358 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



blunt and rounded, abruptly short-pointed or acuminate at the apex, pubescent below 

 as they unfold, at maturity glabrous, dark bluish green on the upper surface and pale 



on the lower surface. Flowers ^ i" diameter, in rather narrower clusters, appear- 

 ing eight to ten days later than those of the type. Fruit subglobose, bright scarlet, 

 often ^' in diameter. 



A tree, occasionally 30 high, with a trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, and 

 spreading branches forming a round-topped handsome head. 



Distribution. Coast of Labrador to the northern shores of Lake Superior and 

 Minnesota, southward to the mountains of northern New Hampshire, Vermont, and 

 New York. Distinct in its extreme forms but apparently connected with Sorbus 

 Americana by many intermediate forms. 



Often cultivated in Canada and the northeastern states as an ornamental tree, 

 especially the var. decora, which is the most beautiful of the Mountain Ashes when 

 the large and brilliant fruits cover the branches in autumn and early winter. 



5. HETEROMELES, Roem. 



A tree, with smooth pale aromatic bark, stout terete branchlets pubescent or 

 puberulous while young, acute winter-buds covered by loosely imbricated red scales, 

 and fibrous roots. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute at the ends, sharply and remotely 

 serrate, with rigid glandular teeth, or rarely almost entire, dark green and lustrous 

 above, paler below, petiolate, with stout petioles often furnished near the apex with 

 1 or 2 slender glandular teeth, feather-veined, with broad midribs and conspicuous 

 reticulate veinlets; stipules free from the petioles, subulate, I'igid, minute, early de- 

 ciduous. Flowers on short stout pedicels, in ample tomentose terminal corymbose 

 leafy panicles, their bracts and bractlets acute, minute, usually tipped with small 

 glands, caducous; calyx-tube turbinate, tomentose below, glabrate above, the lobes 

 short, nearly triangular, spreading, persistent; disk cup-shaped, obscurely sulcate; 

 petals flabellate, erose-denticulate or emarginate at the apex, contracted below into 

 short broad claws, thick, glabrous, pure white; stamens 10, inserted in 1 row with 

 the petals in pairs opposite the calyx-lobes; filaments subulate, incurved; anthers 

 oblong-ovate, emarginate, carpels 2, adnate to the calyx-tube, and slightly united 

 into a subglobose tomentose nearly superior ovary; styles distinct, slightly spreading. 



