CORNACE^ 



715 



scarlet before falling; their petioles stout, grooved, pubescent, ^'-|' long, with large 

 clasping base?. Flowers : head of flower-buds appearing during the summer be- 

 tween the upper pair of lateral leaf-buds, surrounded at the base but not inclosed 

 by the involucral scales during the winter, hemispherical, ^' in diameter, usually 

 nodding on a stout hairy peduncle f'-l' long; involucral scales becoming when the 

 flowers open 1^-3' long, and l|^'-2' wide, white or white tinged with pink, narrowly 

 oblong to obovate or sometimes nearly orbicular, acute, acuminate, or obtuse and en- 

 tire and thickened at the apex, puberulous on the outer surface, gradually narrowed 



below the middle and conspicuously 8-ribbed, the spreading ribs united by reticulate 

 veinlets; flowers in dense cymose heads from the axils of minute acuminate scarious 

 deciduous bracts; calyx terete, slightly urceolate, puberulous on the outer surface, 

 yellow-green, or light purple, with dark red-purple lobes; petals strap-shaped, 

 rounded at the apex, spreading, somewhat puberulous on the outer surface, with 

 thickened slightly inflexed margins, yellow-green; style crowned with a truncate 

 stigma. Fruit ripening in October, in dense spherical heads of 30-40 drupes sur- 

 i rounded at the base by a ring of abortive pendulous ovaries, ^' long, ovoid, much 

 flattened, crowned with the broad persistent calyx, bright red or orange-colored, with 

 thin mealy flesh, and a thick-walled 1 or 2-seeded stone obtuse at the ends and 

 scarcely grooved ; seeds oblong, compressed, with a very thin pale papery coato 



A tree, 40-60, or exceptionally 100 high, with a trunk l-2 in diameter, small 

 spreading branches forming an oblong conical or ultimately round-topped head, and 

 slender light green branchlets coated while young with pale hairs, becoming gla- 

 brous or puberulous, dark reddish purple or sometimes green in their first winter 

 and conspicuously marked by the elevated lunate leaf-scars, ultimately becoming 

 light brown or brown tinged with red. Winter-buds formed in July; the terminal 

 acute, y long, covered by 2 narrowly ovate acute long-pointed puberulous light 

 green opposite scales accompanied by 2 pairs of lateral buds, each covered by a 

 single scale, those of the lower pair shedding their scales in the autumn and remain- 

 ing undeveloped, those of the upper pair clothed with pale hairs, especially toward 

 the apex, their scales thickening, turn dark purple, lengthening in the spring with 

 the inclosed shoots, finally becoming scarious and developing into small leaves, and 

 in falling marking the base of the branchlets with ring-like scars. Bark of the 

 trunk about \' thick, brown tinged with red, and divided on the surface into small 



