JUGLANDACE^ 135 



trunk 3 in diameter, and ascending branches, or on the borders of prairies in low- 

 wet woods usually lo-25 tall, with a short trunk 8'-10' in diameter, small 

 spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head; and slender branchlets 

 coated at first with thick hoary tomentum sometimes persistent until the autumn, 

 bright red-brown and marked by occasional large pale lenticels during their first 



winter and by the large concave obcordate leaf-scars nearly surrounding the lowest 

 axillary buds, becoming darker in their second season and dark or light gray-brown 

 in their third year. Winter-buds covered with light yellow articulate hairs, ter- 

 minal oblong, acute or acuminate, somewhat compressed, about Y lor^g? ^^^d rather 

 longer than the upper lateral bud. Bark ^'-f thick, light reddish brown, and rough- 

 ened by closely appressed variously shaped plate-like scales. Wood close-grained, 

 tough and strong, light red-brown, with pale brown sapwood. 



Distribution. Bottom-lands and low wet woods of eastern Texas for a distance 

 of 100 to 150 miles from the coast. 



3. Hicoria minima, Britt. Bitternut. Swamp Hickory. 



Leaves 6'-10' long, with slender pubescent or hirsute petioles, and 5-9 lanceolate 

 to oblong or ovate-lanceolate or obovate long-pointed sessile leaflets coarsely serrate 

 except at the equally or unequally wedge-shaped or subcordate base, thin and firm, 

 dark yellow-green and glabrous above, lighter and pubescent below, especially along 

 the midribs, 4'-6' long, |'-1^' wide. Flowers: staminate in slightly pubescent aments 

 3'-4' long, with a slender peduncle often 1' in length, usually on branches of the 

 previous year or rarely from the base of shoots of the year; calyx coated with 

 rufous hairs like its ovate acute bract; stamens 4, with ovate yellow anthers deeply 

 emarginate at the apex; pistillate ^' long, slightly 4-angled, covered with yellow 

 scurfy tomentum. Fruit f -1^' long, obovate to subglobose, 4-winged from the apex 

 to about the middle, with a thin husk, more or less thickly coated with yellow scurfy 

 pubescence; nut ovate or oblong, often broader than long, compressed and marked 

 at the base with dark lines along the sutures and alternate with them, depressed 

 or obcordate, and abruptly contracted into a long or short point at the apex, gray 

 tinged with red or light reddish brown, with a thin brittle shell; seed bright reddish 

 brown, very bitter, much compressed, deeply rugose, with irregular cross-folds. 



