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 ra-
cemes 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 sur-
face, persistent under the fruit; corolla hypogynous, cylindric to ovate-cylindric, white,
puberulous, 5-lobed, the lobes minute, ovate, acute, re flexed; stamens 10, included; fila-
ments 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 placentif-
erous 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 6fo and Stvdpov, 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 1|'-2|' wide; turn-
ing bright scarlet in the autumn; petioles f in length. Flowers opening late in July or
early in August, ' long, in panicles 7'-8' in length. Fruit |'-|' long, hanging in drooping
clusters sometimes a foot in length, ripening in September, the empty capsules often per-
sistent on the branches until late in the autumn; seeds about f' 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. Whiter-buds about T %' long, their inner
scales at maturity 1' in length, %' wide, spatulate, acute at apex, and slightly puberulous on
the inner surface and on the margins. Bark of the trunk f '-!' 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
ERICACEAE
797
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
Fig. 711
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 Missis-
sippi, and West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana; up to altitudes of 3500 on the southern moun-
tains; 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 axil-
lary 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.
798
TREES OF NORTH AMERICA
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, l'-3' long and i'-l|' wide, with a prominent midrib and primary
veins; appearing in early spring and pecsistent until the summer or autumn of their second
year; petioles short, thick, much enlarged at base. Flowers |' in diameter, chiefly pro-
duced 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
Fig. 712
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, \' long; seed pale brown.
A tree, occasionally 20-30 high, with a slender crooked or often prostrate trunk some-
times 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 %'-\' 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.
ERICACEAE 799
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-urceo-
late, 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 inter-
nally 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, sim-
ple, 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 manu-
facture 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. Madrona.
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 coria-
ceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale or often nearly white below, 3 '-5' long and 1|'-
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, $'-!' in length, often slightly wing-
margined toward the apex; often producing late in summer a second crop of smaller leaves.
Flowers about -J-' long, with a glabrous ovary, appearing from March to May on short slen-
der puberulous pedicels from the axils of acute scarious bracts ciliate on the margins, in
spicate pubescent racemes forming a cluster 5'-6' long and broad. Fruit ripening in the
autumn, subglobose or occasionally obovoid or oval, |' long, bright orange-red, with thin
glandular flesh and a 5-celled more or less perfectly developed thin-walled cartilaginous
stone; seeds several in each cell, tightly pressed together and angled, dark brown and pilose.
A tree, 80-125 high, with a tall straight trunk 4-5 in diameter, stout upright or
spreading branches forming a narrow oblong or broad round-topped head, and slender
branchlets light red, pea-green, or orange-colored and glabrous when they first appear, or
on vigorous young plants sometimes covered with pale scattered deciduous hairs, becoming
800 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA
in their first winter bright reddish brown. Winter-buds obtuse, -' long, with numerous
imbricated broadly-ovate bright brown scales keeled on the back, apiculate at apex, and
slightly ciliate. Bark of young stems and of the branches smooth, bright red, separating
Fig. 713
into large thin scales, becoming on old trunks '$'-%' 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 ocasionally 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, extend-
ing 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 Fran-
cisco 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. Madrona.
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, l'-3' long and f '~H' wide, with a
thick midrib often villose-pubescent below; petioles stout, pubescent, sometimes becoming
nearly glabrous, l'-l^' in length. Flowers j' 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 2^' long. Fruit pubescent until half grown, becoming glabrous, usu-
ally produced very sparingly, ripening in summer, dark red, f ' in diameter, with thin granu-
lar 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
ERICACEAE
801
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, be-
coming dark red-brown and covered with small plate-like scales; often a broad irregularly
shaped bush, with numerous contorted stems. Winter-buds about |' 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 j' 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 han-
dles of small tools and in the manufacture of mathematical instruments.
Distribution. Texas, dry limestone hills, Travis, Comal, Blanco, Kendall and Banders
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. Madrona.
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
802 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA
they unfold, tinged with red, and slightly puberulous, especially on the petiole and mar-
gins, and at maturity thin, firm and rigid, light green on the upper surface, pale. on the
lower surface, l|'-3' long and %'-l' wide, with a slender yellow midrib and obscure reti-
culate veinlets; appearing in May and after the summer rains in September, and per-
sistent for at least a year; petioles slender, often 1' in length. Flowers 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 %'-%%' 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, $' 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 $' 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 f '-' 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 sur-
face. 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 Moun-
tains 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 some-
times imperfectly divided by the development from the back of a false partition; style fili-
form, 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 temper-
ate 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 valu-
able being the North American Vaccinium macrocarpum L., the Cranberry.
Vaccim'um 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, gla-
ERICACEAE 803
brous or often puberulous on the midrib and veins, reticulate- venulose, %'-& long, %'-!'
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
I' 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-campanu-
late, slightly 5-lobed, with acute reflexed lobes, longer than the 10 stamens; filaments hir-
sute; anther-cells opening by oblique elongated pores. Fruit ripening in October, some-
times persistent on the branches until the end of winter, globose, \' 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 slen-
der 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 ^' 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 diarrhoea.
The bark has been used by tanners.
Distribution. Usually in moist sandy soil along the banks of ponds and streams; south-
eastern 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, Arkan-
sas, 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 Pine-
belt 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.
804
TREES OF NORTH AMERICA
A tree, 10-20 high, with a short often crooked trunk, pubescent or glabrous gray branch-
lets, and winter-buds and bark like those of Vaccinium arbor f urn with which it often grows.
Fig. 717
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. THEOPHRASTACE^E. '
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