676 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



XXXVIII. STERCULIACE-aJ. 



Trees or shrubs, with bitter astringent juice, mucilaginous bark, and alter- 

 nate simple leaves with stipules. Flowers perfect, regular ; calyx of 5 sepals, 

 imbricated in- the bud; corolla (in Fremontodendron) ; anthers extrorse ; 

 pistil of 5 united carpels ; ovary 5-celled ; styles united ; ovules anatropous. 



A family of about fifty genera mostly confined to the tropics, its most im- 

 portant species, Theobroma Cacao, L., of the West Indies producing chocolate 

 from the cotyledons. Sterculia platanifolia, L. f., of this family and a native 

 of southern China, is often planted as an ornamental tree in the southern 

 states and in California. 



1. FREMONTODENDRON, Gov. 



A tree or shrub, with stellate pubescence and naked buds. Leaves palmately 

 lobed, thick, prominently veined, usually rufous on the lower surface, persistent; 

 stipules minute, deciduous. Flowers solitary, terminal or opposite the leaves, pedun- 

 culate, subtended by 3 or rarely 5 minute caducous bracts; calyx subcampanulate, 

 ^^ypogy^o^s, deeply 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, petaloid, yellow, 

 spreading, obovate, often mucronate, V long, the 3 outer a little smaller than the 

 others, pubescent on the outer surface, with a hairy cavity at the base of the inner 

 surface; corolla 0; stamens 5; filaments alternate with the sepals, united to the 

 middle into a column; anthers oblong-linear, incurved at the ends, 2-celled, the cells 

 opening longitudinally; ovary 5-celled, the cells opposite the sepals; style filiform, 

 elongated, terminated by an acute undivided stigmatic point; ovules numerous in 

 each cell, horizontal. Fruit an ovate acuminate 4 or 5-valved loculicidally dehiscent 

 capsule densely coated with long matted hairs, the inner surface of the cells vil- 

 lose-pubescent. Seeds oval; seed-coat crustaceous, puberulous, with a small fleshy 

 marginal deciduous ariloid appendage on the chalaza; embryo straight, in thick 

 fleshy albumen; cotyledons oblong, foliaceous, three or four times longer than the 

 short radicle. 



Fremontodendron, named in honor of John C. Frdmont, the distinguished soldier 

 and traveler, is represented by a single species. 



1. Fremontodendron Californicum, Gov. Slippery Elm. 



Leaves usually 3-lobed, rarely entire or sometimes 5-7-lobed, 1^' in diameter; 

 their petioles stout, ^'-f long. Flov/ers appearing in July in great profusion on 

 short spur-like lateral branchlets. Fruit I'long; seeds very dark red-brown, about 

 iV long. 



A tree, 20-30 high, with a short trunk 12'-14' in diameter, stout rigid branches 

 spreading almost at right angles, and stout terete branchlets thickly coated at first 

 with rufous pubescence, becoming glabrous and light red-brown; more often a low 

 intricately branched shrub. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ^ thick, deeply 

 furrowed, the dark red-brown surface broken into numerous short thick scales. 

 Wood hard, heavy, close-grained, dark brown tinged with red, with thick lighter 

 colored sapwood. The mucilaginous inner bark is sometimes used domestically in 

 poultices. 



Distribution. Lower slopes of the California mountains; western base of Mt. 

 Shasta to Lower California; nowhere common west of the Sierra Nevada, but of its 

 largest size on their western foothills; most abundant east of the Sierra Nevada in 



