the winter;

involucral scales 4, obcordate or notched at apex; leaves

ovate to elliptic.

1. C. florida (A, C).

Heads of flower-buds inclosed only at base by the involucre during

the winter; involucral scales 4—6, oblong to obovate, usually

acute at apex; leaves ovate or rarely obovate.

2. C. Nuttallii (B, G).

Flowers cream color, in a flat cymose head, without involucral scales,

terminal on shoots of the year; fruit subglobose, white or dark

blue.

Leaves opposite, scabrous above; fruit white.

3. C. asperifolia (A, C).

Leaves mostly alternate and clustered at the end of the branches,

smooth above; fruit dark blue or rarely yellow.

4. C. alternifolia (A, C).

1. Cornus florida L. Flowering Dogwood.

[Illustration: Fig. 704]

Leaves ovate to elliptic or rarely slightly obovate, acute and often

contracted into a slender point at apex, gradually narrowed at base,

remotely and obscurely crenulate-toothed on the somewhat thickened

margins, and mostly clustered at the end of the branches, when they

unfold pale and pubescent below and puberulous above, and at maturity

thick and firm, bright green and covered with minute appressed hairs on

the upper surface, pale or sometimes almost white and more or less

pubescent on the lower surface, 3′—6′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, with a

prominent light-colored midrib deeply impressed above, and 5 or 6 pairs

of primary veins connected by obscure reticulate veinlets; in the autumn

turning bright scarlet on the upper surface, remaining pale on the lower

surface; petioles grooved, ½′—¾′ in length. Flowers: head of flower-buds

appearing during the summer between the upper pair of lateral leaf-buds,

inclosed by 4 involucral scales remaining light brown and more or less

covered with pale hairs during the winter, and borne on a stout

club-shaped puberulous peduncle ¼′ long or less during the winter and

becoming 1′—1½′ in length; involucral scales beginning to unfold,

enlarge and grow white in early spring and when the flowers open in

March at the south to May at the north, when the leaves are nearly fully

grown, forming a flat corolla-like cup 3′—4′ in diameter, becoming at

maturity obovoid, 1′—1½′ wide, gradually narrowed below the middle and

notched at the rounded apex, reticulate-veined, pure white, pink, or

rarely bright red, deciduous after the fading of the flowers; flowers in

dense many-flowered cymose heads, in the axils of broad-ovate nearly

triangular minutely apiculate glabrous light green deciduous bracts, ⅛′

in diameter; calyx terete, slightly urceolate, puberulous, obtusely

4-lobed, light green; corolla-lobes strap-shaped, rounded or acute at

apex, slightly thickened on the margins, puberulous on the outer

surface, reflexed after anthesis, green tipped with yellow; disk large

and orange-colored; style crowned with a truncate stigma. Fruit ripening

in October, ovoid, crowned with the remnants of the narrow persistent

calyx and with the style, bright scarlet or rarely yellow (f.

_xanthocarpa_ Rehd.), lustrous, ½′ long and ¼′ broad, with thin mealy

flesh, and a smooth thick-walled slightly grooved stone acute at the

ends, and 1 or 2-seeded; seeds oblong, pale brown.

A bushy tree, rarely 40° high, with a short trunk 12′-18′ in diameter,

slender spreading or upright branches, and divergent branchlets turning

upward near the end, pale green or green tinged with red when they first

appear, glabrous or slightly puberulous, bright red or yellow-green

during their first winter and nearly surrounded by the narrow ring-like

leaf-scars, later becoming light brown or gray tinged with red;

frequently toward the northern limits of its range a much-branched

shrub. Winter-buds formed in midsummer; the terminal covered by 2

opposite acute pointed scales rounded on the back and joined below for

half their length, and accompanied by 2 pairs of lateral buds, each

covered by a single scale, those of the lower pair shedding their scales

in the autumn and remaining undeveloped. Bark of the trunk ⅛′—¼′ thick,

with a dark red-brown surface divided into quadrangular or many-sided

plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, brown

sometimes changing to shades of green and red, with lighter colored

sapwood of 30—40 layers of annual growth; largely used in turnery, for

the bearings of machinery, the hubs of small wheels, barrel-hoops, the

handles of tools, and occasionally for engravers’ blocks.

Distribution. Usually under the shade of taller trees in rich

well-drained soil; southern Maine to southern Ontario, southern

Michigan, southeastern Kansas and eastern Oklahoma, and southward to

central Florida and the valley of the Brazos River, Texas; on the

mountains of northern Mexico; comparatively rare at the north; one of

the commonest and most generally distributed inhabitants of the

deciduous-leaved forests of the middle and southern states, ranging from

the coast nearly to the summits of the high Alleghany Mountains. Trees

with rose-colored or with pink involucral scales occasionally occur

(var. _rubra_ André). A variety with pendulous branches is known in

gardens (var. _pendula_ Dipp.); the var. _xanthocarpa_ near Oyster Bay,

Nassau County, Long Island, New York, and at Saluda, Polk County, North

Carolina.

Often planted as an ornament of parks and gardens in the eastern states.

2. Cornus Nuttallii Aud. Dogwood.

[Illustration: Fig. 705]

Leaves ovate or slightly obovate, acute and often contracted into a

short point at the apex, cuneate at base, faintly crenulate-serrate, and

generally clustered toward the end of the branches, when they unfold

coated below with pale tomentum and puberulous above, and at maturity

thin, bright green and slightly puberulous, with short appressed hairs

on the upper surface, and woolly pubescent on the lower surface, 4′—5′

long and 1½′—3′ wide, with a prominent midrib impressed above, and about

5 pairs of slender primary veins connected by remote reticulate

veinlets; in the autumn turning bright orange and scarlet before

falling; petioles stout, grooved, pubescent, ½′—⅔′ in length, with a

large clasping base. Flowers: head of flower-buds appearing during the

summer between the upper pair of lateral leaf-buds, surrounded at base

but not inclosed by the involucral scales during the winter,

hemispheric, ½′ in diameter, usually nodding on a stout hairy peduncle

¾′—1′ long; involucral scales becoming when the flowers open 1½′—3′ long

and 1½′—2′ wide, white or white tinged with pink, oblong to obovate or

nearly orbicular, and acute, acuminate, or obtuse, entire and thickened

at apex, puberulous on the outer surface, gradually narrowed below the

middle and conspicuously 8-ribbed, the spreading ribs united by

reticulate veinlets; flowers in dense cymose heads from the axils of

minute acuminate scarious deciduous bracts; calyx terete, slightly

urceolate, puberulous on the outer surface, yellow-green, or light

purple, with dark red-purple lobes; petals strap-shaped, rounded at

apex, spreading, somewhat puberulous on the outer surface, with

thickened slightly inflexed margins, yellow-green; style crowned with a

truncate stigma. Fruit ripening in October, in dense spherical heads of

30—40 drupes surrounded at base by a ring of abortive pendulous ovaries,

½′ long, ovoid, much flattened, crowned with the broad persistent calyx,

bright red or orange-colored, with thin mealy flesh, and a thick-walled

1 or 2-seeded stone obtuse at the ends and scarcely grooved; seeds

oblong, compressed, with a very thin pale papery coat.

A tree, 40°—60°, or exceptionally 100° high, with a trunk 1°—2° in

diameter, small spreading branches forming an oblong conic or ultimately

round-topped head, and slender light green branchlets coated while young

with pale hairs, becoming glabrous or puberulous, dark reddish purple or

sometimes green during their first winter and conspicuously marked by

the elevated lunate leaf-scars, ultimately becoming light brown or brown

tinged with red. Winter-buds formed in July; the terminal acute, ⅓′

long, covered by 2 narrow-ovate acute long-pointed puberulous light

green opposite scales, accompanied by 2 pairs of lateral buds, each

covered by a single scale, those of the lower pair shedding their scales

in the autumn and remaining undeveloped, those of the upper pair clothed

with pale hairs, especially toward the apex, their scales thickening,

turning dark purple, lengthening in the spring with the inclosed shoot,

finally becoming scarious and developing into small leaves, and in

falling marking the base of the branchlets with ring-like scars. Bark of

the trunk about ¼′ thick, brown tinged with red, and divided on the

surface into small thin appressed scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard,

strong, close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with lighter colored

sapwood of 30—40 layers of annual growth; used in cabinet-making, for

mauls and the handles of tools.

Distribution. Usually in moist well-drained soil under the shade of

coniferous forests; valley of the lower Fraser River and Vancouver

Island, British Columbia, southward through western Washington and

Oregon, on the coast ranges of California to the San Bernardino

Mountains, and on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada; southward up

to altitudes of 4000°—5000°, of its largest size near the shores of

Puget Sound and in the Redwood-forests of northern California.

3. Cornus asperifolia Michx. Dogwood.

[Illustration: Fig. 706]

Leaves ovate or oblong, gradually or abruptly contracted at apex into a

long slender point, gradually narrowed or rounded and cuneate at base,

and slightly thickened on the undulate margins, coated with lustrous

silvery tomentum when they unfold, and nearly fully grown when the

flowers open from the middle of May in Texas to the middle of July at

the north, and then dark green and roughened above by short rigid white

hairs, and pale, often glaucous or rough-pubescent below, and at

maturity thin, scabrous on the upper surface, pubescent or puberulous on

the lower surface, 3′—4′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, with a thin midrib, and

4—6 pairs of slender primary veins parallel with their sides; petioles

stout, grooved, pubescent, usually about ½′ in length. Flowers cream

color, on slender pedicels, in loose broad or narrow often panicled

pubescent cymes, on peduncles frequently 1′ in length; calyx oblong,

cup-shaped, obscurely toothed, covered with fine silky white hairs;

corolla-lobes narrow-oblong, acute, about ⅛′ long, and reflexed after

the flowers open; style thickened at apex into a prominent stigma. Fruit

ripening from the end of August until the end of October, in loose

spreading red-stemmed clusters, subglobose, white, tipped with the

remnants of the style, about ¼′ in diameter, with thin dry, bitter

flesh, and a full and rounded stone broader than high, somewhat oblique,

slightly grooved on the edge, and 1 or 2-seeded; seeds nearly ¼′ long,

with a pale brown coat.

A tree, sometimes nearly 50° high, with a short trunk 8′—10′ in

diameter, thin erect wand-like branches forming a narrow irregular

rather open head, and slender branchlets marked by numerous small pale

lenticels, light green and puberulous when they first appear, pale red,

lustrous, and puberulous during their first winter, light reddish brown

in their second year, and ultimately light gray-brown or gray; usually

shrubby. Winter-buds acute, compressed, pubescent, sessile, or stalked,

about ⅛′ long, with 2 pairs of opposite scales, the terminal bud nearly

twice as large as the compressed lateral buds. Bark of the trunk about

⅛′ thick, and divided by shallow fissures into narrow interrupted ridges

broken into small closely appressed dark red-brown scales. Wood

close-grained, hard, pale brown, with thick cream-colored sapwood.

Distribution. Southwestern Ontario (Point Pelee and Pelee Island),

southward through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi to western

Florida (Gadsden and Levy Counties) and westward to southeastern South

Dakota, southeastern Nebraska, central Kansas, northwestern Oklahoma

(near Alva, Woods County) and western Texas (Kerr, Menard and Brown

Counties); probably only arborescent on the rich bottom-lands of

southern Arkansas and eastern Texas.

4. Cornus alternifolia L. Dogwood.

[Illustration: Fig. 707]

Leaves mostly alternate, clustered at the end of the branches, rarely

opposite, oval or ovate, gradually contracted at apex into a long

slender point, cuneate or occasionally somewhat rounded at base,

obscurely crenulate-toothed on the slightly thickened and incurved

margins, coated when they unfold on the lower surface with dense silvery

white tomentum, and faintly tinged with red and pilose above, and at

maturity thin, bright yellow-green, glabrous or sparsely pubescent on

the upper surface, pale or sometimes nearly white and covered with

appressed hairs on the lower surface, 3′—5′ long and 2½′—3½′ wide, with

a broad orange-colored midrib slightly impressed above, and about 6

pairs of primary veins parallel with their sides; in the autumn turning

yellow or yellow and scarlet; petioles slender, pubescent, grooved,

1½′—2′ in length, with an enlarged clasping base. Flowers cream color,

opening from the beginning of May to the end of June on slender jointed

pedicels ⅛′—¼′ long, in terminal flat puberulous many-flowered cymes

1½′—2½′ wide, mostly on lateral branchlets; calyx cup-shaped, obscurely

toothed; corolla-lobes narrow, oblong, rounded at apex, ⅛′ long,

reflexed after anthesis; style enlarged into a prominent stigma. Fruit

in loose spreading red-stemmed clusters, ripening in October,

subglobose, dark blue-black, or rarely yellow (f. _ochrocarpa_ Rehd.),

⅓′ in diameter, tipped with the remnants of the style rising from the

bottom of a small depression, with thin and bitter flesh; and an obovoid

nutlet, pointed at base, gradually longitudinally many-grooved,

thick-walled, and 1 or 2-seeded; seeds lunate, ¼′ long, with a thin

membranaceous pale coat.

A flat-topped tree, rarely 25°—30° high, with a short trunk 6′—8′ in

diameter, long slender alternate diverging horizontal branches, and

numerous short upright slender branchlets pale orange-green or reddish

brown when they first appear, mostly light green or sometimes brown

tinged with green during their first winter, later turning darker green

and marked by pale lunate leaf-scars and small scattered pale lenticels;

often a shrub, with numerous stems. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick,

dark reddish brown, and smooth or divided by shallow longitudinal

fissures into narrow ridges irregularly broken transversely. Wood heavy,

hard, close-grained, brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored

sapwood of 20—30 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Rich woodlands, the margins of the forest, and the borders

of streams and swamps, in moist well-drained soil, New Brunswick and

Nova Scotia, westward along the valley of the St. Lawrence River to the

northern shores of Lake Superior and to Minnesota, and southward through

the northern states and along the Appalachian Mountains to North

Carolina, up to altitudes of 3500°—4000°; in northern Alabama,

southwestern Georgia, and western Florida (River Junction, Gadsden

County, _T. G. Harbison_).

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states.

Section 2. Gamopetalæ. Corolla of united petals (_divided in Elliottia

in Ericaceæ 0 in some species of Fraxinus in Oleaceæ_).

A. Ovary superior (_inferior in Vaccinium in Ericaceæ, partly inferior

in Symplocaceæ, partly superior in Styraceæ_).

LIII. ERICACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with scaly buds, and alternate simple leaves, without

stipules. Flowers perfect, regular; calyx 4—5-lobed; corolla hypogynous,

5-lobed (_of 4 petals in Elliottia_), the lobes imbricated in the bud;

stamens hypogynous, mostly free from the corolla, as many, or twice as

many as its lobes; anthers introrse, 2-celled, opening by terminal

pores, often appendaged; ovary 4—10-celled (_inferior in Vaccinium_);

styles terminal, simple, stigma terminal; ovules numerous, anatropous or

amphitropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit capsular,

drupaceous, or baccate. Seeds with fleshy or horny albumen, embryo

small; cotyledons small and short.

The Heath family with seventy-one genera is widely distributed over the

temperate and tropical parts of the earth’s surface. Of the twenty-one

genera found in the United States seven have arborescent

representatives.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Ovary superior.

Corolla of 4 petals; flowers in erect racemose panicles; leaves

deciduous.

1. Elliottia.

Corolla gamopetalous, 5-lobed.

Fruit capsular.

Capsule septicidal, the valves in opening separating from the

persistent placentiferous axis; calyx-lobes imbricated in

the bud; leaves persistent (_sometimes deciduous_).

Flowers in terminal clusters; corolla 5-lobed;

inflorescence-buds conic, covered with closely

imbricated scales; leaves revolute on the margins.

2. Rhododendron.

Flowers in axillary clusters; corolla saucer-shaped, with a

short narrow tube and 10 pouches below the short limb,

the anthers in the pouches in the bud:

inflorescence-buds elongated, covered with loosely

imbricated scales; leaves flat.

3. Kalmia.

Capsule loculicidal, the valves in opening bearing the

partitions and separating from the persistent

placentiferous axis; calyx-lobes valvate in the bud.

Capsule ovoid-pyramidal; flowers in terminal panicles of

secund racemes; anther-cells opening longitudinally from

the apex to the middle; leaves deciduous.

4. Oxydendrum.

Capsule oblong; flowers in axillary fascicles; anthers opening

below the apex by 2 oblong pores; leaves persistent.

5. Lyonia.

Fruit drupaceous; flowers in terminal panicles; anthers bearing a

pair of reflexed awns on the back, each cell opening at apex

anteriorally by a terminal pore; leaves persistent.

6. Arbutus.

Ovary inferior; fruit baccate; flowers axillary, racemose or solitary;

anther-cells terminating in tubular appendages and opening by

terminal pores.

7. Vaccinium.

1. ELLIOTTIA Ell.

A glabrous tree or shrub, with slender terete branchlets, scaly buds,

and fibrous roots. Leaves petiolate, oblong or oblong-obovate, acute at

the ends or occasionally rounded at apex, entire, thin, dark green and

glabrous above, pale and villose below, particularly on the thin yellow

midrib and obscure forked veins; deciduous; petioles slender and

flattened, with an abruptly enlarged base nearly covering the small

axillary buds. Flowers perfect, on slender elongated pedicels, in erect

terminal elongated racemose panicles, with minute acute scarious

caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx short, tubular, puberulous, dark

red-brown, 4-toothed, the broad apiculate teeth erose on the margins and

imbricated in the bud; petals 4, imbricated in the bud,

spatulate-linear, sessile; stamens 8, hypogynous, shorter than the

petals, filaments broad, flattened; anthers oblong-ovoid, the cells

callous-mucronate, free at the apex of the spreading lobes, opening from

above downward; disk much thickened, fleshy; ovary sessile, subglobose,

4-lobed, 4-celled, concave at apex; style elongated, slender, gradually

enlarged and club-shaped above and incurved at apex; stigma 3—5-lobed,

smaller than the thickened end of the style; ovules numerous in each

cell, attached on the inner angle of a tumid placenta, ascending,

anatropous. Fruit unknown.

Elliottia with a single species is confined to the southern United

States.

The genus is named in honor of Stephen Elliott (1771—1830), the

distinguished botanist of South Carolina.

1. Elliottia racemosa Ell.

[Illustration: Fig. 708]

Leaves 3′—4′ long, 1′—1½′ wide; petioles ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers about

½′ long, opening from the middle to the end of June, in clusters 7′—10′

in length.

A tree, 15°—20° high, with a trunk 4′—5′ in diameter, short ascending

branches forming a pyramidal head, and erect branchlets light red-brown

and pilose when they first appear, bright orange-brown, lustrous, and

nearly glabrous during their first winter, and roughened by slightly

raised oblong-obovate leaf-scars with conspicuous central fibro-vascular

bundle-scars, becoming light brown slightly tinged with red during their

second season and dark gray-brown the following year; or more frequently

shrubby. Winter-buds: terminal broad-ovoid, acute, about ⅛′ long, with

much thickened bright chestnut-brown shining scales conspicuously

white-pubescent near the margins toward the apex; lateral buds smaller,

ovoid, compressed, rounded or short-pointed at apex. Bark thin, smooth,

pale gray.

Distribution. Sandy woods in a few isolated stations in the valley of

the Savannah River, near Augusta, Richmond County, and in Burke and

Bullock Counties, Georgia.

2. RHODODENDRON L.