66 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN, 
accumulation on which in places a man may walk. Certain 
of these sloughs are almost exclusively occupied by the 
Leitineria, which has a spreading root system confined to 
the surface layers of the soil. Apparently suckers arise 
from some of the roots, as is the case with the Ailanthus 
and White Poplar, but I have not been able to actually 
trace these young shoots to the older plants, though their 
root system is usually developed out of proportion to their 
size.* The impression made on one by such a Leitneria 
swamp is that of a tangle of coarse bushes from five to ten 
feet in height, but on closer observation it is evident that 
each stem rises separately from the soil or water, so that 
the plant lacks the clustered bushy habit which distin- 
guishes a shrub from a small tree, and it not infrequently 
attains a height of fifteen to twenty feet and forms a trunk 
from three to five inches thick toward the base, where it 
gradually increases in thickness as do many other swamp 
trees. 
Such arborescent specimens have a clear cut trunk below 
and are loosely branched above, with the ascending ultimate 
twigs commonly as thick as a lead pencil. Its bark is gray 
below and rather smooth, usually mossgrown where wet. 
The twigs incline to brown, or in the case of suckers are 
almost orange colored, and are marked by numerous slightly 
prominent lenticels usually of a lighter gray. During the 
first year they are densely pubescent with ascending dingy 
hairs, some of which persist during the second year, but 
ultimately they become glabrous. The leaf scars are five- 
ranked, rather uniformly distributed along the twig, 
slightly elevated, and of a general crescent form with 
obtuse angles and a not infrequent trilobation. Each con- 
tains three relatively large bundle scars. No stipule scars 
are to be seen. : 
The small persistent terminal bud is broadly conical and 
* Apparently connected with this mode of spreading, is the preponder- 
ance of one sex in each swamp; a fact which Dr. Dean also informs me 
he has observed in Florida. 
2 
