Chapter LII: Section 2: Gamopetalæ. Corolla of united petals (divided in Elliottia (5)

Distribution. Florida, St. Augustine to the southern keys on the east coast, and from Cedar Keys to Cape Sable on the west coast; on some of the islands in Mississippi Sound, and on the shore of Terrebonne and Cameron Parishes, and on most of their islands, Louisiana; on the Bahama Islands, on many of the Antilles, and southward to Brazil; and on the west coast of Africa; in the United States of its largest size in Florida just north of Cape Sable; north of Matanzas Inlet on the east coast of Florida usually with stems only a few feet tall.

LXIII. SOLANACEÆ.

Trees, shrubs or herbs, with colorless juice and rank smelling foliage, alternate rarely opposite leaves, without stipules, and perfect regular yellow, white or purple flowers on ebracteolate pedicels in usually dichotomous cymes; calyx campanulate, usually 5-lobed, the lobes slightly imbricated or valvate, usually persistent; corolla gamopetalous, usually 5, rarely 4-lobed, the lobes induplicate-valvate or plicate in the bud; stamens inserted on the tube of the corolla and alternate with and as many as its lobes, equal or unequal; filaments filiform or dilated at base; anthers 2-celled, introrse, opening by apical or longitudinal slits, disk pulvinate or annular, entire, sinuate or 2-lobed or 0; ovary sessile or stipitate on the disk, 2 or rarely 3—5-celled; style slender, terminating in a small or more or less dilated stigma; ovules numerous, attached in many series on the axile placenta, rarely few or solitary, anatropous or slightly amphitropous. Fruit baccate or capsular. Seeds numerous; testa membranaceous or crustaceous; embryo usually slender and curved in fleshy albumen; cotyledons semiterete, shorter than the radicle turned toward the hilum.

A family of 83 genera widely distributed in tropical and temperate regions; often producing fruit with narcotic or poisonous properties, and containing among its useful members the Potato and the Tomato.

1. SOLANUM L.

Herbs, shrubs or rarely trees. Leaves alternate, lobed or pinnatifid, persistent or deciduous. Flowers in mostly lateral, extra-axillary or axillary clusters; calyx and corolla 5, rarely 4—10-parted, the calyx persistent under the fruit, corolla rotate in the bud; stamens 5, rarely 4—6, exserted; filaments short; anthers oblong or acuminate, rarely ovoid, converging round the style, opening at apex by two pores; disk not conspicuous, or annular; ovary usually 2, rarely 3 or 4-celled; style simple; stigma usually small; ovules numerous. Fruit baccate, often surrounded by the enlarged calyx, usually globose and juicy; seeds compressed, orbicular or subreniform.

Solanum with some 1200 species is widely distributed through the tropics, with a few species extending into cooler regions, the larger number of species occurring in the New World.

The name is of uncertain derivation.

1. Solanum verbascifolium L.

Leaves ovate to elliptic or oblong, acute or acuminate at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, entire, thickly coated when they unfold with hoary tomentum, and at maturity thin, yellow-green and stellate-pubescent on the upper surface, paler and more densely stellate-pubescent on the lower surface, 5′—7′ long and 1′—3′ wide, with slightly undulate margins, a prominent midrib and slender primary veins; persistent; petioles slender, densely stellate-pubescent, ¾′—1′ in length. Flowers appearing throughout the year on pedicels ¼′ long and much thickened at maturity, in broad many-flowered dichotomous stellate-pubescent cymes on peduncles 1′—4′ in length from the axils of upper leaves; calyx about ½′ long, densely stellate, the lobes triangular-ovate; corolla about ¾′—1′ wide after the expansion of the oblong-ovate lobes; stamens exserted. Fruit globose, yellow, ½′—¾′ in diameter, surrounded at base by the densely stellate calyx, with ovate acute lobes about ⅙′ long; seeds nearly orbicular to obovoid, much compressed, yellow, 1/12′ in diameter.

A tree, rarely 20° high, with a trunk 4′ or 5′ in diameter, spreading branches forming a flat-topped head, and stout unarmed branchlets densely stellate-tomentose during their first season, becoming glabrous and light orange-brown or gray-brown in the following year; usually smaller and generally a shrub. Bark of the trunk thin, close, much roughened by many wart-like excrescences, light greenish or yellowish gray.

Florida, rich hummocks, Merritt’s Island on the east coast, southward to the shores of Bay Biscayne, and to the Cape Sable region; on the Bahama Islands, and many of the Antilles, in Mexico and Central America, in the tropics of the Old World and in southeastern China; now thoroughly established but more probably introduced than indigenous in Florida.

LXIV. BIGNONIACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and opposite or rarely alternate simple (in the arborescent genera of the United States) leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect, large and showy; calyx closed in the bud, bilabiately splitting in anthesis; corolla hypogynous, 2-lipped, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens 2 or 4, inserted on the corolla, introrse; anthers 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; staminodia 1 or 3; ovary sessile, 1 or 2-celled, gradually narrowed into a slender simple style 2-lobed and stigmatic at apex; ovules numerous, horizontal, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a linear woody loculicidally 2-valved capsule, or a berry. Seeds without albumen; embryo filling the cavity of the seed.

The Bignonia family with about one hundred genera, many of them of scandent plants, is widely distributed in the tropics and most abundant in the New World, with a few genera extending into temperate regions. Of the five genera of the United States three are arborescent. Many of the species are important timber-trees.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Fruit a linear woody capsule; ovary 2-celled; leaves thin, deciduous.
Stamens 4; staminodium 1; leaves linear, often alternate or
scattered.
1. Chilopsis.
Stamens 2; staminodia 3; leaves oblong-ovate, mostly opposite.
2. Catalpa.
Fruit a berry; stamens 4; staminodium 1; ovary 1-celled; leaves
coriaceous, persistent.
3. Enallagma.

1. CHILOPSIS D. Don.

A tree, with slender terete branches, without a terminal bud, minute compressed rusty-pubescent axillary buds covered by several imbricated scales, those of the inner rows accrescent, deeply furrowed bark, soft coarse-grained dark-colored wood, and fibrous roots. Leaves opposite, alternate or scattered, involute in the bud, linear or linear-lanceolate, long-pointed, entire, 3-nerved, the lateral nerves obscure, reticulate-venulose, thin, light green, smooth or glutinous, short-petiolate or sessile from an enlarged base, deciduous, in falling leaving small elevated suborbicular scars. Flowers on slender pedicels from the axils of ovate acute scarious tomentose deciduous bracts and bibracteolate near the middle, in short puberulous crowded racemes or rarely panicles terminal on leafy branches of the year; calyx pale pubescent, puberulous or rarely glabrous, closed before anthesis into an ovoid rounded apiculate bud splitting to the base into 2 ovate divisions, minutely toothed or long-pointed at apex, the upper with 3, the lower with 2 rigid teeth, membranaceous, dark green; corolla white shaded into pale purple or rarely white, slightly oblique, enlarged and blotched with yellow in the throat, the limb undulate-margined, the upper lip 2-lobed, the lower unequally 3-lobed, the central lobe much longer than the others; stamens 4, inserted in 1 row near the base of the corolla in pairs, introrse; filaments filiform, glabrous, the anterior nearly twice as long as the posterior; anther oblong, the cells divergent in anthesis; staminodium 1, posterior, linear, acute; disk thin, nearly obsolete; ovary 2-celled, conic, glabrous, divided at apex into 2 ovate flat rounded lobes; ovules inserted in many series on a central placenta. Fruit a slender elongated thin-walled capsule gradually narrowed from the middle to the ends, splitting into 2 concave valves. Seeds numerous, inserted in 2 ranks near the margin of the thin flat woody septum free from the walls of the capsule, compressed, oblong; seed-coat thin, light brown, longitudinally veined, produced into broad lateral wings divided at their rounded ends into a long fringe of thin soft white hairs; cotyledons plane, broader than long, slightly 2-lobed, and rounded laterally; radicle short, erect, turned toward the oblong basal hilum.

The genus is represented by a single species, a native of the region adjacent to the boundary between the United States and Mexico.

The generic name, from χεῖλος and ὄψις, is without special significance.

1. Chilopsis linearis DC. Desert Willow.

Leaves unfolding in early spring, 6′—12′ long and ¼′—⅓′ wide; deciduous during the following winter. Flowers appearing in early summer in racemes or narrow panicles 3′—4′ long, and continuing to open for several months in succession, ¾′—1½′ long and ¾′—1¼′ across the expanded lobes of the corolla. Fruit ripening in the autumn, 7′—12′ long, ¼′ thick in the middle, persistent on the branches during the winter; seeds ⅓′ long and ⅛′ wide.

A tree, 20°—30° high, with a trunk usually more or less reclining, often hollow, and sometimes a foot in diameter, slender upright branches forming a narrow head, and branchlets glabrous or covered with dense tomentum when they first appear, light chestnut-brown during their first season, later becoming darker and tinged with red, or sometimes ashy gray; or often a straggling shrub. Bark of the trunk ⅛′—¼′ thick, dark brown, and divided into broad branching ridges broken on the surface into small thick plate-like scales. Wood soft, not strong, close-grained, brown streaked with yellow, with thin light-colored sapwood of 2 or 3 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Banks of streams, and depressions in the desert, usually in dry gravelly porous soil; valley of the lower Rio Grande, and through western Texas, southern New Mexico, Arizona, southern Utah and Nevada to San Jacinto Valley, San Diego County, California; in northern Mexico and Lower California (Calamujuit).

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the southern states, and in Mexico.

2. CATALPA Scop.

Trees, with stout terete branchlets, without a terminal bud, minute globose axillary buds nearly immersed in the bark and covered by numerous scales, the inner accrescent, thick pith, thin scaly bark, soft light-colored wood very durable in contact with the soil, and fibrous roots. Leaves opposite or in verticels of 3, involute in the bud, entire or lobed, oblong-ovate, often cordate, long-petiolate, deciduous. Flowers on slender bracteolate pedicels, in terminal compound trichotomously branched panicles or corymbs, with linear-lanceolate deciduous bracts and bractlets; calyx membranaceous, subglobose, closed and apiculate in the bud, in anthesis splitting nearly to the base into 2 broad-ovate entire pointed apiculate lobes; corolla thin, variously marked and spotted on the inner surface, inserted on the nearly obsolete disk, the tube broad, campanulate, occasionally furnished on the upper side near the base with an external lobed appendage, and oblique and enlarged above into a broad limb, with spreading lips undulate on the margin, the posterior 2-parted, the anterior deeply 3-lobed; stamens and staminodia inserted near the base of the corolla; stamens 2, anterior, included or slightly exserted; filaments flattened, arcuate; anthers oblong, carried to the rear of the corolla and face to face on either side of the stigma by a half turn of the filaments near their base, the cells divergent in anthesis; staminodia 3, free, filiform, minute or rudimentary; ovary 2-celled, sessile on the hypogynous nearly obsolete disk, abruptly contracted into an elongated filiform style divided at apex into 2 stigmatic lobes exserted above the anthers; ovules inserted in many series on a central placenta. Fruit an elongated subterete capsule tapering from the middle to the ends, persistent on the branches during the winter, ultimately splitting into 2 valves. Seeds numerous, compressed, oblong, inserted in 2—4 ranks near the margin of the flat or more or less thickened woody septum free from the walls of the capsule; seed-coat thin, light brown or silvery gray, longitudinally veined, produced into broad lateral wings notched at base of the seed and divided at their narrowed or rounded ends into tufts of long coarse white hairs; cotyledons plane, broader than long, slightly 2-lobed, rounded laterally; radicle short, erect, turned toward the oblong conspicuous basal hilum.

Catalpa with seven species is confined to the eastern United States, the West Indies, and eastern China, two of the species being North American. Catalpa contains a bitter principle and is a tonic and diuretic.

The generic name is that by which one of the North American species was known among the Cherokee Indians.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.

Flowers in many-flowered crowded panicles; calyx glabrous; corolla
thickly-spotted on the inner surface; fruit slender,
thin-walled; leaves short-acuminate.
1. C. bignonioides (C).
Flowers in few-flowered open panicles; calyx often sparingly villose
or pubescent; corolla inconspicuously spotted; fruit stout,
thick-walled; leaves caudate-acuminate.
2. C. speciosa (A, C).

1. Catalpa bignonioides Walt. Catalpa. Indian Bean.

_Catalpa Catalpa_ Karst.

Leaves broad-ovate, rather abruptly contracted into a slender point or sometimes rounded at apex, cordate at base, entire or often laterally lobed, coated below when they unfold with pale tomentum and pilose above, and at maturity thin and firm, light green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale and pubescent on the lower surface, 5′—6′ long and 4′—5′ wide, with a prominent midrib, and primary veins arcuate near the margins, connected by reticulate veinlets and furnished in the axils with clusters of dark hairs; turning black and falling after the first severe frost in the autumn; petioles stout, terete, 5′—6′ in length. Flowers opening at the end of May or in June, on slender sparingly villose or glabrous pedicels, in compact many-flowered panicles 8′—10′ long and broad, with light green branches tinged with purple; calyx ½′ long, glabrous, green or light purple; corolla white, nearly 2′ long, 1½′ wide, marked on the inner surface on the lower side by 2 rows of yellow blotches following 2 parallel ridges or folds, and in the throat and on the lower lobes of the limb by crowded conspicuous purple spots. Fruit ripening in the autumn, in thick-branched orange-colored panicles, remaining unopened during the winter, 6′—20′ long and ¼′—⅓′ thick in the middle, with a thin wall bright chestnut-brown on the outer surface and light olive-brown and lustrous on the inner surface, splitting in the spring into 2 flat valves; seeds about 1′ long, ¼′ wide, silvery gray, with pointed wings terminating in long pencil-shaped tufts of white hairs.

A tree, rarely 60° high, with a short trunk 3°—4° in diameter, long heavy brittle branches forming a broad head, and dichotomous branchlets green shaded with purple when they first appear, and during their first winter thickened at the nodes, slightly puberulous, lustrous, light orange color or gray-brown, covered with a slight glaucous bloom, marked by large pale scattered lenticels, and by large oval elevated leaf-scars containing a circle of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars, becoming in their third or fourth year, reddish brown and marked by a network of thin flat brown ridges. Winter-buds covered by chestnut-brown broad-ovate rounded slightly puberulous loosely imbricated scales, those of the inner ranks when fully grown bright green, pubescent, and sometimes 2′ in length. Bark of the trunk ¼′—⅓′ thick, light brown tinged with red, and separating on the surface into large thin irregular scales. Wood not strong, coarse-grained, light brown, with lighter colored often nearly white sapwood of 1 or 2 layers of annual growth; used and highly valued for fence-posts and rails.

Distribution. Usually supposed to be indigenous on the banks of the rivers of southwestern Georgia, western Florida, and central Alabama and Mississippi, and now widely naturalized through the south Atlantic states and in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Often planted for the decoration of parks and gardens in the eastern United States, and hardy as far north as eastern New England, and in western, central, and southern Europe. A dwarf round-headed form (var. _nana_ Bur.) of unknown origin is often cultivated under the erroneous name of _C. Bungei_ Hort, not C. A. Meyer.

× _Catalpa hybrida_ Spaeth a hybrid of this species and the Chinese _C. ovata_ G. Don is occasionally cultivated.

2. Catalpa speciosa Engelm. Western Catalpa.

Leaves oval, long-pointed, cordate at base, and usually entire or furnished with 1 or 2 lateral teeth, pilose above when they unfold and covered below and on the petioles with pale or rufous tomentum, and at maturity thick and firm, dark green on the upper surface and covered with soft pubescence on the lower surface, especially on the stout midrib and the primary veins furnished in their axils with large clusters of dark glands, 10′—12′ long and 7′—8′ wide; turning black and falling after the first severe frost of the autumn; petioles stout, terete, 4′—6′ in length. Flowers appearing late in May or early in June, on slender purple glabrous pedicels furnished near the middle with 1—3 bractlets, in open few-flowered panicles 5′—6′ long and broad, with green or purple branches marked by orange-colored lenticels, the lowest branches often in the axils of small leaves; calyx purple, often sparingly villose or pubescent on the outer surface; corolla white, often spotted externally with purple near the base, about 2′ long and 2½′ wide, and marked internally on the lower side by 2 bands of yellow blotches following 2 lateral ridges and by occasional purple spots spreading over the lobes of the lower lip of the limb; filaments marked near the base by oblong purple spots. Fruit 8′—20′ long, ½′—¾′ in diameter near the middle, with a thick wall splitting toward spring into 2 concave valves; seeds 1′ long and ⅓′ wide, with a light brown coat, and wings rounded at the ends and terminating in a fringe of short hairs.

A tree, in the forest occasionally 120° high, with a tall straight trunk rarely 4½° in diameter, slender branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and branchlets light green often tinged with purple and pilose with scattered pale hairs when they first appear, light orange color or reddish brown, covered with a slight bloom during their first winter, and marked by numerous conspicuous pale lenticels and by the elevated oval leaf-scars ¼′ long and displaying a circular row of large fibro-vascular bundle-scars, becoming darker in their second and third years; usually smaller, and in open situations rarely more than 50° high, with a short trunk and a broad head of spreading branches. Winter-buds covered by loosely imbricated ovate chestnut-brown scales keeled on the back, slightly apiculate at apex, those of the inner ranks at maturity foliaceous, obovate, acute, gradually narrowed below to a sessile base, many-nerved with dark veins, pubescent on the lower surface, and sometimes 2½′ long and ¾′ wide. Bark of the trunk ¾′—1′ thick, brown tinged with red, and broken on the surface into thick scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, light brown, with thin nearly white sapwood of 1 or 2 layers of annual growth; largely used for fence-posts, rails, telegraph and telephone poles, and occasionally for furniture and the interior finish of houses.

Distribution. Borders of streams and ponds, and fertile often inundated bottom-lands; valley of the Vermilion River, Illinois, through southern Illinois and Indiana, western Kentucky and Tennessee, southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas; very abundant and probably of its largest size in southern Illinois and Indiana; naturalized through cultivation in southern Arkansas, western Louisiana, and eastern Texas.

Often planted in the prairie region of the Mississippi basin as a timber-tree, and as an ornament of parks and gardens in the eastern states, and now in many other countries with a temperate climate.

3. ENALLAGMA Bail.

Trees, with scaly bark, and stout slightly angled branchlets. Leaves alternate, short-petiolate, persistent. Flowers solitary, or in few-flowered fascicles on long bibracteolate peduncles from the axils of upper leaves or from the sides of the branches; calyx coriaceous, splitting in anthesis into 2 unequal broad divisions, or sometimes slightly 5-lobed, deciduous; corolla inserted under the hypogynous pulvinate fleshy disk, yellow streaked with purple, or dingy purple, tubular-campanulate, more or less ventricose on the lower side by a transverse fold, abruptly dilated into an oblique 2-lipped obscurely 5-lobed laciniately toothed limb; stamens 4, inserted in 2 ranks on the tube of the corolla, in pairs of different lengths, introrse, included or slightly exserted; filaments filiform; anthers oblong, the cells divergent; staminodium solitary, posterior, often 0; ovary sessile, 1-celled, ovate-conic, gradually narrowed into an elongated simple exserted style; stigma terminal, 2-lobed, the lobes stigmatic on their inner face, or entire; ovules in many ranks on 2 thickened 2-lobed lateral parietal placentas. Fruit baccate, oblong or ovoid; indehiscent, umbonate at apex, many-seeded; pericarp thin and brittle; becoming hard, light brown and separable into 2 layers, the inner membranaceous, filled with the united and thickened fleshy viscid placentas attached at base by a cluster of thick fibro-vascular bundles. Seeds imbedded irregularly in the placental mass, compressed, suborbicular, cordate above and below and deeply grooved on the convex faces; embryo filling the seminal cavity, flattened, thick and fleshy, deeply grooved, becoming black in drying; radicle minute, turned toward the lateral hilum.

Enallagma with three or four species is distributed from southern Florida through the Antilles to southern Mexico and Central America.

1. Enallagma cucurbitina Urb. Black Calabash Tree.

_Crescentia cucurbitina_ L.

Leaves crowded near the end of the branches, obovate-oblong or ovate-oblong, contracted into a short broad point or rarely rounded or emarginate at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, and entire, with cartilaginous slightly revolute margins, coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, paler and yellow-green below, 6′—8′ long and 1½′—4′ wide, with a broad stout midrib deeply impressed on the upper side, conspicuous primary veins arcuate and united near the margins, and reticulate veinlets; unfolding in the spring, and persistent until their second year; petioles thick, covered with glands, and about ¼′ in length. Flowers appearing in April and May and also in autumn, bad-smelling, on thick drooping pedicels solitary in the axils of upper leaves, 1½′—2′ long, furnished below the middle with 2 minute rigid acute bractlets and enlarged at apex into the thick oblique receptacle; calyx light green and slightly glandular at base, splitting nearly to the bottom into 2 ovate pointed lobes nearly as long as the tube of the corolla; corolla thick and leathery, dull purple or creamy white, and marked by narrow purple bands on the lower side, and 2′ long, with a narrow tube creamy white within and slightly contracted above the base, the transverse fold near its apex, the limb erosely cut on the margins and obscurely 2-lipped, the upper lip slightly divided into 2 reflexed lobes, the lower obscurely 3-lobed; stamens inserted near the middle of the tube of the corolla, those of the anterior pair below the others and above the linear staminodium; ovary obliquely conic; stigma 2-lobed. Fruit ovoid or oblong, 3′—4′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, dark green, minutely rugose-punctulate, and marked with 4 obscure longitudinal ridges corresponding with the margins and midrib of the carpellary leaves, raised on the thickened woody disk and pendent on a stout drooping stalk 1½′—2′ long and much enlarged at apex; shell 1/16′ thick, ultimately hard and brittle, lustrous on the outer surface and lined with a thin membranaceous shining light brown coat marked by the broad placental scars; seeds ⅝′ long and broad and ¼′ thick, with a minute lateral hilum just above the basal sinus; seed-coat of 2 layers, the outer thin, dark reddish brown, rugose, and separable from the thick pale felt-like inner layer; cotyledons with 2 ear-like folds near the base, inclosing the radicle in their lower sinus.

A tree, in Florida 18°—20° high, with a trunk 4′—5′ in diameter, long slender drooping branches covered with wart-like excrescences, and stout slightly angled branchlets roughened and somewhat enlarged at the nodes by the thickening of the large crowded cup-shaped persistent woody bases of the leaves, and covered with thin creamy white bark becoming dark or ashy gray in their third year. Winter-buds with linear acute apiculate scales becoming woody, and persistent for one or two years. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, light brown tinged with red, and irregularly divided into large thin scales. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, thin, light brown or orange color, with lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, only near the shores of Bay Biscayne on rich hummocks; common on the shores of many of the Antilles, and southward to southern Mexico, the Pacific coast of the Isthmus of Panama, and to Venezuela.

B. Ovary inferior (_partly superior in Caprifoliaceæ_).

LXV. RUBIACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and opposite simple entire leaves turning black in drying, with stipules. Flowers regular, perfect; calyx-tube adnate to the ovary, its limb 4 or 5-lobed or toothed; corolla 4 or 5-lobed; stamens inserted on the tube of the corolla, as many as and alternate with its lobes; filaments free, or united at base; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; disk epigynous, annular; ovary inferior; style slender; ovules numerous, or 1 in each cell; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit capsular, akene-like, or drupaceous. Seeds with albumen; seed-coat membranaceous.

The Madder family with some three hundred and fifty genera is chiefly tropical, with a few herbaceous genera confined exclusively to temperate regions. To this family belong the Coffee, the Cinchonas, South American trees yielding quinine from their bark, and the plant which produces ipecacuanha, a species of Cephaelis and a native of Brazil, the Gardenia and other plants cultivated for their fragrant flowers.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Fruit a capsule; seeds numerous, surrounded by a wing; parts of the
flower in 5’s.
Calyx 5-lobed, the lobes unequal, sometimes developing into
rose-colored leaf-like bodies; filaments free; wing of the
seed broad, oblong-ovate, unsymmetric on the sides; leaves
deciduous.
1. Pinckneya.
Calyx 5-toothed; filaments united into a short tube; wing of the
seed narrow, symmetric; leaves persistent.
2. Exostema.
Fruit akene-like, 1 or 2-seeded; parts of the flower in 4’s or rarely
in 5’s, flowers in pedunculate globose heads; leaves deciduous.
3. Cephalanthus.
Fruit drupaceous, with a 4-celled stone; parts of the flower in 4’s;
leaves persistent.
4. Guettarda.

1. PINCKNEYA Michx.

A tree, with fibrous roots, scaly light brown bitter bark, resinous scaly buds, stout terete pithy branchlets coated while young with hoary tomentum, becoming glabrous, and marked by scattered minute white lenticels and large nearly orbicular or obcordate leaf-scars displaying a lunate row of numerous crowded fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Leaves complanate in the bud, elliptic to oblong-ovate, acute at apex, cuneate at base, and gradually narrowed into a long stout petiole, thin, coated at first with pale pubescence, and at maturity dark green and puberulous above, paler and puberulous below, especially along the stout midrib and primary veins, deciduous; stipules interpetiolar, conspicuously glandular-punctate at base on the inner face, inclosing the leaf in the bud, triangular, subulate, pink, becoming oblong, acute, scarious, light brown, caducous. Flowers in pedunculate terminal and axillary pubescent trichotomous few-flowered cymes, with linear-lanceolate acute bracts and bractlets at first pink, becoming scarious, deciduous, or sometimes enlarging and rose-colored; flower-buds sulcate, coated with thick pale tomentum; calyx-tube clavate, bracteolate at base, covered with hoary tomentum, not closed in the bud, the limb 5-lobed, with subulate-lanceolate lobes green tinged with pink, scarious, or in the central flower of the ultimate division of the cyme with 1 or rarely with 2 of the lobes produced into oval or ovate acute rose-colored puberulous membranaceous leaf-like bodies, deciduous; corolla salver-form, light yellow, cinereo-tomentose, with a long narrow tube somewhat enlarged in the throat, 5-lobed, the lobes valvate in the bud, oblong, obtuse, marked by red lines and pilose with long white hairs on the inner surface, recurved after anthesis; stamens exserted; filaments filiform, free; anthers oblong, emarginate; ovary 2-celled; style filiform, exserted, slightly enlarged, 2-lobed and stigmatic at apex; ovules numerous, inserted in 2 ranks on a thin 2-lipped placenta longitudinally adnate to the inner face of the cell. Fruit a subglobose obscurely 2-lobed 2-celled capsule, loculicidally 2-valved, the valves thin and papery, light brown, puberulous, especially at the base, faintly rayed, marked by oblong pale spots and by the scars left by the falling of the deciduous calyx-limb and style, sometimes tardily septicidally 2-parted to the middle, persistent on the branches during the winter, the valves finally falling from the woody axis, their outer layer very thin, brittle, separable from the slightly thicker tough woody inner layer. Seeds horizontal, 2-ranked, minute, compressed; seed-coat thin, light brown, reticulate-veined, produced into a broad thin oblong-ovate wing, unsymmetrical on the sides, acute at apex, and longer above than below the seed; embryo elongated, immersed in the thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons ovate-oblong, foliaceous, longer than the terete radicle turned toward the hilum.

The genus is represented by a single species of the southeastern United States.

The generic name is in honor of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746—1825) of South Carolina, the Revolutionary patriot.

1. Pinckneya pubens Michx. Georgia Bark.

Leaves unfolding in March, 5′—8′ long, 3′—4′ wide; petioles ⅔′—1½′ in length. Flowers 1½′ long appearing late in May and early in June, in open clusters 7′—8′ across, their petaloid calyx-lobes sometimes 2½′ long and ½′ wide. Fruit ripening in the autumn 1′ long and ⅔′ wide; seeds with their wings about ½′ long and ⅓′ wide.

A tree, 20°—30° high, with a trunk occasionally 8′—10′ in diameter, slender spreading branches forming usually a narrow round-topped head, and branchlets coated when they first appear with hoary tomentum soon turning light red-brown, pubescent during the summer, and slightly puberulous during their first winter, ultimately becoming glabrous. Winter-buds: terminal ovoid, terete, ½′ long, contracted above the middle into a slender point, and covered by the dark red-brown lanceolate acute stipules of the last pair of leaves of the previous year, often persistent at the base of the growing shoots and marked at the base by 2 broadly ovate pale scar-like slightly pilose elevations; axillary buds obtuse, minute, nearly immersed in the bark. Bark of the trunk about ¼′ thick, with a light brown surface divided into minute appressed scales. Wood close-grained, soft, weak, brown, with lighter-colored sapwood of 8—10 layers of annual growth. The bark has been used in the treatment of intermittent fevers.

Distribution. Low wet sandy swamps on the borders of streams; coast region of South Carolina through southern Georgia and northern Florida to the valley of the lower Apalachicola River; rare and local.

2. EXOSTEMA Rich.

Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, and bitter bark. Leaves sessile or petiolate, persistent; stipules interpetiolar, deciduous. Flowers axillary and solitary or in terminal pedunculate cymes, fragrant, the peduncle bibracteolate above the middle; calyx-tube ovoid, clavate or turbinate, the limb short, 5-lobed, the lobes nearly triangular, persistent; corolla 5-lobed, white, salver-form, the tube long and narrow, erect, the lobes of the limb linear, elongated, spreading, imbricated in the bud; filaments filiform, exserted, united at base into a tube inserted on and adnate to the tube of the corolla; anthers oblong-linear; ovary 2-celled; style elongated, slender, exserted; stigma capitate, simple or minutely 2-lobed; ovules numerous, attached on the 2 sides of a fleshy oblong peltate placenta fixed to the inner face of the cell, ascending. Fruit a many-seeded 2-celled capsule septicidally 2-valved, the valves 2-parted, their outer layer membranaceous, separable from the crustaceous inner layer. Seeds compressed, oblong, imbricated downward on the placenta; seed-coat chestnut-brown, lustrous, produced into a narrow wing; embryo minute, in fleshy albumen; cotyledons flat; radicle terete, inferior.

Exostema with about twenty species is confined to the tropics of America, and is most abundant in the Antilles, one species reaching the shores of southern Florida. The bark contains active tonic properties, and has been used as a febrifuge.

The generic name, from ἔξω and στῆµα, relates to the long exserted stamens.

1. Exostema caribæum R. & S. Prince Wood.

Leaves oblong-ovate to lanceolate, contracted into a slender point and apiculate at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, entire, thick and coriaceous, dark green on the upper surface and yellow-green on the lower surface, 1½′—3′ long and ½′—1¼′ wide, with a prominent orange-colored midrib and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; unfolding in the autumn and in early spring and summer, and persistent for 1 or 2 years; petioles slender, orange-colored, ¼′—½′ in length; stipules nearly triangular, apiculate, with entire dentate or ciliate margins, about 1/16′ long, and in falling marking the branchlets with ring-like scars. Flowers axillary, solitary, appearing from March until June, about 3′ long, on slender pedicels spirally twisted before the flowers open; calyx-tube ovoid; corolla glabrous; filaments united into a short tube. Fruit ⅔′ long, becoming black in drying; seeds oblong, ⅛′ long, with a dark brown papillose coat and a light brown wing.

A glabrous tree, in Florida sometimes 20°—25° high, with a trunk 10′—12′ in diameter, slender erect branches forming a narrow head, and terete branchlets dark green at first, soon becoming dark red-brown and covered with pale lenticels, and in their second year ashy gray and conspicuously marked by the elevated leaf-scars. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, and divided by deep fissures into square smooth pale or nearly white plates. Wood very heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, close-grained, light brown handsomely streaked with different shades of yellow and brown, with bright yellow sapwood of 12—20 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Bay Biscayne and on the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on the southern keys; abundant on Key West and Upper Metacombe Key; on many of the Antilles, in southern Mexico, and on the west coast of Nicaragua.

3. CEPHALANTHUS L.

Small trees or shrubs, with opposite or verticillate petiolate leaves, interpetiolar stipules, and scaly buds. Flowers nectariferous, yellow or creamy white, sessile in the axils of glandular bracts, in dense globose pedunculate terminal or axillary solitary or panicled heads; receptacle globose, setose; calyx-tube obpyramidal, with a short limb unequally 4 or 5-toothed or lobed; corolla tubular salver-form, divided into 4 or 5 short spreading or reflexed lobes usually furnished with a minute dark gland at the base or on the side of each sinus, puberulous on the inner surface of the tube, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens inserted on the throat of the corolla; filaments short; anthers linear-oblong, sagittate, apiculate at base; pistil of 2 carpels; ovary 2-celled; style filiform, elongated; stigma clavate, entire; ovule solitary in each cell, suspended from the apex of the cell on a short papillose funicle, anatropous. Fruit obpyramidal, coriaceous, 2-coccous. Seeds oblong, pendulous, covered at apex by a white spongy aril; embryo straight in cartilaginous albumen; cotyledons oblong, obtuse; radicle elongated, superior.

Cephalanthus with seven species is widely distributed in North and South America, and in southern and eastern Asia, and the Malay Archipelago.

The generic name, from κεφαλή and ἄνθος, relates to the capitate inflorescence.

1. Cephalanthus occidentalis L. Button Bush.

Leaves ovate, lanceolate or elliptic, acute, acuminate or short-pointed at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, thin, dark green on the upper surface, paler and glabrous or puberulous on the lower surface, 2′—7′ long and ½′—3½′ wide, with a stout light yellow midrib often covered below with long white hairs and 5 or 6 pairs of slender primary veins nearly parallel with the sides of the leaf; deciduous, or persistent during the winter; petioles stout, grooved, glabrous, ½′—¾′ in length; stipules minute, nearly triangular. Flowers: flower-heads 1′—1½′ in diameter on slender peduncles 1′—2′ long, usually in panicles 4′—5′ in length, their lower peduncles from the axil of upper leaves; flowers creamy white, very fragrant, opening from the middle of May in Florida and Texas to the middle of August in Canada and on the mountains of California; calyx usually 4 or occasionally 5-lobed, with short rounded lobes, and slightly villose toward the base; corolla glandular or eglandular; anthers nearly sessile, included, discharging their pollen before the flowers open; disk thin and obscure. Fruit ripening late in the autumn in heads ⅝′—¾′ in diameter, green tinged with red and ultimately dark red-brown.

A tree, occasionally 40°—50° high, with a straight tapering trunk a foot in diameter, and frequently free of limbs for 15°—20°, ascending and spreading branches, and stout branchlets with a thick pith, glabrous and marked by large oblong pale lenticels, and developed mostly in verticels of 3’s from the axillary buds of one of the upper nodes, without a terminal bud, light green when they first appear, pale reddish brown, covered with a glaucous bloom during their first winter and then marked by small semicircular leaf-scars displaying semilunate fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and connected by the persistent black stipules or by their subulate scars, darker the following season, and dark brown in their third year, the bark then beginning to separate into the large loose scales found on the large branches and on the stems of small plants; usually a shrub, only a few feet high. Winter-buds axillary, single or in pairs or in 3’s one above the other, minute, nearly immersed in the bark. Bark of large trunks dark gray-brown or often nearly black, divided by deep fissures into broad flat ridges broken on the surface into elongated narrow scales. The bark contains tannin, and has been used in the treatment of fevers and in homœopathic practice.

Distribution. Swamps and the low wet borders of ponds and streams; New Brunswick to Ontario, southern Michigan, southern Minnesota, eastern Nebraska, Kansas and western Oklahoma (near Canton, Blaine County), southward to the shores of Bay Biscayne and the Everglade Keys, Dade County, Florida, eastern Texas to the valley of the Rio Grande, southern New Mexico, and Arizona, and widely distributed in California; in Mexico and Cuba; very rarely arborescent at the north and of its largest size on the margins of river-bottoms and swamps and in pond holes in southern Arkansas and eastern Texas; ascending on the southern Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of 2500°; passing into var. _pubescens_ Rafn., with leaves soft pubescent below especially on the midrib and veins, and pubescent petioles, inflorescence and branchlets; southern Indiana, southeastern Missouri, southern Arkansas, western Louisiana and eastern Texas to the valley of the lower Brazos River.

Occasionally cultivated in the northeastern states as an ornamental plant.

4. GUETTARDA Endl.

Small trees or shrubs, with bitter bark, opposite or rarely verticellate persistent leaves, interpetiolar deciduous stipules, and scaly buds. Flowers sessile or short-pedicellate, with or without bractlets, in axillary forked pedunculate cymes, their bracts and bractlets lanceolate, acute, minute, deciduous; calyx globose, the limb produced above the ovary into an elongated 4—7-lobed tube; corolla salver-shaped, with an elongated cylindric tube naked in the throat, and a 4-lobed limb, the oblong lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens included; filaments free, short; anthers oblong-linear; ovary 4-celled, the cells elongated, tubular; style stout; stigma capitate; ovule solitary, suspended on the thickened funicle from the inner angle of the cell. Fruit a fleshy 1-stoned 2—9-seeded subglobose drupe, with thin flesh, and a bony or ligneous globose 4—9-celled stone obtusely angled or sulcate, the cells narrow and often curved upward. Seed compressed, suspended on the thick funicle closing the orifice of the wall of the stone, straight or excurved; albumen thin and fleshy; embryo elongated, cylindric or compressed; cotyledons flat, minute, not longer than the elongated terete radicle turned toward the hilum.

Guettarda with about fifty species is chiefly tropical American, with one species widely distributed on maritime shores from east tropical Africa to Australia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Of the species found within the territory of the United States two are arborescent. The bark of some of the species is occasionally employed as a tonic and febrifuge, and a few species are cultivated in tropical gardens for the delightful fragrance of their white flowers.

The generic name is in honor of Jean Étienne Guettard (1715—1786), the distinguished French botanist and mineralogist.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Leaves thin, pilose or glabrate above.
1. G. elliptica (D).
Leaves coriaceous, hispidulose-papillose and scabrate above.
2. G. scabra (D).

1. Guettarda elliptica Sw.

Leaves broad-oval to oblong-elliptic, acute or obtuse and apiculate at apex, and cuneate or rounded at base, covered with pale silky hairs when they unfold, and at maturity thin, dark green, pilose or glabrate on the upper surface, lighter colored and pubescent on the lower surface, especially along the stout midrib and in the axils of the 4—6 pairs of primary veins, ¾′—2½′ long and ½′—1′ wide; unfolding in Florida in May and June and persistent on the branches until the trees begin their growth the following year; petioles stout, hairy, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers pedicellate, appearing in Florida in June, yellowish white, ¼′ long, in slender hairy-stemmed cymes from the axils of leaves of the year near the end of branches, or from bud-scales at base of young shoots, their peduncle shorter than the leaves, forked near the apex, often with a flower in the fork and 3 at the end of each branch, or the lateral flowers of these clusters replaced by branches producing 3 flowers at their apex, the bractlets subtending the branches of the peduncle, and the lateral flowers of the ultimate divisions of the inflorescence linear-lanceolate, acute, coated with hairs, about 1/16′ long, deciduous; calyx-lobes nearly triangular, acute, coated on the outer surface with long pale hairs, and half as long as the erect corolla canescent externally, with rounded lobes. Fruit ripening in November, dark purple, pilose, ⅓′ in diameter, crowned with the remnants of the persistent calyx-tube, the flesh sweet and mealy; stone obscurely ridged and usually 2—4-seeded; seeds oblong-lanceolate, compressed, nearly straight, with a thin pale coat.

A tree, in Florida occasionally 18°—20° high, with an irregularly buttressed or lobed trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, the deep depressions between the lobes continuous or often interrupted, small upright branches, and thin terete branchlets coated when they first appear with long pale or rufous hairs and light red-brown or ashy gray and conspicuously marked by pale lenticels, and in their second year by large elevated orbicular leaf-scars. Winter-buds acuminate, light brown, coated with pale pubescence, and about ⅛′ long. Bark of the trunk about 1/16′ thick, with a smooth dark brown surface covered with large irregularly shaped pale blotches and numerous small white spots. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thin sapwood of 6—10 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Florida, coast of the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands and in Jamaica.

2. Guettarda scabra Lam.

Leaves oval, oblong or ovate, acuminate or rounded and apiculate at apex, gradually narrowed or broad at the rounded or subcordate base, entire, coriaceous, dark green, hispidulose-papillose and scabrate on the upper surface, pale and soft-pubescent on the lower surface, 2′—5′ long and 1¼′—3¼′ wide, with thickened slightly revolute margins, a stout midrib, usually 8—11 pairs of prominent primary veins and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; petioles stout, rusty-pubescent, ⅓′—¾′ in length; stipules concave at base, gradually narrowed above into a long slender point, pubescent, as long as the petioles. Flowers produced irregularly during the winter and early spring, sessile or short-pedicellate in the axils of acute bracts, in pedunculate cymes on slender rusty-pubescent peduncles 1½′—2′ in length; calyx short-oblong, densely pubescent on the outer surface; corolla often 1′ in length, the slender tube retrorsely silky-villose on the outer surface, the lobes 5—7, usually 5, oblong-obtuse; filaments free, short; anthers oblong-linear, included, style shorter than the tube of the corolla; stigma capitate. Fruit ripening in the autumn, subglobose, pubescent, ¼′ in diameter, and crowned by the persistent tube of the calyx; flesh thin and dry; stone slightly angled thick-walled, 4—9-seeded.

A tree, in Florida sometimes 20°—25° high, with a tall trunk 2′—2½′ in diameter, small ascending branches forming an open irregular head, and stout or slender branchlets densely covered during their first season with rufous pubescence, and light reddish brown, slightly pubescent and marked by conspicuous leaf-scars in their second year; often a shrub.

Distribution. Florida, near Miami and on the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.

LXVI. CAPRIFOLIACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, opposite petiolate leaves involute in the bud, with or without stipules, scaly buds, and fibrous roots. Flowers regular, perfect, with articulated pedicels, in terminal compound cymes; calyx-tube adnate to the ovary, 5-toothed; corolla epigynous, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens 5, inserted on the tube of the corolla, as many as and alternate with its lobes; filaments slender, free; anthers oblong, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; disk 0 (in the arborescent genera of the United States); ovary inferior or partly superior, 3—5 or 1-celled; style short, capitate, 3—5-lobed and stigmatic at apex; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell, resupinate; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, crowned with the remnants of the style. Seeds with copious fleshy albumen; seed-coat membranaceous, adherent to the albumen; embryo minute, near the hilum; cotyledons ovoid or ovate; radicle terete, erect.

The Honeysuckle family with ten genera is most abundant in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, with a few species extending into the tropics and to beyond the tropics in the southern hemisphere. Many of the species, especially of Lonicera, Sambucus, and Viburnum, are cultivated in gardens for the beauty of their flowers and fruits.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Leaves unequally pinnate; fruit with 3—5 nutlets.
1. Sambucus.
Leaves simple; fruit with 1 stone.
2. Viburnum.

1. SAMBUCUS L. Elder.

Trees or shrubs, with stout branches containing thick white or brown pith, and buds with several scales. Leaves petiolate, unequally pinnate, deciduous, with serrate or laciniate leaflets, the base of the petiole naked, glandular or furnished with a stipule-like leaflet; stipels small, leaf-like, usually setaceous, often 0; stipules small, rudimentary, usually 0 except on vigorous shoots. Flowers small, in broad terminal corymbose cymes, their bracts and bractlets lanceolate, acute, scarious, caducous, sometimes ebracteolate; calyx-tube ovoid, the limb 3—5-lobed or toothed; corolla rotate or slightly campanulate, equally 3—5-parted; filaments filiform or subulate; ovary inferior or partly superior, 3—5-celled; style abbreviated, thick and conic, 3—5-lobed, stigmatic at apex. Fruit subglobose, with juicy flesh, and 3—5 oblong cartilaginous punctate-rugulose or smooth 1-seeded nutlets full and rounded on the back and rounded at the ends. Seeds filling the cavity of the nutlets, pale brown; cotyledons ovoid.

Sambucus with about twenty species is widely and generally distributed through the temperate parts of North America, Europe, and Asia, and inhabits high mountain ranges within the tropics, and in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Of the nine or ten North American species three are arborescent. Sambucus possesses cathartic and emetic properties in the bark; the flowers are excitant and sudorific, and the juice of the fruit is alterative and laxative. The dried flowers of the European _Sambucus nigra_ L., are used in the preparation of an aromatic distilled water and in flavoring lard, and the hard and compact wood is made into combs and mathematical instruments. The large pithy shoots of Sambucus furnish children with pop-guns, pipes, and whistles; and the fruit of some of the species is cooked and eaten.

_Sambucus_, the name of the Elder-tree, is believed to have been derived from σαµβύκη, a musical instrument, probably in allusion to the use of the pithy stems.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Cymes flat-topped; pith usually white; fruit black; nutlets rugose.
Fruit lustrous.
1. S. Simpsonii (C).
Fruit appearing blue from a thick covering of bloom.
2. S. coerulea (B, F, G, H).
Cymes ovoid; pith pale brown; fruit red; nutlets smooth.
3. S. callicarpa (B, G).

1. Sambucus Simpsonii Rehd.

Leaves 4′—7′ long, 3—7, usually 5-foliolulate, with a glabrous petiole and usually 5 dark yellow-green leaflets, lustrous and glabrous on the upper surface with the exception of a few scattered hairs on the midrib, and paler and glabrous on the lower surface, the terminal leaflet obovate or oblong-obovate, short-acuminate at apex, and gradually narrowed at base into a slender petiolule ⅓′—½′ in length, the lateral leaflets broad-elliptic to oblong-elliptic, short-acuminate, broad-cuneate at base, those of the upper pair usually sessile, those of the lower pair on short stalks rarely more than 1/12′ long, serrate except at the base with small slightly spreading teeth, 1½′—3′ long and 1½′—2½′ wide. Flowers slightly fragrant, on slender pedicels in convex or sometimes flat cymes 3′—8′ in diameter, with 4 or 5 rays, the terminal ray as long or longer than the lateral rays, rarely shorter; calyx-tube ovoid, the lobes oblong-ovate, acute, about as long as the tube and slightly exceeding the thick conic style; stamens about as long as the white corolla-lobes; ovary usually 5, rarely 4-celled. Fruit subglobose, dark purplish black, about ¼′ in diameter; nutlets rugose.

A tree, sometimes 15°—18° high, with a trunk often 8′ in diameter, and slightly angled branchlets greenish when they first appear, becoming light yellow-gray and sometimes covered during their second and third years with thick corky excrescences; pith white, on 2 or 3-year-old branches comparatively narrow, occupying only about one-third of the diameter of the stem.

Distribution. Florida, neighborhood of Jacksonville, Duval County, to Eustis, Lake County, Bradentown, Manatee County, and Sanibel Island, Lee County; Mississippi, Ocean Springs, Jackson County; Louisiana, Cameron, Cameron Parish.

2. Sambucus coerulea Raf.

_Sambucus glauca_ Nutt.
_Sambucus neomexicana_ Woot.

Leaves 5′—7′ long, with a stout grooved petiole much enlarged and naked or sometimes furnished at the base with leaf-like appendages, and 5—9 ovate or narrow-oblong leaflets contracted at apex into a long point, unequally cuneate or rounded at base, and coarsely serrate with spreading or slightly incurved callous-tipped teeth, the lower leaflets often 3-parted or pinnate, the terminal one sometimes furnished with 1 or 2 lateral stalked leaflets, yellow-green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, covered with scattered pale hairs when they unfold, and at maturity glabrous or soft pubescent beneath (var. _velutina_ Rehd.), thin, rather firm in texture, bright green above and pale below, 1′—6′ long and ⅓′—1½′ wide, with a narrow pale midrib and inconspicuous veins; petiolules slender, those of the lateral leaflets ¼′—½′ and of the terminal leaflet up to 2′ in length; stipels linear, oblong-lanceolate to ovate, rounded or acute at apex, entire or sharply serrate and leaf-like, 1/16′—½′ long, caducous, often 0. Flowers ⅛′ in diameter, appearing from April in southern California to July in British Columbia, in flat long-branched glabrous or pubescent cymes 4′—10′ wide, with linear acute green caducous bracts and bractlets, the lower branches often from the axils of upper leaves; flower-buds globose, covered with a glaucous bloom, sometimes turning red before opening; calyx ovoid, red-brown, with acute scarious lobes; corolla yellowish white, with oblong divisions rounded at apex, as long as the stamens. Fruit subglobose, ⅓′ in diameter, black, appearing blue by its thick covering of mealy bloom; flesh rather sweet and juicy.

A tree, 30°—50° high, with a tall straight trunk sometimes enlarged at base and 12′—18′ in diameter, stout spreading branches forming a compact round-topped head, and branchlets usually without a terminal bud, green tinged with red or brown when they first appear, and covered with short white caducous hairs, or densely soft pubescent during their first season (var. _velutina_ Rehd.), stout, slightly angled, covered with lustrous red-brown bark in their first winter and nearly encircled by the large triangular leaf-scars marked by conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars; pith white or rarely brownish; often a broad shrub, with numerous spreading stems. Winter-buds axillary generally in pairs, superposed or in clusters of 4 or 5, only the upper bud or sometimes the lower usually developing, covered with 2 or 3 pairs of opposite broad-ovate chestnut-brown scales, those of the inner rank accrescent, and at maturity acute, entire, green, 1′ long, and sometimes developing into pinnate leaves 2′—3′ in length. Bark of the trunk deeply and irregularly fissured, the dark brown surface slightly tinged with red and broken into small square appressed scales. Wood light, soft, weak, coarse-grained, yellow tinged with brown, with thin lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Gravelly rather dry soil of valleys and river-bottoms; western Montana (neighborhood of Flathead Lake and Missoula, Missoula County), through Idaho to the coast of British Columbia (Vancouver Island), and southward to the San Bernardino Mountains and Santa Catalina Island, California, ascending on the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains to altitudes of 6000°—8000°; Nevada, King’s Cañon, Ormsby County; Utah, Juab, Juab County, and the neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County; Colorado, near Trinidad, Las Animas County; New Mexico, Sacramento Mountains, Otero County; very abundant in the coast region; comparatively rare in the interior; of its largest size in the valleys of western Oregon; northward, and east of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains rarely arborescent; in southern California often with smaller leaves and flower-clusters than northward; the var. _velutina_ rare and local, California, Goose Valley, Shasta County; at altitudes of 6000°—7000° on the Sierra Nevada in Sierra, Madera and Kern Counties, and on Santa Catalina Island; Nevada, on Hunter’s Creek, Washoe County, at an altitude of 6000°.

Occasionally planted as an ornamental plant in the Pacific states, passing into

Sambucus coerulea var. arizonica Sarg.

_Sambucus mexicana_ Sarg., not Presl.

Differing from _Sambucus coerulea_ in its 3—5, usually 3-foliate leaves with usually elliptic long-acuminate leaflets glabrous or slightly pubescent when they appear, 1′—3′ long and ½′—1′ wide, their stipels minute or rudimentary, smaller flower-clusters and fruit not more than ¼′ in diameter.

A tree, often 30° high, with stout spreading branches forming a compact round-topped head, and slender branchlets glabrous or villose pubescent early in the season, usually becoming glabrous. Bark of the trunk about ¼′ thick, the light brown surface tinged with red and broken into long narrow horizontal ridge-like scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown, with thin lighter-colored sapwood of 2 or 3 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Banks of streams; Arizona, Grand View Trail, Grand Cañon of the Colorado River and near Flagstaff, Coconino County, Globe, Gila County, and banks of the Rialta near Tucson, Pima County; common; New Mexico, near Silver City, Grant County; southern California (San Diego, Los Angeles, Ventura and Kern Counties).

3. Sambucus callicarpa Greene.