JUGLANDACE^ 



127 



unequal rounded base, glandular and sticky as they unfold, at maturity thin, yellow- 

 green and rugose above, pale and soft-pubescent below, turning yellow or brown and 

 falling early in the autumn. Flowers : staminate in thick aments 3'-5' long, calyx 

 usually 6-lobed, light yellow-green, puberulous on the lower surface, ^'long, their 



bracts rusty-pubescent, acute at the apex; stamens 8-12, with nearly sessile dark 

 brown anthers and slightly lobed connectives; pistillate in 6-8-flowered spikes, con- 

 stricted above the middle, about ^' long, their bracts and bractlets coated with sticky 

 white or pink glandular hairs and rather shorter than the linear-lanceolate calyx- 

 lobes; stigmas bright red, ^' long. Fruit in 3-5-fruited drooping clusters, cylindri- 

 cal, obscurely 2 or rarely 4-ridged, ovate-oblong, coated with rusty clamm}^ matted 

 hairs, li'-2y long; nut ovate, abruptly contracted and acuminate at the apex, with 4 

 prominent and 4 narrow less conspicuous ribs, light brown, deeply sculptured between 

 the ridges into thin broad irregular longitudinal plates, 2-celled at the base and 

 1-celled above the middle, with a narrow pointed apical cavity; seed sweet, very 

 oily, soon becoming rancid. 



A tree, occasionally 100 high, with a tall straight trunk 2-3 in diameter, and 

 sometimes free of branches for half its height; more frequently divided 20 or 30 

 above the ground into many stout limbs spreading horizontally and forming a broad 

 low symmetrical round-topped head, and dark orange-brown or bright green rather 

 lustrous branchlets coated at first with rufous pubescence, covered more or less thickly 

 with pale lenticels, gradually becoming puberulous, brown tinged with red or orange 

 in their second year and marked by light gray leaf-scars with large black fibro-vas- 

 cular bundle-scars and elevated bands of pale tomentum separating them from the 

 lowest axillary buds. Winter-buds : terminal ^'-f long, V wide, flattened and 

 obliquely truncate at the apex, their outer scales coated with short pale pubescence; 

 axillary ovate, flattened, rounded at the apex, 1' long, covered with rusty brown or 

 pale pubescence. Bark of young stems and of the branches smooth and light gray, 

 becoming on old trees f'-l' thick, light brown, deeply divided into broad ridges 

 separating on the surface into small appressed plate-like scales, that of young trunks 

 and branches smooth and light gray. Wood light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, 

 light brown, turning darker with exposure, with thin light-colored sapwood com- 

 posed of 5 or 6 layers of annual growth ; largely employed in the interior finish of 



