ULMACEiE 295 



with stout yellow midribs^ prominent straight veins connected by conspicuous more 

 or less reticulate cross veinlets, usually turning bright yellow late in the autumn; 

 their petioles stout, tomentose, \'-^' in length; stipules ^' long, linear-lanceolate, 

 red and scarious above, clasping the stem by their green and hairy bases, deciduous 

 when the leaves are about half grown. Flowers usually opening in August and 

 sometimes also in October, on slender pedicels ^'-^' long, covered with white hairs, 

 in 3-5-flowered pedunculate fascicles; calyx divided to below the middle into oblong 

 narrow-pointed lobes hairy at the base; ovary hirsute, crowned with two short 

 slightly exserted stigmas. Fruit ripening in September and rarely also in Novem- 

 ber, oblong, gradually and often irregularly narrowed from the middle to the ends, 

 short-stalked, deeply notched at the apex, ^' to nearly ^' long, covered with soft white 

 hairs, most abundant on the slightly thickened margin of the broad obscure wing; 

 seed oblique, pointed, and covered by a dark chestnut-brown coat. 



A tree, often 80 high, with a tall straight trunk 2-3 in diameter, sometimes 

 free of branches for 30 or 40, divided into numerous stout spreading limbs form- 

 ing a broad inversely conical round-topped head of long pendulous branches, or while 

 young or on dry uplands a compact round head of drooping branches, and slender 

 branchlets, when they first appear tinged with red and coated with soft pale pubes- 

 cence, becoming light reddish brown, puberulous and marked by scattered minute 

 lenticels and by small elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 small 

 fibro-vascular bundles, and furnished with 2 corky wings covered with lustrous brown 

 bark, ^' broad and continuous except when abruptly interrupted by lateral branch- 

 lets or often irregularly developed. Winter-buds broadly ovate, acute, ^' long, 

 with closely imbricated chestnut-brown scales slightly puberulous on the outer sur- 

 face, those of the inner ranks at maturity oblong, concave, rounded at the apex, thin, 

 bright red, sometimes ^' long. Bark sometimes nearly 1' thick, light brown slightly 

 tinged with red and deeply divided by interrupted fissures into broad flat ridges 

 broken on the surface into thick scales. "Wood heavy, hard, strong, brittle, light 

 brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sap wood; in central Texas used in 

 the manufacture of the hubs of wheels, for furniture, and largely for fencing. 



Distribution. Valley of the Sunflower River, Mississippi, through southern 

 Arkansas and Texas to Nuevo Leon, ranging in western Texas from the coast to the 

 valley of the Pecos River; in Arkansas usually on river cliffs and low hillsides, and 

 in Texas near streams in deep alluvial soil and on dry limestone hills; the common 

 Elm-tree of Texas and of its largest size on the bottom-lands of the Guadalupe 

 and Trinity rivers. 



Occasionally planted as a shade-tree in the streets of the cities and towns of Texas. 



6. Ulmus serotina, Sarg. Red Elm. 



Leaves oblong to oblong-obovate, acuminate, very oblique at the base, coarsely 

 and doubly crenulate-serrate; when they unfold coated below with shining white 

 hairs and puberulous above, at maturity thin and firm in texture, yellow-green, 

 glabrous and lustrous on the upper surface, pale and puberulous on the midribs and 

 principal veins on the lower surface, 2'-4' long, I'-lf wide, with prominent yellow 

 midribs, about 20 pairs of primary veins extending obliquely to the points of the 

 teeth and often forked near the margins of the leaf, and numerous reticulate vein- 

 lets, turning clear orange-yellow in the autumn; their petioles stout, about ^' long; 

 stipules abruptly narrowed from broad clasping bases, linear-lanceolate, usually 

 about \' long, persistent until the leaves are nearly fully grown. Flowers opening in 



