664 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



tomentose. Bark of the trunk about \' thick, slightly furrowed, ashy, gray and often 

 marked with large black blotches. Wood rather hard, light, close-grained, not 

 strong, light brown, with lighter colored sapwood of 5 or 6 layers of annual growth. 



Distribution. Borders of streams on rich bottom-lands, and on limestone ridges; 

 Virginia to northern Florida and westward through the valley of the Ohio River to 

 eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, and eastern Texas; occasionally tree-like in west- 

 ern Florida and Mississippi, and of its largest size only in southern Arkansas and the 

 adjacent portions of Texas; very abundant on the limestone barrens of eastern 

 Kentucky and Tennessee. 



3. Rhamnus Purshiana, DC. Bearberry. Coffee-tree. 



Leaves deciduous, broadly elliptical, obtuse or bluntly pointed at the apex, rounded 

 or slightly cordate at the base, finely serrate, or often nearly entire, with undulate 

 margins, membranaceous, villose, with short hairs on the lower surface and on the 

 veins above, 2'-7' long, conspicuously netted-veined, with broad and prominent 

 midribs and primary veins, turning pale yellow late in the autumn before fall- 

 ing; their petioles stout, often pubescent, ^'-1' long; stipules membranaceous, acu- 

 minate. FloAvers on slender pubescent pedicels \'-V long, in axillary cymes on 

 slender pubescent peduncles |'-1' in length on shoots of the year; calyx nearly 

 campanulate, with 5 spreading acuminate lobes; petals 5, minute, ovate, deeply 

 notched at the apex, and folded round the short stamens; stigma 2 or 3-lobed. Fruit 

 globose or broadly obovoid, black, y-^' in diameter, slightly or not at all lobed, 

 with thin rather juicy flesh, and 2 or 3 obovate nutlets usually ^' long, rounded on 

 the back, flattened on the inner surface, with 2 bony tooth-like enlargements at the 

 base, 1 on each side of the large scar of the hilum, and a thin gray or pale yellow- 

 green shell; seeds obtuse at the apex, rounded on the back; seed-coat thin and 

 papery, yellow-brown on the outer surface, bright orange color on the inner surface 

 like the cotyledons. 



A tree, 35-40 high, with a slender trunk often 18'-20' in diameter, separating 

 10-15 from the ground into numerous stout upright or sometimes nearly horizontal 

 branches, and slender branchlets coated at first with fine soft pubescence, pale yel- 

 low-green or reddish brown, and pubescent, glabrous, or covered with scattered hairs 

 in their second season and then marked by the elevated oval horizontal leaf -scars; 



