narrow, of equal width or occasionally with the alternate wings narrower than the others;
stone ovoid, abruptly narrowed below into a short stipe, gradually narrowed to the apex,
obscurely angled, f'-lj' long.
A slender tree, 25-30 high, with a long trunk 8'-10' in diameter, small light brown
slightly ridged branches and slender branchlets hoary-tomentose when they first appear,
becoming pubescent or nearly glabrous by the end of their first season and light gray-brown
in their second year; or a shrub only a few feet tall. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, slightly
compressed, villose, about f ' long. Bark of the trunk thick, dark brown or nearly black,
and divided by deep longitudinal furrows into narrow rounded rough ridges.
Distribution. Northern Florida, in sandy uplands (St. John, Clay, Jackson, Gadsden
and Lafayette Counties) ; not common; Alabama (Lee County) ; eastern Mississippi (Laurel,
Jones County), and eastern Oklahoma (near Page, Le Flore County).
4. Halesia diptera Ellis.
Mohrodendron dipterum Britt.
Leaves ovate to obovate, oval or elliptic, abruptly long-pointed or rarely rounded at
apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate or rounded at base, undulate-serrate with remote
minute callous teeth, coated below with pale tomentum and pubescent above when they
unfold, and at maturity thin, light green and glabrous or pubescent on the slender midrib
on the upper surface and paler and soft-pubescent on the lower surface, 3'-4' long and
2'-2' wide, and at the end of vigorous branches up to 8' long and 3' wide, with pale con-
spicuous arcuate veins and reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, pubescent, f'-f ' in length.
Flowers opening from the middle of March to the end of April, usually nearly 1 ' long, on
slender tomentose pedicels H'-2' in length, from the axils of obovate puberulous bracts
rounded or acute at apex and '-f ' long, in few-flowered fascicles or in 4-6-flowered ra-
cemes; calyx thickly covered with hoary tomentum, the short lobes nearly glabrous on the
inner surface; corolla puberulous on the outer surface, divided nearly to the base into
slightly obovate or oval spreading lobes; stamens 8-16, usually 8, nearly as long as the
corolla; filaments covered with pale hairs, and sometimes free from the corolla; ovary usu-
ally 2, rarely 4-celled and covered, like the style, with pale pubescence. Fruit oblong to
STYRACE^E .
slightly obovoid, compressed, !%'-%' long, often nearly 1' wide, with two broad wings and
often with 2 or rarely 3 narrow wings between them; stone ellipsoid, l|'-lf long, conspicu-
ously ridged, gradually narrowed below into the short slender stipe and above into the
thickened pubescent style; seed acuminate at the ends, about f in length.
A tree, occasionally 30 high, with a short or rarely a tall trunk 8'-10' in diameter, spread-
ing branches forming a wide head and slender branchlets light green and more or less
thickly covered with pale pubescence when they first appear, usually becoming glabrous,
orange color, or reddish brown, lustrous and marked by the large elevated obcordate
leaf-scars during their first winter, dark red-brown in their second season and dividing the
following year into irregular pale longitudinal fissures; more often a shrub, with numerous
stout spreading stems. Winter-buds ovoid, obtuse, ^' long, with broad-ovate acute light
red pubescent scales, those of the inner ranks becoming strap-shaped, scarious and |' long
Bark of the trunk '-' thick, brown tinged with red, and divided by irregular longitudinal
often broad fissures, and separating into small thin closely appressed scales Wood light,
soft, strong, close-grained, light brown with thick lighter-colored sapwood.
Distribution. Low wet woods and the borders of swamps and streams; near Savannah
(Elliott) and in southwestern Georgia, western Florida (Leon and Gadsden Counties),
southern Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana to the valley of the lower Neches River,
Texas, and to southwestern Arkansas (Miller County).
Occasionally cultivated in the gardens of the eastern United States and western Europe.
Doubtfully hardy in Massachusetts and western New York.
2. STYRAX L.
Trees or shrubs, lepidote or stellate-tomentose except on the upper surface of the leaves,
with slender terete slightly zigzag branchlets, without a terminal bud, axillary buds, with
imbricated scales, and fibrous roots Leaves involute in the bud, entire or slightly serrate.
Flowers usually white on short ebracteolate drooping pedicels from the axils of small bracts,
in simple or branched usually drooping axillary racemes; calyx cup-shaped, adnate to the
base of the ovary or nearly free, the margin truncate, obscurely or conspicuously 5-toothed
or rarely 2 or 5-parted; corolla epigynous, campanulate, 5 or rarely 6 or 7-parted, with a
short tube usually longer than the lanceolate oblong or spatulate erect and spreading or
revolute lobes valvate or imbricated in the bud, stamens 8-13, usually 10, longer than the
corolla slightly united below into a ring or short tube; filaments flattened above; cells of the
anthers linear parallel, erect; ovary broad-conic, subglobose or depressed, densely villose
or rarely glabrous, at first 3-celled, becoming 1-celled or nearly 1-celled after anthesis,
crowned by a subulate or thickened style terminating in a small indistinctly 3-lobed or
capitate stigma', ovules few or rarely solitary ascending; raphe dorsal, micropyle inferior.
Fruit globose or slightly obovoid, drupaceous ; pericarp hard and indehiscent or irregularly
3-valved or fleshy and irregularly dehiscent; endocarp glabrous, crustaceous or indurate;
seed 1 by abortion or very rarely 2, filling the cavity of the stone, erectj testa membrana-
ceous. mostly adherent to the walls of the stone; albumen fleshy or rarely horny; cotyledons
usually broad, the elongated terete radicle turned toward the broad basal hilum.
Styrax is widely distributed in warm and tropical countries except in tropical and south
Africa and in Australasia, extending northward into the southeastern United States and to
California, southern Europe s central and western China and central Japan. Of nearly one
hundred species which are now distinguished five are found within the territory of the
United States; one of these occasionally becomes a small tree.
Storax and benzoin, aromatic resinous balsams, are obtained from Styrax officinale L.
of southern Europe and Asia Minor, and from Styrax Benzoin Dryand. of Malaysia.
The generic name is that of the Greek name of Styrax officinale.
1. Styrax grandiflora Ait.
Leaves thin, deciduous, obovate, rounded and abruptly pointed or acute or acuminate or
rarely rounded at apex, cuneate or rounded at the narrow base, entire or remotely serrate
830
TREES OF NORTH AMERICA
with small apiculate teeth, when they unfold ciliate on the margins, slightly stellate-pubes-
cent on the midrib and veins above, and coated below with hoary tomentum, and at ma-
turity pale green and glabrous or nearly glabrous above, pale tomentose and villose on the
Fig. 736
midrib and veins below, 2^'-5' long and l'-3' wide; petioles j' in length, hoary-tomentose
early in the season, becoming pubescent. Flowers opening in early spring after the leaves
are more than half grown, f'-l' long, on slender pubescent or tomentose pedicels |' in
length, in tomentose leafy erect or spreading axillary racemes 5' or 6' long, their bracts and
bractlets linear, minute, tomentose, caducous; calyx more or less coarsely 5-toothed, mem-
branaceous, tomentose on the outer surface; corolla 5-parted, the lobes longer than the
tube, imbricated in the bud, membranaceous, oblong-obovate, rounded or acute at apex,
stellate-pubescent on the outer surface; stamens 10, about as long as the corolla, vil-
lose-pubescent below the middle, united below into a short ring; ovary slightly inferior,
obovoid, tomentose, 3-celled; style filiform, glabrous, exserted; ovules 3 or 4 in each cell.
Fruit hoary-tomentose, slightly obovoid, rounded and tipped at apex with the remnants of
the style, gradually narrow r ed and surrounded below by the calyx, |' long, and \' in diam-
eter, the outer coat crustaceous, indehiscent; seed obovoid, dark orange-brown, filling the
cavity of the fruit.
A tree, rarely 40 high, with a tall straight trunk sometimes 8' in diameter, short
spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender branchlets thickly
coated when they first appear with hoary stellate pubescence more or less persistent during
three seasons, ultimately glabrous and light or dark chestnut-brown; more often a broad
shrub 6-20 high. Bark of the trunk %'-%' thick, close, smooth and dark red-brown.
Winter-buds: axillary, often 3, superposed, acute, covered with hoary ultimately rusty
tomentum, about \' long.
Distribution. Low wet woods and the borders of swamps; southeastern Virginia, south-
ward usually near the coast to the valley of the Apalachicola River, Florida, and through
the Gulf states to western Louisiana, ranging inland to northern Georgia, northeastern
Mississippi, and to the valley of the Red River at Natchitoches, Louisiana; of its largest
size and perhaps only arborescent near Laurel Hill, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana.
LIX. SYMPLOCACE^.
Trees or shrubs, with simple pubescence, watery juice, scaly buds, and fibrous roots.
Leaves simple, alternate, coriaceous or thin, pinnately veined, usually becoming yellow
SYMPLOCACE^E
831
in drying, without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect, or polyganio-dioacious, on ebrac-
teolate pedicels, in dense or lax axillary spikes or racemes, with small caducous bracts;
calyx campanulate, 5-lobed, open in the bud, the tube adnate to the ovary, enlarged after
anthesis; corolla divided nearly to the base into 3-11 usually 5 lobes imbricated in the bud;
disk 0; stamens usually numerous, inserted in many series on the base of the corolla or
rarely 4 in one series; filaments filiform or flattened, more or less united below into clusters;
anthers ovoid-globose, introrse, 2-celled, the cells lateral, opening longitudinally; ovary in-
ferior or partly inferior, 2-5-celled, contracted into a simple style, with an entire or slightly
lobed terminal stigma; ovules 2 or rarely 4 in each cell, suspended from its inner angle,
anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a drupe (in. the North American
species), crowned with the persistent lobes of the calyx, with thin dry flesh and a bony
1-seeded stone. Seed oblong, suspended; seed-coat membranaceous; embryo terete, erect
in copious fleshy albumen; cotyledons much shorter than the long slender radicle turned
toward the broad conspicuous hilum.
The family consists of the genus Symplocos.
1. SYMPLOCOS L'Her.
Characters of the family.
Symplocos with nearly three hundred species inhabits chiefly the warmer parts of Amer-
ica, Asia, and Australia, one species occurring in the southern United States.
Symplocos contains a yellow coloring matter, and the bark and leaves of some species
have medical properties.
The generic name, from Stf/rXoKos, relates to the union of the filaments of some of the
species.
1. Symplocos tinctoria L'Her. Sweet Leaf. Horse Sugar.
Leaves revolute in the bud, oblong, acute or acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed at
base, obscurely crenulate-serrate with remote teeth, or sometimes nearly entire, coated
below when they unfold with pale tomentum, glabrous or tomentose above, and furnished
on the margins with minute dark caducous glands, and at maturity subcoriaceous, dark
Fig. 737
green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler and pubescent on the lower surface, 5'-6'
long and l'-2' wide, with a broad midrib rounded and sometimes puberulous on the upper
side, inconspicuous arcuate veins and reticulate veinlets; northward and at high altitudes
falling in the autumn, and southward remaining on the branches until after the opening of
832 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA
the flowers the following spring; petioles stout, slightly winged, |'-' in length. Flowers;
flower-clusters inclosed in the bud by ovate acute orange-colored scales brown and ciliate
on the margins, each of the flow 7 er-buds surrounded by 3 imbricated oblong bracts rounded
or pointed at apex and ciliate on the margins, the longest as long as the calyx and one third
longer than the 2 lateral bracts; flowers fragrant, opening from the 1st of March at the
south to the middle of May on the southern Appalachian Mountains, on short pedicels en-
larged into thick hemispheric receptacles covered with long white hairs, in nearly sessile
many-flowered clusters in the axils of leaves of the previous year; calyx oblong, cup-shaped,
dark green and puberulous, with minute ovate scarious lobes rounded at apex; corolla
creamy white, \' long, with rounded lobes; stamens exserted, with slender filaments united
at base into 5 clusters, and orange-colored anthers; ovary 3-celled, furnished on the top
with 5 dark nectariferous glands placed opposite the lobes of the calyx, and abruptly con-
tracted into a slender style gradually thickened toward the apex and longer than the corolla.
Fruit ripening in the summer or early autumn, ovoid, \' long, dark orange-colored or brown;
seed ovoid, pointed, with a thin papery chestnut-brown coat.
A tree, occasionally 30-35 high, with a short trunk barely exceeding 6'-8' in diameter,
slender upright branches forming an open head, and stout terete pithy branchlets light
green and coated with pale or rufous tomentum when they first appear, or sometimes gla-
brous, and covered with scattered white hairs, reddish brown to ashy gray, tinged with red
and usually more or less pubescent or often covered with a glaucous bloom during their
first and second years, later growing darker, roughened by occasional small elevated lenti-
cels and marked by the low horizontal obcordate leaf-scars displaying a central cluster of
large fibro- vascular bundle-scars; or more often a shrub. Whiter-buds ovoid, acute, cov-
ered with broad-ovate nearly triangular acute scales, those of the inner rows accrescent on
the young branchlets, and at maturity oblong-obovate, rounded and often apiculate at
apex, light green, glabrous or pilose, ciliate on the margins, and often \' in length. Bark of
the trunk \'-\' thick, ashy gray slightly tinged with red, divided by occasional narrow fis-
sures and roughened by wart-like excrescences. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light red
or brown, with thick lighter colored often nearly white sapwood of 18-20 layers of annual
growth. The leaves are sweet to the taste and are devoured in the autumn by cattle and
horses, and, like the bark, yield a yellow dye occasionally used domestically. The bitter
aromatic roots have been used as a tonic.
Distribution. Moist rich soil, often in the shade of dense forests; peninsula of Delaware
to northern Florida and from the coast to altitudes of nearly 4000 on the Blue Ridge in
North and South Carolina, and to eastern Texas and southern Arkansas; in the Gulf states
usually along the borders of Cypress-swamps.
LX. OLEACE^l.
Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, scaly buds, their inner scales accrescent, opposite
leaves, without stipules, and fibrous roots. Flowers perfect, dioecious or polygamous,
regular; calyx 4-lobed, or 0; corolla of 2-4 petals, or 0; disk 0; stamens 2-4, rudimentary or
in unisexual pistillate flowers; anthers attached on the back below the middle, often apicu-
late by the prolongation of the connective, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudi-
nally usually by lateral slits: ovary free, 2 or rarely 3-celled, rudimentary or in the stami-
nate flower; style simple; ovules 2 in each cell, pendulous, anatropous; micropyle superior.
Fruit (in the North American arborescent genera) a samara or berry. Seed pendulous;
seed-coat membranaceous; embryo straight in copious fleshy albumen; cotyledons flat,
much longer than the short terete superior radicle turned toward the minute hilum.
The Olive family with twenty-five genera is widely distributed in temperate and tropical
regions chiefly in the northern hemisphere. Of the five genera indigenous to the United
States four are arborescent. To this family belong Olea europcea L., the Olive-tree of the
Mediterranean basin, now largely cultivated in California for its fruit, and the Lilacs, For-
sythias, Privets, and Jasmines, favorite garden plants in all countries with temperate cli-
mates.
OLEACE^E 833
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Fruit a winged samara; leaves usually compound. 1. Fraxinus.
Fruit a drupe; leaves simple.
Flowers usually without petals. 2. Forestiera.
Flowers with petals.
Corolla of 4 long linear petals united only at base; leaves deciduous.
3. Chionanthus.
Corolla tubular; leaves persistent. 4. Osmanthus.
1. FRAXINUS L. Ash.
Trees or shrubs, with thick furrowed or rarely thin and scaly bark, usually ash-colored
branchlets, with thick pith, and compressed obtuse terminal buds much larger than the
lateral buds. Leaves petiolate, unequally pinnate or rarely reduced to a single leaflet, de-
ciduous; leaflets conduplicate in the bud, usually serrate, petiolulate or sessile. Flowers
dioecious or polygamous, produced in early spring on slender elongated pedicels, without
bractlets, in open or compact slender-branched panicles, with obovate linear or lanceolate
caducous bracts, terminal on leafy shoots of the year, developed from the axils of new leaves,
or from separate buds in the axils of leaves of the previous year, or at the base of young
branchlets, and covered by 2 ovate scales; calyx campanulate, deciduous or persistent under
the fruit, or 0; corolla 2-4-parted, the divisions conduplicate in the bud, united at base, or
0; stamens usually 2, rarely 3 or 4, inserted on the base of the corolla, or hypogynous; fila-
ments terete, short or rarely elongated; anthers ovoid or linear-oblong, the cells opening by
lateral slits; ovary 2 or rarely 3-celled, contracted into a short or elongated style terminat-
ing in a 2-lobed stigma; ovules suspended in pairs from the inner angle of the cell; raphe
dorsal. Fruit a 1 or rarely 2 or 3-seeded winged samara; body terete or slightly flattened
contrary to the septum, with a dry or woody pericarp produced into an elongated more or
less decurrent wing, usually 1-celled by abortion or sometimes 2 or 3-celled and winged.
Seed solitary in each cell, oblong, compressed, gradually narrowed and rounded at the ends,
filling the cavity of the fruit; seed-coat chestnut-brown.
Fraxinus with thirty to forty species is widely distributed in the temperate regions of the
northern hemisphere, and within the tropics occurs on the islands of Cuba and Java. Of
the eighteen North American species here recognized all, with the exception of Fraxinus
dipetala Hook., of California, are large or small trees.
Fraxinus produces tough straight-grained valuable wood, and some of the species are
large and important timber- trees. The waxy exudations from the trunk and leaves of
Fraxinus Ornus L., of southern Europe and Asia Minor furnish the manna of commerce
used in medicine as a gentle laxative; and the Chinese white wax is obtained from the
branches of Fraxinus chinensis Roxb.
Fraxinus is the classical name of the Ash-tree.
CONSPECTUS OF THE* NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.
Flowers with a corolla, in terminal panicles on lateral leafy branchlets of the year; leaflets
3-7, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate (ORNUS). 1. F. cuspidate (E, H).
Flowers without a corolla, dioecious or polygamous, in axillary panicles, from separate buds,
in the axils of leaves of the previous year (FRAXINASTRUM) .
Flowers with a calyx.
Leaflets with obscure veins, not more than f ' long; fruit narrow-spatulate to oblong-
obovate; rachis slightly winged. 2. F. Greggii (E).
Leaflets with distinct veins, more than f ' long; rachis without a wing.
Body of the fruit compressed, its wing extending to the base.
Branchlets 4-sided.
Leaves usually 5-foliolate, with ovate acute leaflets; flowers unknown.
3. F. Lowellii (F).
834 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA
Leaves usually reduced to a single ovate or orbicular leaflet; flowers polyga-
mous. 4. F. anomala (F).
Branchlets terete.
Leaflets 5-7, oblong-ovate; fruit oblong-elliptic to spatulate, often 3-winged,
long-stipitate. 5 F. caroliniana (A, C).
Leaflets 3-5, oblong; fruit lanceolate to oblanceolate, the body extending to the
base of the fruit. 6. F. pauciflora (C).
Body of the fruit nearly terete.
Wing of the fruit terminal or slightly decurrent on the body.
Leaves and branchlets glabrous (tomentose in one form of 7).
Leaflets sessile or nearly sessile 5-7 rarely 5, ovate to oblong-ovate, rarely
elliptic, acute or short-acuminate, glaucescent below.
7. F. Standleyi (H).
Leaflets stalked.
Leaflets 5-7, ovate to lanceolate, abruptly pointed or acuminate, usually
pale below. 8. F. americana (A, C)
Leaflets usually 5, ovate to obovate, rounded or acute at apex.
9. F. texensis (C).
Leaves and branches pubescent; leaflets oblong-ovate to lanceolate, pale below;
fruit linear-oblong. 10. F. biltmoreana (A, C).
Wing of the fruit decurrent to below the middle of the body.
Leaflets 7-9, usually 7 ; leaves and branches pubescent (glabrous in one form of 12) .
Fruit 2'-3' in length. 11. F. profunda (A, C).
Fruit l'-2|' in length. 12. F. pennsylvanica (A, E).
Leaflets 3-5.
Leaves and branchlets glabrous; fruit up to 1^' in length.
13. F. Berlandieriana (C, E).
Leaves and branchlets pubescent or glabrous; fruit not more than \' in
length. 14. F. velutina (F, H)
Leaflets 5-7 v usually 7, the lateral generally sessile; leaves and branchlets pilose-
pubescent, rarely glabrous- 15. F. oregona (B, G).
Flowers without a calyx; leaflets 5-11 ; wing of the fruit decurrent to the base of the body.
Branchlets quadrangular; lateral leaflets short-stalked. 1C. F. quadrangulata (A, C).
Branchlets terete; lateral leaflets sessile. 17. F. nigra (A, C).
1. Fraxinus cuspidata Torr.
Leaves 5'-7' long, with a slender pale petiole sometimes slightly wing-margined, and 3-7
lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate long-stalked leaflets gradually narrowed at apex into a long
slender point, cuneate at base nearly entire or coarsely and remotely serrate above the mid-
dle with recurved teeth (var. serrata Rehd.), or with 3-5, rarely 7-foliolate leaves, with
broader often ovate entire leaflets occasionally with simple leaves at the base of the branch-
lets (var. macropetala Rehd.); slightly puberulous when they unfold on the lower surface,
and at maturity thin, dark green above, paler below, 1|'HH' long and i'-f wide, with a
pale midrib and obscure veins; petiolules slender, sometimes nearly 1' in length. Flowers
perfect, extremely fragrant, appearing in April, in open glabrous panicles 3'-4' long and
broad, terminal on lateral leafy branchlets developed from the axils of leaves of the previous
year, calyx cup-shaped, tV long, with acute apiculate attenuate teeth of unequal length,
deciduous, corolla f long, thin and white, divided to below the middle into 4 linear-oblong
lobes pointed at apex, and much longer than the nearly sessile oblong long-pointed anthers
ovary 2-ceIled, with a thick 2-lobed nearly sessile stigma. Fruit elliptic to oblong-obovate,
1' long and \' wide, the wing round and slightly emarginate at apex, and decurrent nearly
to the base of the flat nerveless longer body.
A tree, rarely 20 high, with a short trunk 6'-8 ; in diameter, and slender terete branch-
lets light red-brown when they first appear, soon becoming darker and marked by scattered
OLEACE^
835
pale lenticels, and ashy gray and roughened by the dark elevated lunate leaf-scars iu their
second year; more often a shrub or small shrubby tree, with numerous slender spreading
Fig- 738
stems 6-8 tall. Winter-buds: terminal acute, nearly \' long, with dark reddish brown
glutinous scales.
Distribution. Rocky slopes and dry ridges; Western Texas, valley of the Rio Grande
(mouth of Devil's River, Valverde County) to the Chisos Mountains, and in southern
New Mexico; in Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Chihuahua; the var. macropetala in canons
of northern Arizona; the var. serrata (fig. 738) in Coahuila.
2. Fraxinus Greggii A. Gray.
Leaves l|'-3' long, with a winged petiole and rachis, and 3-7 narrow spatulate to oblong-
obovate leaflets entire or crenately serrate above the middle with remote teeth, a slender
Fig. 739
midrib, and obscure reticulate veins, thick and coriaceous, dark green on the upper surface
rather paler and covered with small black dots on the lower surface, ' f ' long, |'-j' wide,