413 
cylindrical fertile ones peduncled and usually terminating very short 
2 leaved lateral branches of the season, 3 sterile flowers (consisting each 
of a calyx of one seale bearing 4 short filaments with 1-celled anthers) 
and 2 bractlets to each shield-shaped seale or bract, fertile flowers 2 or 
3 to each 3-lobed bract, the naked ovary becoming broadly winged, and 
fhe seale-like nutlet crowned with the 2 spreading stigmas. 
1. B. nigra L. (Riverorrep pinci,) Tree with greenish-brown bark (somewhat 
laminate), and reddish twigs: leaves rhombic-ovate, whitish and (until old) downy 
beneath; petioles and pedunele about the same length (6 to 14 mm.) and with the 
oblong catkin tomentose: bracts with oblong-linear nearly equal lobes: fruit broadly 
winged.—Banks of streams, extending from the Atlantic States to the valley of the 
Trinity. 
2. ALNUS Ceerthn. (ALDER.) 
Ours a small shrub, with few-scaled leat’ buds, solitary or often race- 
mose-clustered catkins terminating leafless branches or peduncles, 
the elongated sterile catkins with 4 or 5 bractlets and 3 (rarely 6) flow- 
ers upon each short-stalked peltate scale, 3 to 5-parted calyx and as 
many stamens, short simple filaments, 2-celled anthers, the fertile cat- 
kins ovoid-oblong, the fleshy scales each 2 or 3-flowered, with calyx of 
4 little scales adherent to the scales or bracts of the catkin. 
1. A. serrulata Willd. Forming dense thickets (seldom a small tree): leaves 
obovate, acute at base, sharply serrate with minute teeth, thickish, green on both 
sides, smooth or often downy beneath; stipules oval: flowers developed before the 
leaves from mostly clustered catkins whieh (of both sorts) were formed the foregoing 
summer and have remained naked through the winter: fruit ovate.—Extending 
westward to the valley of the Trinity. 
3. CARPINUS L. (Hornpeam. IRoNwoop.) 
Trees or tall shrubs, with smooth close gray bark (together with 
buds and leaves resembling the beech), sterile flowers in cylindrical 
‘atkins consisting of several stamens in the axils of the entire scale- 
like braet, very short filaments (mostly 2-forked), 1-celled hairy-tipped 
anthers, the fertile flowers several in terminal spikes, the single invo- 
luere-like bractlet becoming foliaceous in fruit and merely subtending 
the small ovate several-nerved nut. 
1. C. Caroliniana Walt. (AMERICAN HORNBEAM. BLUE or WATER BEECH.) Small 
tree (3 to 12m. high), with rigid trunk and very hard wood: leaves ovate-oblong, 
pointed, sharply doubly serrate, soon nearly smooth: bracts 3-lobed, halberd-shaped, 
sparingly eut-toothed on one side, acute. (C. Americana Michx,)—Along streams, 
extending into Texas (valley of the Trinity) from the Atlantic States. 
4. OSTRYA Scop. (Hor HORNBEAM. TRONWOOD.) 
Slender trees, with very hard wood, brownish furrowed bark, leaves 
open and concave in bud, flowers appearing with the leaves, the cylin- 
drical sterile catkins 1 to 3 together at the tip of the branches of the 
preceding year, the short fertile ones single and terminating the shoots 
of the season, sterile flowers consisting of several stamens in the axil 
