794 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



axils with clusters of dark hairs, turning black and falling after the first severe frost 

 in the autumn; their petioles stout, terete, 5'-G' in length. Flowers on slender 

 sparingly villose or glabrous pedicels, in compact many-flowered panicles 8'-10' 

 long and broad, with light green branches tinged with purple ; calyx ^' long, gla- 

 brous, green or light purple ; corolla white, nearly 2' long, 1^' wide, marked on the 



inner surface on the. lower side by 2 rows of yellow blotches following 2 parallel 

 ridges or folds, and in the throat and on the lower lobes of the limb by crowded con- 

 spicuous purple spots. Fruit ripening in the autumn, in thick-branched orange- 

 colored panicles, remaining unopened during the winter, 6'-20' long, and \'-^' thick 

 in the middle, with a thin wall bright chestnut-brown on the outer surface and light 

 olive-brown and lustrous on the inner surface, splitting in the spring into 2 flat 

 valves; seeds about V long, i' wide, silvery gray, with pointed wings terminating 

 in long pencil-shaped tufts of white hairs. 



A tree, rarely 60 high, with a short trunk 3-4 in diameter, long heavy brit- 

 tle branches forming a broad head, and dichotomous branchlets green shaded with 

 purple when they first appear, and during their first winter thickened at the nodes, 

 slightly puberulous, lustrous, light orange color or gray-brown, covered with a slight 

 glaucous bloom, marked by large pale scattered lenticels, and by large oval elevated 

 leaf-scars containing a circle of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars and persist- 

 ent until the third or fourth year, when the branches are reddish brown and marked 

 by a network of thin flat brown ridges. Winter-buds covered by chestnut-brown 

 broadly ovate rounded slightly puberulous loosely imbricated scales, those of the 

 inner ranks when fully grown bright green, pubescent, and sometimes 2' in length. 

 Bark of the trunk \'-^' thick, and light brown tinged with red, separating on the 

 surface into large thin irregular scales. Wood soft, not strong, coarse-grained, 

 very durable in contact with the soil, light brown, with lighter colored often nearly 

 white sap wood of 1 or 2 layers of annual growth; used and highly valued for fence- 

 posts and rails. 



Distribution. Usually supposed to be indigenous on the banks of the rivers of 

 southwestern Georgia, western Florida, and central Alabama and Mississippi, and 

 now widely naturalized through the south Atlantic states. 



Often planted for the decoration of parks and gardens in the eastern United 



