Chapter XLVIII: Section 2: Gamopetalæ. Corolla of united petals (divided in Elliottia (1)

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.

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.

Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, terete branchlets, terminal buds formed in summer, and fibrous roots. Leaves usually clustered at the end of the branches, revolute and entire on the margin, persistent or deciduous. Flowers in terminal umbellate corymbs from buds with numerous caducous scales; calyx 5-parted or toothed, persistent under the fruit, corolla 5—10-lobed, deciduous; stamens 5 or 10, rarely more, more or less unequal, ultimately spreading; filaments subulate-filiform, pilose at the base; disk thick and fleshy, crenately lobed; ovary 5—10-celled; style slender, crowned with a capitate stigma and persistent on the fruit; ovules numerous in each cell, attached in many series to an axile 2-lipped placenta projected from the inner angle of the cell, anatropous. Fruit a woody many-seeded capsule. Seed scobiform; seed-coat loose, reticulate, produced at the ends beyond the nucleus into a short often laciniate appendage; embryo minute, cylindric, axile in fleshy albumen; cotyledons oblong, shorter than the radicle turned toward the hilum.

Rhododendron with some four or five hundred species occurs in eastern Thibet, on the Himalayas, in southwestern China, the Malay peninsula and Archipelago, New Guinea, northern China and Corea, Japan, the mountains of central Europe, on the Caucasus, and in eastern and western North America, the largest number of species being found in southwestern China and on the Himalayas. Of the twenty-three or twenty-four North American species one only is arborescent.

Rhododendron possesses astringent narcotic properties. It produces hard close-grained compact wood sometimes used in turnery and for fuel. Many of the species are cultivated in gardens for the beauty of their large and conspicuous flowers.

The generic name is from ῥόδον and δένδρον, the Rose-tree.

1. Rhododendron maximum L. Great Laurel. Rose Bay.

Leaves revolute in the bud, ovate-lanceolate or obovate-lanceolate, acute or short-pointed at apex, and narrowed, cuneate or rounded at base, when they unfold covered with a thick pale or ferrugineous tomentum of gland-tipped hairs, and at maturity glabrous, thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, usually pale or whitish on the lower surface, 4′—12′ long and 1½′—2½′ wide, with a broad pale midrib and obscure reticulate veinlets; persistent for two or three years; petioles stout, ridged above, rounded below, 1′—1½′ in length. Flowers: inflorescence-buds surrounded at first by several loose narrow leaf-like scales, and when fully grown in September cone-shaped, 1½′ long and ½′ broad, with many imbricated ovate scales rounded and contracted at apex into a long slender point, opening late in June after the shoots of the year from buds in the axils of upper leaves have reached their full length; flowers on slender pink pedicels covered with glandular white hairs and furnished at base with two linear scarious bractlets, from the axils of the scales of the inner ranks of the inflorescence-bud, in 16—24-flowered umbellate clusters 4′—5′ in diameter, with accrescent scarious resinous puberulous bracts, those of the outer ranks becoming 1′ long and ⅓′ wide, and shorter than the lanceolate bracts of the inner ranks contracted into a long slender point; calyx light green and puberulous, with rounded remote lobes; corolla prominently 5-angled or ridged in the bud, campanulate, gibbous on the posterior side, puberulous in the throat, light rose color, purplish, or white, 1′ long, cleft to the middle into 5 oval rounded lobes, with conspicuous central veins, the upper lobe marked on the inner face by a cluster of yellow-green spots, and furnished on the outer surface at the bottom of each sinus with a conspicuous dark red gland; stamens 8—12, white, inserted on the bright green disk; filaments enlarged and flattened at base, slightly bent inward above the middle, and bearded with stiff white hairs, the 4 or 5 short ones at the back of the flower for more than half their length and the others only near the base; ovary ovoid, green, coated with short glandular pale hairs, crowned with a long slender glabrous white declining style club-shaped and inflexed at apex, and terminating in a 5-rayed scarlet stigma. Fruit dark red-brown, ovoid, ½′ long, glandular-hispid, ripening and shedding its seeds in the autumn, the clusters of open capsules remaining on the branches until the following summer; seeds oblong, flattened, the coat prolonged at the ends into scarious fringed appendages.

A bushy tree, 30°—40° high, with a short crooked often prostrate trunk occasionally 10′—12′ in diameter, stout contorted branches forming a round head, and branchlets green tinged with red and covered with dark red or slightly ferrugineous glandular-hispid hairs when they first appear, dark green and glabrous in their first winter, gradually turning bright red-brown in their second year, and ultimately gray tinged with red, the thin bark separating on branches four or five years old into persistent scales; more often a broad shrub, with many divergent twisted stems 10°—12° high. Winter-buds: leaf-buds conic, dark green, axillary, or terminal on barren shoots, with many closely imbricated scales, those of the inner ranks accrescent, increasing in length from the outer to the inner, and at maturity 1½′ long, ¼′ wide, gradually narrowed at base, and terminating at apex in a long slender point, light green, glabrous, closely held against the shoot by a resinous exudation from the glandular hairs, and in falling marking the branchlet with numerous conspicuous narrow remote scars persistent for three or four years. Bark of the trunk about 1/16′ thick, light red-brown, broken on the surface into small thin appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, rather brittle, close-grained, light clear brown, with thin lighter colored sapwood; occasionally made into the handles of tools and used as a substitute for boxwood in engraving. A decoction of the leaves is occasionally employed in domestic practice in the treatment of rheumatism.

Distribution. Nova Scotia, Mt. Chocorua, New Hampshire, and southward in New England and eastern New York and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia and westward to the northern shores of Lake Erie and to southeastern Ohio (Hocking and Fairfield Counties); rare at the north and an inhabitant of deep cold swamps in a few isolated stations; more abundant on the mountains of western Pennsylvania, becoming exceedingly common farther south and occupying the steep banks of streams up to altitudes of 3000°; of its largest size on the high mountains of eastern Tennessee and the Carolinas, and here often forming thickets hundreds of acres in extent.

Often cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in the United States, and in Europe, and one of the parents of a number of distinct and beautiful hybrids.

3. KALMIA L.

Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, terete branchlets without a terminal bud, minute axillary leaf-buds, elongated axillary inflorescence-buds covered by imbricated scales, and fibrous roots. Leaves ovate-oblong or linear, short-petiolate, with flat entire margins, coriaceous, persistent or deciduous in one species. Flowers on slender pedicels bibracteolate at the base, from the axils of foliaceous coriaceous ovate or acute persistent bracts, in axillary umbels; calyx 5, rarely 6-parted, the divisions imbricated in the bud, persistent under the fruit; corolla 5, rarely 6-lobed, rose-colored, purple, or white, saucer-shaped, with a short tube and 10 pouches just below the 5 or 6-parted limb, the lobes ovate, acute, before anthesis prominently 10 or 12-ribbed from the pouches to the acute apex of the bud, the salient keel of the ribs running to the point of the lobes and to the sinuses; stamens 10, shorter than the corolla; filaments filiform; anthers oblong, each cell opening by a short apical oblong longitudinal pore, at first free in the bud, the filaments then erect, later received in the pouches of the corolla, the filaments becoming bent back by its enlargement and expansion, straightening elastically and incurving on the release of the anthers, and in straightening discharging the pollen-grains; disk prominently 10-lobed; ovary subglobose, 5-celled; style filiform, exserted, crowned with a capitate stigma; ovules numerous in each cell, inserted on a 2-lipped placenta, pendulous or spreading from near the top of the thin columella, few-ranked, anatropous. Fruit a woody many-seeded globose slightly 5-lobed 5-celled capsule, tardily septicidally 5-valved, the valves crustaceous, ultimately opening down the middle by a narrow slit and separating from the persistent placenta-bearing axis. Seeds oblong or subglobose, minute; seed-coat crustaceous or membranaceous; embryo in fleshy albumen, terete, near the hilum; radicle erect, rather shorter than the oblong cotyledons.

Kalmia with six species is North American and Cuban, one species occasionally becoming under favorable conditions a small tree.

The generic name is in honor of the Swedish traveler and botanist, Peter Kalm (1715—1779).

1. Kalmia latifolia L. Laurel. Mountain Laurel.

Leaves sometimes in pairs or in 3’s, conduplicate in the bud, each leaf in the bud inclosed by the one immediately below it, oblong or elliptic-lanceolate, acute or rounded and tipped at apex with a callous point, and gradually narrowed at base, rarely oval to oblong-obovate and rounded at ends (f. _obtusata_ Rehd.), when they unfold slightly tinged with pink and covered with glandular white hairs, and at maturity thick and rigid, dark rather dull green above, light yellow-green below, 3′—4′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with a broad yellow midrib and obscure immersed veins; beginning to fall during their second summer; petioles stout, terete or slightly flattened, about ⅔′ in length. Flowers opening from early in April in southern Mississippi to the 20th of June at the north; inflorescence-buds appearing in the autumn from the axils of upper leaves, beginning to lengthen with the first warm days of spring and usually developing 2 or several lateral branches, the whole forming a compound many-flowered corymb of numerous crowded fascicles more or less covered with dark scurfy scales, 4′—5′ in diameter, and overtopped at the flowering time by the leafy branches of the year; flowers nearly 1′ in diameter, on long slender red or green pedicels covered with glandular hairs, and furnished at base with 2 minute acute bractlets, developed from the axils of acute persistent bracts sometimes ⅓′ long; calyx divided nearly to the base into narrow acute thin green lobes; corolla white (f. _alba_ Rehd.), rose-color, or deep pink (f. _rubra_ Rehd.) viscid-pubescent, marked on the inner surface with a waving dark rose-colored line and with delicate purple penciling above the sacs, rarely with a broad purple or chocolate-colored band (f. _fuscata_ Rehd.). Fruit ripening in September, crowned with the persistent style, 3/16′ in diameter, and covered with viscid hairs, remaining on the branches until the following year; seeds oblong, light brown, scattered by the opening of the valves.

A tree, rarely 30°—40° high, with a short crooked and contorted trunk sometimes 18′—20′ in diameter, stout forked divergent branches forming a round-topped compact head, and slender branchlets light green tinged with red and covered with soft white glandular-viscid hairs when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, and in their first winter green tinged with red and very lustrous, turning bright red-brown during their second year and paler the following season, the bark then separating into large thin papery scales exposing the cinnamon-red inner bark, and marked with large deeply impressed leaf-scars showing near the centre a crowded cluster of fibro-vascular bundle-scars; more often a dense broad shrub 6°—10° high, with numerous crooked stems. Winter-buds formed before midsummer in the axils of the leaves just below those producing the inflorescence-buds, their inner scales accrescent, and at maturity often 1′ long and ½′ wide, ovate, acute, light green, covered with glandular white hairs, and in falling marking the base of the shoots with conspicuous broad scars. Bark of the trunk hardly more than 1/16′ thick, dark brown tinged with red, and divided by longitudinal furrows into narrow ridges separating into long narrow scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, rather brittle, close-grained, brown tinged with red, with slightly lighter colored sapwood; used for the handles of tools, in turnery, and for fuel.

Distribution. New Brunswick to the northern shores of Lake Erie and southward in the Atlantic coast region to Virginia and to southern Ohio, Martin and Crawford Counties, Indiana and central Tennessee, along the Appalachian Mountains and their foothills to Georgia, and from western Florida through Alabama to eastern and southern Mississippi and the valley of the Bogue Lusa River, Washington Parish, Louisiana; often growing in low moist ground near the margins of swamps or on dry slopes under the shade of deciduous-leaved trees, or on rich rocky hillsides; most abundant and often forming dense impenetrable thickets on the southern Appalachian Mountains up to altitudes of 3000°—4000°; usually shrubby, and only arborescent in a few secluded valleys between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains of North and South Carolina; abundant and of large size along small streams in Liberty County, western Florida. The var. _myrtifolia_ K. Koch with small lance-oblong leaves, and small compact clusters of small flowers, a compact dwarf shrub, and an old inhabitant of European gardens, is occasionally wild in Massachusetts; in an abnormal form (f. _polypetala_ Rehd.) found in western Massachusetts the corolla is divided into 5 narrow petals.

Often cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in the eastern states, and in Europe.

4. OXYDENDRUM DC.

A tree, with thick deeply furrowed bark, slender terete glabrous light red or brown branchlets, without a terminal bud, marked by elevated nearly triangular leaf-scars displaying a lunate row of crowded fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and numerous elevated oblong dark lenticels, acid foliage, and fibrous roots. Winter-buds axillary, minute, partly immersed in the bark, obtuse, covered with opposite broad-ovate dark red scales rounded at apex, those of the inner ranks accrescent. Leaves alternate, revolute in the bud, oblong or lanceolate, acute, gradually contracted at base into a long slender petiole, serrate with minute incurved callous teeth, penniveined, with a conspicuous bright yellow midrib and reticulate veinlets, thin and firm, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale and glaucous on the lower surface, glabrous or at first slightly puberulous, deciduous. Flowers on erect clavate pedicels coated with hoary pubescence and bibracteolate above the middle, with linear acute caducous bractlets, in puberulous panicles of secund racemes appearing in summer and terminal on axillary leading shoots of the year, the lower racemes in the axils of upper leaves; calyx free, divided nearly to the base, the divisions valvate in the bud, ovate-lanceolate, acute, pubescent or puberulous on the outer surface, persistent under the fruit; corolla hypogynous, cylindric to ovate-cylindric, white, puberulous, 5-lobed, the lobes minute, ovate, acute, reflexed; stamens 10, included; filaments subulate, broad, pilose, inserted on the very base of the corolla; anthers linear-oblong, narrower than the filaments, the cells opening from the apex to the middle; disk thin, obscurely 10-lobed; ovary broad-ovoid, pubescent, 5-celled; style columnar, thick, exserted, crowned with a simple stigma; ovules attached to an axile placenta rising from the base of the cell, ascending, amphitropous. Fruit a 5-celled ovoid-pyramidal many-seeded capsule crowned with the remnants of the persistent style, 5-lobed, puberulous, loculicidally 5-valved, the valves woody, separating from the central persistent placentiferous axis, many-seeded. Seeds ascending, elongated; seed-coat membranaceous, loose, reticulated, produced at the ends into long slender points; embryo minute, axile in fleshy albumen, cylindric; radicle terete, next the hilum.

The genus consists of a single species.

The generic name is from ὀξύς and δένδρον, in allusion to the acid foliage.

1. Oxydendrum arboreum DC. Sorrel-tree. Sour Wood.

Leaves when they unfold bronze-green, very lustrous and glabrous with the exception of a slight pubescence on the upper side of the midrib and a few scattered hairs on the under side of the midrib and on the petioles, and at maturity 5′—7′ long and 1½′—2½′ wide; turning bright scarlet in the autumn; petioles ⅔′ in length. Flowers opening late in July or early in August, ⅓′ long, in panicles 7′—8′ in length. Fruit ⅓′—½′ long, hanging in drooping clusters sometimes a foot in length, ripening in September, the empty capsules often persistent on the branches until late in the autumn; seeds about ⅛′ long, pale brown.

A tree, occasionally 50°—60° high, with a tall straight trunk 12′—20′ in diameter, slender spreading branches forming a narrow oblong round-topped head, and glabrous branchlets yellow-green and marked by orange-colored lenticels when they first appear, becoming in their first winter orange-colored to reddish brown. Winter-buds about 1/16′ long, their inner scales at maturity 1′ in length, ⅛′ wide, spatulate, acute at apex, and slightly puberulous on the inner surface and on the margins. Bark of the trunk ⅔′—1′ thick, gray tinged with red and divided by longitudinal furrows into broad rounded ridges covered with small thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, brown tinged with red, with lighter colored sapwood of 80—90 layers of annual growth; sometimes used locally for the handles of tools and the bearings of machinery. The leaves have a pleasant acidulous taste, and are reputed to be tonic, refrigerant, and diuretic, and are occasionally used in domestic practice in the treatment of fevers.

Distribution. Well-drained gravelly soil on ridges rising above the banks of streams; coast of Virginia (Norfolk County) to that of North Carolina (near Newbern, Craven County), southwestern Pennsylvania to southern Ohio and Indiana (Perry County), and to western Kentucky and Tennessee, along the Appalachian Mountains and their foothills, and southward to western Florida, the shores of Mobile Bay, the coast region of Mississippi, and West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana; up to altitudes of 3500° on the southern mountains; of its largest size on the western slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains, Tennessee.

Often cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states and hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts, and occasionally in western and central Europe.

5. LYONIA Nutt.

Trees or shrubs, with slender terete branchlets, and fibrous roots. Leaves petiolate, thin or coriaceous. Flowers on slender pedicels from the axils of ovate acute bracts, in axillary and terminal umbellate fascicles or panicled racemes; calyx persistent, 4—5-toothed or parted, the divisions valvate in the bud; corolla globular, 4 or 5-toothed or lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens 8—10, included; filaments flat, incurved, usually slightly adnate to the base of the corolla, dilated and bearded at base, geniculate; anthers oblong, the cells opening below the apex by large oblong pores; disk 10-lobed; ovary 5-celled, depressed in the centre; style columnar, stigmatic at apex; ovules attached to a placenta borne near the summit of the axis, anatropous. Fruit ovoid, many-seeded, loculicidally 5-valved, the valves septiferous and separating from the placentiferous axis, 5-ribbed by the thickening of the valves at the dorsal sutures, the ribs more or less separable in dehiscence. Seeds minute, pendulous, narrow-oblong; seed-coat loose, thin, reticulate, produced at the ends beyond the nucleus into short fringe-like wings; embryo axile in fleshy albumen, cylindric elongated; cotyledons much shorter than the terete radicle turned toward the hilum.

Lyonia with about twenty species is confined to North America, the West Indies, and Mexico. Of the four or five species which occur in the United States one is occasionally a small tree.

The genus is named in honor of John Lyon, an English gardener who made important collections of plants in the United States early in the nineteenth century.

1. Lyonia ferruginea Nutt.

_Xolisma ferruginea_ Hell.

Leaves cuneate-obovate, rhombic-obovate or cuneate-oblong, acute or rounded at apex, usually tipped with a cartilaginous mucro, gradually narrowed at base, and entire, with thickened revolute margins, scurfy when they unfold, and at maturity thick and firm, pale green, smooth and shining or sometimes obscurely lepidote above, covered below with ferrugineous or pale scales, 1′—3′ long and ¼′—1½′ wide, with a prominent midrib and primary veins; appearing in early spring and persistent until the summer or autumn of their second year; petioles short, thick, much enlarged at base. Flowers ⅛′ in diameter, chiefly produced on branches of the year or occasionally on those of the previous year, opening from February until April when the leaves are fully grown, on slender recurved pedicels much shorter than the leaves, in crowded axillary short-stemmed or sessile ferrugineous-lepidote fascicles, with minute acute deciduous bracts and bractlets; calyx 5-lobed, with acute lobes, covered on the outer surface with ferrugineous scales, and about one third as long as the white pubescent corolla, with short reflexed acute teeth slightly thickened and ciliate on the margins; filaments shortened by a conspicuous geniculate fold in the middle; ovary coated with thick white tomentum; style stout, as long or a little longer than the corolla. Fruit on a stout erect stem, oblong, 5-angled, ¼′ long; seed pale brown.

A tree, occasionally 20°—30° high, with a slender crooked or often prostrate trunk sometimes 10′ in diameter, thin rigid divergent branches forming a tall oblong irregular head, and slender branchlets coated when they first appear with minute ferrugineous scales and covered in their second year with glabrous or pubescent light or dark red-brown bark smooth or exfoliating in small thin scales. Winter-buds minute, acute, and covered with ferrugineous scales. Bark of the trunk ⅛′—¼′ thick, divided into long narrow ridges by shallow longitudinal furrows, reddish brown and separating into short thick scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained although not strong, light brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Hummocks and sandy woods; coast region of South Carolina and Georgia, northern Florida to the centre of the peninsula, the shores of Tampa Bay, and to the neighborhood of Apalachicola (Franklin County); in the United States arborescent in the rich soil of the woody hummocks rising in the sandy Pine-covered coast plain, and as a low shrub in the dry sandy sterile soil of Pine-barrens; in the West Indies and Mexico.

6. ARBUTUS L.

Trees or shrubs, with astringent bark exfoliating from young stems in large thin scales, smooth terete red branches, and thick hard roots. Leaves petiolate, entire or dentate, obscurely penniveined, persistent. Flowers on clavate pedicels bibracteolate at base from the axils of ovate bracts, in simple terminal compound racemes or panicles, with scarious scaly persistent bracts and bractlets; calyx free from the ovary, 5-parted nearly to the base, the divisions imbricated in the bud, ovate, acute, scarious, persistent; corolla ovoid-urceolate, white, 5-toothed, the teeth obtuse and recurved; stamens 10, shorter than the corolla; filaments subulate, dilated and pilose at base, free, inserted in the bottom of the corolla; anthers short, compressed laterally, dorsally 2-awned, the cells opening at the top internally by a terminal pore; ovary glandular-roughened, glabrous or tomentose, sessile or slightly immersed in the glandular 10-lobed disk, 5 or rarely 4-celled; style columnar, simple, exserted; stigma obscurely 5-lobed; ovules attached to a central placenta developed from the inner angle of each cell, amphitropous. Fruit drupaceous, globose, smooth or glandular-coated, 5-celled, many-seeded; flesh dry and mealy; stone cartilaginous, often incompletely developed. Seeds small, compressed or angled, narrowed and often apiculate at apex; seed-coat coriaceous, dark red-brown, slightly pilose; embryo axile in copious horny albumen, clavate; radicle terete, erect, turned toward the hilum.

Arbutus with ten or twelve species inhabits southern and western North America, Central America, western, southern and eastern Europe, Asia Minor, northern Africa, and the Canary Islands. Three species occur within the territory of the United States. Arbutus produces hard close-grained valuable wood often made into charcoal, used in the manufacture of gunpowder. The fruit possesses narcotic properties, and the bark and leaves are astringent.

_Arbutus_ is the classical name of the species of southern Europe.

CONSPECTUS OF THE SPECIES Of THE UNITED STATES.

Bark of old trunks dark red-brown.
Ovary glabrous; leaves oval or oblong.
1. A. Menziesii (B, G).
Ovary pubescent; leaves oval, ovate, or lanceolate.
2. A. texana (C).
Bark of old trunks ashy gray; ovary glabrous, conspicuously porulose;
leaves lanceolate or rarely narrow-oblong.
3. A. arizonica (H).

1. Arbutus Menziesii Pursh. Madroña.

Leaves oval or oblong, rounded or contracted into a short point at apex, and rounded, subcordate or cuneate at base, with slightly thickened revolute entire or occasionally on young plants sharply serrate margins, when they unfold light green or often pink, especially on the lower surface, and glabrous or slightly puberulous, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale or often nearly white below, 3′—5′ long and 1½′—3′ wide, with a thick pale midrib and conspicuously reticulated veinlets; persistent until the early summer of their second year and then turning orange and scarlet and falling gradually and irregularly; petioles stout, grooved, ½′—1′ in length, often slightly wing-margined toward the apex; often producing late in summer a second crop of smaller leaves. Flowers about ⅓′ long, with a glabrous ovary, appearing from March to May on short slender puberulous pedicels from the axils of acute scarious bracts ciliate on the margins, in spicate pubescent racemes forming a cluster 5′—6′ long and broad. Fruit ripening in the autumn, subglobose or occasionally obovoid or oval, ½′ long, bright orange-red, with thin glandular flesh and a 5-celled more or less perfectly developed thin-walled cartilaginous stone; seeds several in each cell, tightly pressed together and angled, dark brown and pilose.

A tree, 80°—125° high, with a tall straight trunk 4°—5° in diameter, stout upright or spreading branches forming a narrow oblong or broad round-topped head, and slender branchlets light red, pea-green, or orange-colored and glabrous when they first appear, or on vigorous young plants sometimes covered with pale scattered deciduous hairs, becoming in their first winter bright reddish brown. Winter-buds obtuse, ⅓′ long, with numerous imbricated broadly-ovate bright brown scales keeled on the back, apiculate at apex, and slightly ciliate. Bark of young stems and of the branches smooth, bright red, separating into large thin scales, becoming on old trunks ⅓′—½′ thick, dark reddish brown, and covered with small thick plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, light brown shaded with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 8—12 layers of annual growth; used for furniture and largely for charcoal. The bark is sometimes employed in tanning leather.

Distribution. High well-drained slopes usually in rich soil or occasionally in gravelly valleys; islands at Seymore Narrows, and southward through the coast region of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon; over the coast ranges of northern California, extending east to Mt. Shasta and south along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada from altitudes of 2500°—4000° to Placer County; on many of the coast ranges south of San Francisco Bay to the mountains of southern California; common and of its largest size in the Redwood-forests of northwestern California; much smaller north of California; rare on the Sierra Nevada and southward except on the Santa Cruz Mountains, and often shrubby in habit.

Occasionally cultivated in the gardens of western and southern Europe.

2. Arbutus texana Buckl. Madroña.

_Arbutus xalapensis_ S. Watson, not H. B. K.

Leaves oval, ovate, or lanceolate, rounded, acute and often apiculate at apex, and rounded or cuneate at base, with slightly thickened usually entire or remotely crenulate-toothed or coarsely serrate margins, often tinged with red when they unfold and pubescent below, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale and usually slightly pubescent on the lower surface, 1′—3′ long and ⅔′—1½′ wide, with a thick midrib often villose-pubescent below; petioles stout, pubescent, sometimes becoming nearly glabrous, 1′—1½′ in length. Flowers ¼′ long, with ciliate calyx-lobes and a pubescent ovary, appearing in March on stout recurved hoary-tomentose club-shaped pedicels from the axils of ovate acute hoary-tomentose often persistent bracts, in compact conic hoary-tomentose panicles 2½′ long. Fruit pubescent until half grown, becoming glabrous, usually produced very sparingly, ripening in summer, dark red, ⅓′ in diameter, with thin granular flesh and a rather thick more or less completely formed stone; seeds numerous in each cell, compressed, puberulous.

A tree, in Texas rarely more than 18°—20° high, with a short often crooked trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, separating a foot or two above the ground into several stout spreading branches, and branchlets light red and thickly coated with pubescence when they first appear, becoming dark red-brown and covered with small plate-like scales; often a broad irregularly shaped bush, with numerous contorted stems. Winter-buds about ⅛′ long, with hoary tomentose scales, the outer ovate, acute, the inner obovate and rounded at apex. Bark of young stems and of the branches thin, tinged with red, separating into large papery scales exposing the light red or flesh-colored inner bark, becoming at the base of old trunks sometimes ¼′ thick, deeply furrowed, dark reddish brown, and broken into thick square plates. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, brown tinged with red, with a lighter colored sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual growth; sometimes used in Texas for the handles of small tools and in the manufacture of mathematical instruments.

Distribution. Texas, dry limestone hills, Travis, Comal, Blanco, Kendall and Bandera Counties, on the Guadaloupe and Eagle Mountains, Culberson and El Paso Counties; southeastern New Mexico (Eddy County); on the mountains of Nuevo Leon in the neighborhood of Monterey.

3. Arbutus arizonica Sarg. Madroña.

Leaves lanceolate to rarely oblong, acute or rounded and apiculate at apex, and cuneate or occasionally rounded at base, with thickened entire or rarely denticulate margins, when they unfold, tinged with red, and slightly puberulous, especially on the petiole and margins, and at maturity thin, firm and rigid, light green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 1½′—3′ long and ½′—1′ wide, with a slender yellow midrib and obscure reticulate veinlets; appearing in May and after the summer rains in September, and persistent for at least a year; petioles slender, often 1′ in length. Flowers ¼′ long, with a corolla much contracted in the middle, and a glabrous porulose ovary, opening in May on short stout hairy pedicels from the axils of conspicuous ovate rounded scarious bracts, in rather loose clusters 2′—2½′ long and broad, their lower branches from the axils of upper leaves. Fruit ripening in October and November, globose or short-oblong, dark orange-red, granulate, ⅓′ in diameter, with thin sweetish flesh, and a papery usually incompletely developed stone; seeds compressed, puberulous.

A tree, 40°—50° high, with a tall straight trunk 18′—24′ in diameter, stout spreading branches forming a rather compact round-topped head, and thick tortuous divergent branchlets reddish brown and more or less pubescent or light purple, pilose, and covered with a glaucous bloom when they first appear, becoming bright red at the end of their first season, their bark thin, separating freely into thin more or less persistent scales. Winter-buds ⅓′ long, red, the two outer scales linear, acuminate a third longer than those of the next, rank, acute and apiculate and ridged on the back. Bark of young stems and of the branches thin, smooth, dark red, exfoliating in large thin scales, becoming on old trunks ⅓′—½′ thick, irregularly broken by longitudinal furrows and divided into square appressed plate-like light gray or nearly white scales faintly tinged with red on the surface. Wood heavy, close-grained, soft and brittle, light brown tinged with red, with lighter colored sapwood of 30—40 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Dry gravelly benches at altitude of 6000°—8000° on the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita Mountains, southern Arizona, and on the San Luis and Animas Mountains of southwestern New Mexico (Grant County); on the Sierra Nevada of Chihuahua.

7. VACCINIUM L.

Shrubs or rarely small trees, with slender branchlets, and fibrous roots. Leaves thin or coriaceous, deciduous or persistent. Flowers small, on bibracteolate pedicels, in many-branched axillary racemes, or solitary, their bracts small or foliaceous; calyx-tube adnate to the ovary, 4—5-lobed, the lobes valvate in the bud, persistent; corolla epigynous, 4 or 5-toothed, the teeth imbricated in the bud, urceolate-campanulate; stamens 8—10, inserted on the base of the corolla under the thick obscurely lobed epigynous disk; filaments filiform, free, usually hirsute; anthers awned on the back, the cells produced upward into erect spreading tubes dehiscent by a terminal pore; ovary inferior, 4 or 5-celled, the cells sometimes imperfectly divided by the development from the back of a false partition; style filiform, erect; stigma minute; ovules attached to the interior angle of the cell by a 2-lipped placenta, anatropous. Fruit a berry crowned with the calyx-limb, 4 or 5 or imperfectly 8 or 10-celled, the cells many-seeded. Seed minute, compressed, ovoid or reniform; seed-coat crustaceous; embryo clavate, minute, surrounded by fleshy albumen, axile, erect; cotyledons ovate; radicle terete, turned toward the hilum.

Vaccinium with about one hundred species is distributed through the boreal and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, and occurs within the tropics at high altitudes north and south of the equator. Of the twenty-five or thirty species which occur in North America one is small trees. The fruits of many of the species are edible, the most valuable being the North American _Vaccinium macrocarpum_ L., the Cranberry.

_Vaccinium_ is the classical name of one of the Old World species.

1. Vaccinium arboreum Marsh. Farkleberry. Sparkleberry.

Leaves obovate, oblong-oval or occasionally orbicular, acute, or rounded and apiculate at apex, gradually or abruptly cuneate at base, obscurely glandular-dentate or entire, with thickened slightly revolute margins, light red and more or less pilose or puberulous when they unfold, and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, paler below, glabrous or often puberulous on the midrib and veins, reticulate-venulose, ½′—2½′ long, ¼′—1′ wide, and sessile or short-petiolate; southward persistent for a year, northward deciduous during the winter. Flowers appearing from March to May on slender drooping pedicels ½′ long, bibracteolate near the middle, with 2 minute acute scarious caducous bractlets, solitary in the axils of leaves of the year or arranged in terminal puberulous racemes 2′—3′ long from the axils of leafy or minute acute scarious bracts; corolla white, open-campanulate, slightly 5-lobed, with acute reflexed lobes, longer than the 10 stamens; filaments hirsute; anther-cells opening by oblique elongated pores. Fruit ripening in October, sometimes persistent on the branches until the end of winter, globose, ¼′ in diameter, black and lustrous, with dry glandular slightly astringent flesh of a pleasant flavor.

A tree, 20°—30° high, with a short often crooked trunk occasionally 8′—10′ in diameter, slender more or less contorted branches forming an irregular round-topped head, and slender branchlets light red and covered with pale pubescence when they first appear, glabrous or puberulous and bright red-brown in their first winter, later becoming dark red and marked by minute elevated nearly orbicular leaf-scars; or northward generally reduced to a low shrub, with numerous divergent stems. Winter-buds obtuse, nearly 1/16′ long, with imbricated ovate acute chestnut-brown scales often persistent on the base of the branchlet throughout the season. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thick hardly distinguishable sapwood; sometimes used for the handles of tools and in the manufacture of other small articles. Decoctions of the astringent bark of the root and of the leaves are sometimes employed domestically in the treatment of diarrhœa. The bark has been used by tanners.

Distribution. Usually in moist sandy soil along the banks of ponds and streams; southeastern Virginia and North Carolina, from the coast to the valleys of the high Appalachian Mountains, southward to the valley of the Caloosahatchie River, Florida, through the Gulf states to the shores of Matagorda Bay, Texas, and through eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri to southern Illinois, and the bluffs of White River, near Shoals, Martin County, and near Elizabeth, Harrison County, Indiana; common in the maritime Pinebelt of the south Atlantic and Gulf states, and of its largest size near the coast of eastern Texas; in the interior less abundant and usually of small size. Passing into

Vaccinium arboreum var. glaucescens Sarg.

_Batodendron glaucescens_ Greene

Differing in its glaucescent, pubescent or glabrous leaves, in its usually larger leaf-like bracts of the inflorescence and often in its globose-campanulate corolla.

A tree, 10°—20° high, with a short often crooked trunk, pubescent or glabrous gray branchlets, and winter-buds and bark like those of _Vaccinium arboreum_ with which it often grows.

Distribution. Tunnel Hill, Johnson County, Illinois, southern Missouri to eastern Oklahoma (Sapulpa, Creek County) and through Arkansas to western Louisiana (near Shreveport, Rapides Parish) and eastern Texas to Milam County.

LIV. THEOPHRASTACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and entire coriaceous persistent leaves. Flowers perfect, regular; calyx campanulate, with 5 sepals imbricated in the bud; corolla 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, with 5 staminodia attached below the sinuses; stamens 5, attached to the base of the corolla-tube, opposite the lobes; ovary 1-celled, with a simple style and a slightly 5-lobed stigma; ovules peltate, numerous, attached to a central fleshy placenta, amphitropous. Fruit baccate, many-seeded. Seeds immersed in the thickened placenta filling the cavity of the fruit; seed-coat membranaceous; embryo surrounded by thick cartilaginous albumen.

A tropical American family of four genera with one species reaching the shores of southern Florida.

1. JACQUINIA Jacq.

Trees or shrubs, with terete or slightly many-angled branchlets, without a terminal bud, and fibrous roots. Leaves often punctate with pellucid dark glands. Flowers on slender ebracteolate pedicels from the axils of minute ovate acute persistent bracts, in terminal or axillary clusters; calyx slightly ciliate on the margins, rounded at apex, persistent under the fruit; corolla hypogynous, the lobes obtuse and spreading, furnished with 5 petal-like ovate obtuse spreading staminodia; stamens inserted on the corolla opposite its lobes near the base of the short tube; filaments flattened, broad at base; anthers oblong or ovoid, attached on the back above the base, extrorse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary ovoid. Fruit ovoid or subglobose, crowned by the remnants of the persistent style, with a thin crustaceous outer coat, inclosing the thick enlarged mucilaginous placenta. Seeds oblong; seed-coat punctate; embryo eccentric; cotyledons ovate, shorter than the elongated inferior radicle turned toward the broad ventral hilum.

Jacquinia with five or six species is confined to tropical America, with one species reaching southern Florida.

The generic name is in honor of Nicholas Joseph Jacquin (1728—1818), the distinguished Austrian botanist.

1. Jacquinia keyensis Metz. Joe Wood. Sea Myrtle.

Leaves subverticillate, alternate or sometimes opposite, crowded near the end of the branches, cuneate-spatulate or oblong-obovate, rounded or emarginate or often apiculate at apex, gradually narrowed below, entire, with thickened slightly revolute margins, thick and coriaceous, yellow-green, nearly veinless, with a very obscure midrib, covered on the lower surface with pale dots, 1′—3′ long and ¼′—1′ wide; persistent on the branches until the appearance of the new leaves the following year; petioles short, stout, abruptly enlarged at base. Flowers appearing in Florida from November until June, ⅓′ in diameter, pale yellow, fragrant, on slender club-shaped pedicels ½′ long from the axils of minute ovate coriaceous, reddish bracts slightly ciliate on the margins, in terminal and axillary many-flowered glabrous racemes 2′—3′ long; sepals ovate-orbicular, obtuse; corolla salverform, ⅖′ broad, the lobes longer than the tube; stamens shorter than the staminodia. Fruit ripening in the autumn, ⅓′ in diameter, orange-red when fully ripe; seeds light brown.

A tree, 12°—15° high, with a straight trunk 6′—7′ in diameter, stout rigid spreading branches forming a compact regular round-topped head, and slightly many-angled branchlets yellow-green or light orange-colored and coated with short soft pale ferrugineous pubescence when they first appear, terete, darker and sometimes reddish brown and marked in their second year by orbicular depressed conspicuous leaf-scars and by many scattered pale lenticels, becoming glabrous and red-brown or ashy gray the following season. Winter-buds axillary, minute, nearly globose, immersed in the bark. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, blue-gray, and usually more or less marked by pale or nearly white blotches. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, rich brown, beautifully marked by darker medullary rays.

Distribution. Florida, dry coral soil in the immediate neighborhood of the shore, Gasparilla Island, on the west coast to the southern keys, and to the borders of the Everglades; rare but most abundant and of its largest size in Florida on the Marquesas Keys; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba and Jamaica.

LV. MYRSINACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, alternate entire coriaceous punctate leaves, without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect or dimorphous; calyx persistent under the fruit; corolla, without staminodia, glandular-punctate; stamens inserted on the corolla, as many as and opposite its lobes; ovary 1-celled, with an undivided style and a minute terminal stigma; ovules peltate, immersed in the fleshy central placenta, amphitropous. Fruit a drupe. Seed solitary, globose, with copious cartilaginous or corneous albumen; seed-coat membranaceous.

A tropical family of thirty genera, with two arborescent species reaching the shores of southern Florida.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Flowers perfect in terminal panicles; anthers on short broad
filaments; style elongated.
1. Ardisia.
Flowers dimorphous in small axillary clusters; anthers sessile; stigma
sessile or in one form of the staminate flower terminal on a
slender style.
2. Rapanea.

1. ARDISIA Sw.

Glabrous trees or shrubs, with leaves punctate below with immersed resinous dots. Flowers resinous-punctate, pedicellate, the pedicels bibracteolate at base or ebracteolate, in terminal or rarely axillary branched panicles, with minute scarious deciduous or caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx free, 5 or rarely 4-lobed or parted, the divisions contorted or imbricated in the bud; corolla 5 or rarely 4—6-parted, the divisions extrorsely or sinistrorsely contorted in the bud, short or elongated, white or rose color; stamens exserted; filaments short or nearly obsolete, free, inserted on the throat of the corolla; anthers usually sagittate-lanceolate, attached on the back just above the base, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally sometimes nearly to the base; ovary globose; ovules numerous, immersed in the globose resinous-punctate placenta. Fruit globose, with thin usually dry flesh and a 1-seeded stone with a usually crustaceous or bony shell. Seed concave or more or less lobed at base, resinous-punctate; hilum basilar, concave, conspicuous; embryo cylindric, transverse; cotyledons flat on the inner face, rounded on the back, shorter than the slender radicle.

Ardisia with about two hundred species inhabits tropical and subtropical regions of the two hemispheres. The genus has few useful properties, but a number of species are cultivated for the beauty of their handsome evergreen foliage and bright-colored fruits.

The generic name is from ἀρδις, in reference to the pointed anthers.

1. Ardisia paniculata Nutt. Marlberry. Cherry.

_Icacorea paniculata_ Sudw.

Leaves ovate to oblong-lanceolate or lanceolate-obovate, acute or rounded at the narrow apex, cuneate and gradually contracted at base, entire, with thickened and slightly revolute margins, thick and coriaceous, glabrous, marked by minute scattered dark dots, dark yellow-green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 3′—6′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with a broad midrib yellow and conspicuous on the under side, slender primary veins and reticulate veinlets; appearing in the summer or early autumn and falling before the appearance of the flowers the following year; petioles stout, grooved, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers fragrant, usually opening in November or occasionally as early as July, ¼′ in diameter, on slender elongated pedicels without bractlets, from the axils of linear acute caducous bracts, in terminal rusty brown puberulous panicles 3′—4′ long and broad, their lower branches often from the axils of upper leaves; calyx ovoid, divided nearly to the base into 5 ovate acute lobes scarious and ciliate on the margins and marked on the back with dark lines; corolla 5-parted, with oblong rounded divisions sinistrorsely overlapping, or with 1 lobe wholly outside and 1 inside in the bud, conspicuously marked with red spots on the inner surface near the base, becoming reflexed; stamens, with short broad filaments, contracted by a geniculate fold in the middle, and large orange-colored anthers longer than the filaments, their cells opening almost to the base; ovary globose, glandular, gradually contracted into a long slender style ending in a simple stigma. Fruit ripening in early spring, globose, ¼′ in diameter, tipped with the remnants of the style, and roughened by resinous glands, dark brown at first when fully grown, ultimately becoming black and lustrous; stone brown, thin-walled, crustaceous; seed conspicuously lobed at base, bright red-brown, about ⅛′ in diameter.

A slender tree, in Florida rarely more than 20° high, with a short trunk 4′—5′ in diameter, numerous thin upright branches forming a narrow head, and stout terete often contorted branchlets, rusty brown or dark orange-colored and slightly puberulous when they first appear, becoming in their second year dark brown or ashy gray, and marked by many minute circular lenticels and by thin nearly orbicular flat leaf-scars displaying in the centre a group of fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds rusty brown; terminal slender, acuminate, ⅛′—¼′ long; axillary globose, minute, nearly immersed in the bark. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, light gray or nearly white, roughened by minute lenticels, and separating into large thin papery plates. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, rich brown beautifully marked by darker medullary rays, with thick lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, from Mosquito Inlet to the southern keys on the east coast, and from the shores of the Caloosahatchee River to Cape Romano on the west coast; usually a shrub, occasionally arborescent on the shores of Bay Biscayne and on some of the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands, in Cuba, and southern Mexico.

2. RAPANEA Aubl.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juices and terete branchlets. Leaves alternate, entire or rarely dentate, usually distinctly lepidote, persistent, without stipules. Flowers perfect or unisexual by abortion, minute, 4 or 5, or rarely 6 or 7-merous, sessile or pedicellate, in small axillary sessile or pedunculate fascicles, their bracts deciduous; calyx free, persistent, the sepals imbricate-valvate in the bud, ciliate, usually glandular-punctate; corolla hypogynous, the lobes more or less connate at base, ovate or elliptic, spreading or recurved, glandular-punctate, papillate on the margins, imbricate or rarely convolute in the bud; stamens inserted on the base of the corolla opposite its lobes; filaments 0; anthers short, connate to the corolla, acuminate and papillate at apex, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary globose or ellipsoidal, 1-celled; stigma capitate, irregularly lobed; ovules few, peltate, immersed in one series near the middle of the free fleshy globose placenta. Fruit dry or fleshy, seed filling the cavity of the fruit, globose, intruded at base; testa thin; albumen copious, corneous, rarely slightly ruminate; embryo cylindric, elongated, transverse, usually curved; cotyledons small, radicle elongated.

Rapanea, with nearly one hundred and fifty species, is widely distributed through the tropical and subtropical regions of the two hemispheres, one species reaching southern Florida.

The generic name is formed from the native name of _Rapanea guianensis_ in British Guiana.

1. Rapanea guianensis Aubl.

Leaves crowded at the end of the branches, oblong-obovate, obtuse or retuse at apex, gradually narrowed and contracted at base, coriaceous, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, 2¾′—3½′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with thickened revolute margins, a thick midrib and obscure veins; petioles stout, narrowly wing-margined, ¼′—⅓′ in length. Flowers in November, minute, short-pedicellate in short pedunculate clusters usually 5, rarely 4-merous, white more or less marked with purple, about ⅙′ in diameter; calyx divided to the middle, the lobes broad-ovate, acute or rounded at apex, slightly ciliate, persistent under the fruit; corolla 2 or 3 times longer than the calyx, the lobes spreading, narrowed and rounded at apex, slightly ciliate on the margins; staminate flowers dimorphous; anthers sagittate-apiculate, inserted below the middle of the petals; ovary in one form crowned by a minute discoid sessile stigma and probably abortive, in the other form gradually narrowed into a slender style, terminating in an oblique stigma and fertile; pistillate flowers, anthers smaller and rudimentary; ovary crowned by a large nearly sessile irregularly lobed papillate stigma deciduous from the fruit. Fruit in clusters crowded on the elongated somewhat thickened spur-like peduncle of the flower-cluster covered with imbricated persistent bracts, dark blue or nearly black, tipped with the persistent style, ⅙′—⅕′ in diameter; exocarp thin and fleshy; endocarp crustaceous, white.

A tree, in Florida occasionally 18°—20° high, with a tall usually more or less crooked trunk 2′—3′ in diameter, small ascending branches forming an open irregular head, and slender gray or light red-brown branchlets roughened for a year or two by the persistent spur-like peduncles of the fallen fruit and later marked by circular scars in the axils of the small transverse leaf-scars; more often a shrub. Bark of the trunk thin, close, pale gray.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Indian River on the east coast and Palmetto, Manatee County, on the west coast, southward to the southern keys; common; on the Bahama Islands, Cuba, Porto Rico, Jamaica and Trinidad, to southern Brazil, and to Mexico and Bolivia.

LVI. SAPOTACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with milky juice. Leaves alternate, simple, entire, pinnately veined, mostly coriaceous, petiolate, without stipules. Flowers perfect, regular, small, in axillary clusters; calyx of 5-8 sepals imbricated in the bud, persistent under the fruit; corolla hypogynous, 5—8-cleft, the divisions imbricated in the bud, often with as many or twice as many internal appendages borne on its throat; disk 0; fertile stamens as many as and opposite the divisions of the corolla and inserted on its short tube, often with sterile filaments (_staminodia_) alternate with them; anthers generally extrorse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistil of united carpels; ovary sessile, usually 5-celled; style simple; ovules solitary in each cell, attached to an axile placenta, ascending, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle inferior. Fruit baccate, bearing at apex the remnant of the style, usually 1-celled and 1-seeded. Seed with or without albumen; embryo large; radicle terete, inferior.

This family with fifty genera is chiefly tropical and subtropical, with only Bumelia extending in North America into temperate regions. Some of the species produce valuable timber or edible and agreeable fruits. From _Palaquium gutta_ Burkh., of the Malay Peninsula, gutta-percha is obtained. Five genera are represented by trees in the flora of the United States.

CONSPECTUS OF THE GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.