ERICACE^ 



727 



year, openiug from February until April when the leaves are fully grown, on slender 

 recurved pedicels much shorter than the leaves, in crowded axillary short-stemmed 



f^J^- 



or sessile ferrugineous-lepidote fascicles, with minute acute deciduous bracts and 

 bractlets; calyx o-lobed, with acute lobes, covered on the outer surface with ferru- 

 gineous scales, and about one third as long as the white pubescent corolla, with short 

 reflexed acute teeth slightly thickened and ciliate on the margins; filaments short- 

 ened by a conspicuous geniculate fold in the middle; ovary coated with thick white 

 tomentum; style stout, as long or a little longer than the corolla. Fruit on a stout 

 erect stem, oblong, 5-angled, i' long; seed pale brown. 



A tree, occasionally 20-30 high, with a slender crooked or often prostrate trunk 

 sometimes 10' in diameter, thin rigid divergent branches forming a tall oblong irregu- 

 lar head, and slender branchlets coated when they first appear with minute ferru- 

 gineous scales and covered in their second year with glabrous or pubescent light or 

 dark red-brown bark smooth or exfoliating in small thin scales; often a shrub, some- 

 times only 2-3 tall. Bark of the trunk ^'-\' thick, divided into long narrow 

 ridges by shallow longitudinal furrows, reddish brown and separating into short 

 thick scales. Winter-buds minute, acute, and covered with ferrugineous scales. 

 Wood heavy, hard, close-grained although not strong, light brown tinged with red, 

 with thick lighter colored sapwood. 



Distribution. Coast region of South Carolina to the shores of Bay Biscayne and 

 the neighborhood of Appalachicola, Florida; in the United States arborescent in the 

 rich soil of the woody hummocks rising from the sandy Pine-covered coast plain, and 

 as a low shrub in the dry sandy sterile soil of Pine barrens; also in the West Indies 

 and Mexico. 



6. ARBUTUS, L. 



Trees or shrubs, with astringent bark exfoliating from young stems in large thin 

 scales, smooth terete red branches, and thick hard roots. Leaves petiolate, entire or 

 dentate, obscurely penniveined, persistent. Flowers on clavate pedicels bibracteolate 

 at the base from the axils of ovate bracts, in simple terminal compound racemes 

 or panicles, with scarious scaly persistent bracts and bractlets; calyx free from the 

 ovary, 5-parted nearly to the base, the divisions imbricated in the bud, ovate, acute. 



