292 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



brous or nearly so on the upper surface, at maturity thick and firm or subcoriaceous, 

 dark gi*een and smooth above, pale and soft-pubescent below, especially on the stout 

 yellow midribs and numerous straight prominent veins often forked near the mar- 

 gins of the leaf and connected by rather conspicuous reticulate veinlets, turning dull 

 yellow color in the autumn; their petioles stout, pubescent, ^' long ; stipules linear- 

 obovate, thin and scarious, tinged with red above the middle, often nearly V long. 



Flowers on drooping pedicels, in short few-flowered fascicles ; calyx glabrous and 

 divided nearly to the middle into 5 broad ovate rounded lobes as long as the hoary- 

 tomentose ovary raised on a short slender stipe. Fruit ripening before oi* with the 

 unfolding of the leaves, oblong, ^' in length, contracted at the base into a long 

 slender stalk, gradually narrowed and tipped at the apex with long incurved awns, 

 covered with long white hairs most numerous on the thickened margin of the nar- 

 row wing ; seed ovate, pointed, ^' long, pale chestnut-brown, slightly thickened 

 into a narrow wing-like margin. 



A tree, 40-50 high, with a trunk rarely 2 in diameter, short stout straight or 

 erect branches forming a narrow oblong rather open round-topped head, and slender 

 branchlets glabrous or puberulous and light green tinged with red when they first 

 appear, becoming light reddish brown or ashy gray and glabrous, or on vigorous 

 individuals frequently pilose in their first winter, marked by occasional small orange- 

 colored lenticels and by small elevated horizontal semiorbicular leaf-scars, some- 

 times naked, more often furnished with usually 2 thin corky wings beginning to 

 grow during the first or more often during their second season, abruptly arrested at 

 the nodes, often ^ wide, and persistent for many years. "Winter-buds slender, 

 acute, 1' long, dark chestnut-brown, with glabrous or puberulous scales, those of 

 the inner ranks becoming oblong or obovate, rounded and tipped at the apex with 

 minute tips, thin and scarious, light red, especially above the middle, and ^' long. 

 Bark rarely exceeding \' in thickness, light brown tinged with red, and divided by 

 irregular shallow fissures into flat ridges covered by small closely appressed scales. 

 Wood heavy, hard, not strong, close-grained, difficult to split, light brown, with 

 thick lighter colored sapwood; sometimes employed for the hubs of wheels and the 

 handles of tools; rope used for fastening the covers of cotton bales is sometimes 

 made from the inner bark. 



