754 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



18-20 layers of annual growth. The leaves are sweet to the taste and are devoured 

 in the autumn by cattle and horses, and, like the bark, yield a yellow dye occasion- 

 ally used domestically. The bitter aromatic roots have been used as a tonic. 



Distribution. Moist rich soil, often in the shade of dense forests; peninsula of 

 Delaware to northern Florida and from the coast to elevations of nearly 3000 on 

 the Blue Ridge, and to eastern Texas and southern Arkansas; in the Gulf states 

 usually along the borders of Cypress swamps. 



LV. STYRACE^. 



Trees or shrubs, with more or less stellate or scurfy pubescence, watery 

 juice, and scaly buds. Leaves alternate, simple, penniveined, without stipules. 

 Flowers regular, perfect ; calyx more or less adnate to the ovary ; stamens in 

 one series mostly adnate to the tube of the corolla ; disk ; anthers introrse, 

 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally ; ovary crowned with a simple style ; 

 ovules anatropous. Fruit drupaceous, with thin dry flesh, and a thick-walled 

 1-seeded bony stone. Seed with albumen. 



The Storax family with seven genera and few species is confined to North 

 and South America, the Mediterranean region, eastern Asia and the Malay 

 Archipelago. Of the two North American genera Mohrodendron is arborescent. 

 Storax and benzoin, aromatic resinous balsams, are obtained from Sty rax offi- 

 cinale, L., of southern Europe and Asia Minor, and from Styrax Benzoin, DC, 

 of the Molucca Islands. 



1. MOHRODENDRON, Britt. 



Trees or shrubs, with slender terete pithy branchlets without terminal buds, axil- 

 lary buds with imbricated accrescent scales, and fibrous roots. Leaves involute in the 

 bud, membranaceous, ovate-oblong, acute, denticulate, deciduous. Flowers on slen- 

 der elongated drooping pubescent ebracteolate pedicels from the axils of foliaceous 

 obovate or acute caducous bracts, in fascicles or short racemes from the axils of 

 leaves of the previous year; calyx-tube obconical or obpyramidal, 4-ribbed, coated 

 w^ith thick pale tomentum, the limb short, 4-toothed, with minute triangular teeth, 

 open in the bud; corolla epigynous, campanulate, 4-lobed, or divided nearly to the 

 base, the lobes convolute or imbricated in the bud, thin and white; stamens 8-16; 

 filaments elongated, shorter than the corolla, slightly attached to the base, or some- 

 times free, flattened below; anthers oblong, adnate or free at the very base; ovary 

 2 or 4-celled, gradually contracted into an elongate glabrous or tomentose style stig- 

 matic at the apex; ovules 4 in each cell, attached by elongated funiculi at the middle 

 of the axis, the 2 upper ascending, the 2 lower pendulous; raphe dorsal; micropyle 

 inferior and superior. Fruit elongated, obovate, gradually narrowed at the base, 

 crowned with the calyx-limb and the thickened persistent style; skin tough, separable, 

 light green and lustrous, turning reddish brown late in the autumn; exocarp thick, 

 becoming dry and corky at maturity, produced into 2 or 4 broad thin wings, wedge- 

 shaped at the base and rounded at the apex; stone thick and bony, obovate, gradually 

 narrowed at the base into an elongated slender stipe inclosed in the wings, tipped 

 with the bony remnants of the style, usually irregularly 8-angled or sulcate, 1-4- 

 celled. Seed solitary in each cell, elongated, cylindrical; seed-coat thin, light brown, 

 lustrous, adherent to the walls of the stone, the delicate inner coat attached to the 

 copious fleshy albumen; embryo terete, axile, erect; cotyledons oblong, as long as 

 the elongated radicle turned toward the minute hilura. 



