568 



TKEES OF NORTH AMERICA 



compressed, the upper margin slightly thickened, tipped with the remnants of the 

 persistent style, 4-G-seeded, ultimately dehiscent, the valves thin and membranaceous. 

 Seeds oblong-compressed, attached by slender fuuicles; without albumen; seed-coat 

 thin, membranaceous, dark brown; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons 

 fleshy, oblong, Hat; radicle short, inflexed. 



The genus consists of a single species of the southern United States. 



Cladrastis, from Aa8os and dpav<T'r6s, relates to the brittleness of the branches. 



1. Cladrastis lutea, K. Koch. Yellow Wood. Virgilia. 

 Leaves 8'-12' in length, with leaflets 3'^' long and l|'-2' wide, the terminal one 

 rather shorter than the others and 3'-3i' wide, turning bright clear yellow rather 

 late in the autumn some time before falling. Flowers appearing about the middle 



of June, slightly fragrant, in panicles 12'-14' long and 5'-6' wide. Fruit fully 

 grown by the middle of August, ripening in September and soon falling. 



A tree, sometimes 50-60 high, with a trunk l^-2 or exceptionally 4 in diam- 

 eter, usually divided 6-7 from the ground into 2 or 3 stems, slender wide- 

 spreading more or less pendulous brittle branches forming a wide graceful head, 

 and zigzag branchlets clothed with pubescence when they first appear, soon becom- 

 ing glabrous, during their first season light brown tinged more or less with green, 

 very smooth and lustrous, covered by numerous darker colored lenticels, brighf 

 red-brown in their first winter and marked by large elevated leaf-scars surrounding 

 the buds, and dark dull brown the following year. Bark of the trunk \'-\' thick, 

 with a silvery gray or light brown surface and rather darker colored than that of 

 the branches. Wood heavy, very hard, strong and close-grained, with a smooth 

 satiny surface, bright clear yellow changing to light brown on exposure, with thin 

 nearly white sap wood; used for fuel, occasionally for gun-stocks, and yielding a 

 clear yellow dye. 



Distribution. Limestone cliffs and ridges generally in rich soil, and often over- 

 hanging the banks of mountain streams; central Kentucky and central Tennessee 

 to northern Alabama, the western slopes of the high mountains of eastern Tennes- 

 see, and to Cherokee County, North Carolina; rare and local; most abundant and 

 of its largest size in the neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee. 



