170 JOURNAL OF THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM [vol. n 



From Missouri I have seen specimens with villose-pubcsccnt branch- 

 IcLs and large leaves rounded or cordate or elliptic and cuneate at base, 

 from Westporl, Jackson County, and Hannibal, Marion County; it is 

 a common form near Allenton, St. Louis County, and is abundant in the 

 soulhern counties; in Arkansas it extends as far south as the valley of the 

 Red River (Fulton, Hempstead County); it grows near Yazoo City, 

 Yazoo County, and at Rockport, Copley County, Mississippi, and ap- 

 pears to be tlie prevailing form in western Louisiana, where it grows on 

 hillsides and in deep swamps covered with water during several months 

 of every year; and it has been noticed in swamps in the neighborhood 

 of New Orleans. This form api)arently docs not extend into Texas. 

 Sp(^cimens with villose-pubescent branchlets have been collected in Florida 

 at Pahitka, Haines City, and at Sebring by T. G. Harbison, and near 

 Hastings by A. Rchder. I have only seen fully grown specimens of the 

 large flat early ripening fruit from Allenton, Missouri, Cotter, Arkansas, 

 and from a tree cultivated by Palmer at Webb City, Missouri, and am 

 therefore unable to say if the trees with villose-pubescent branchlets 

 and usually broad-ovate more or less pubescent leaves usually rounded 

 or cordate at base habitually or usually produce fruit of this character, 

 and further observations on the fruit of Diospyros virginiana, especially 

 in the region west of the Mississippi River, are needed. With the excep- 

 tion of the specimens from Mississippi, New Orleans and Florida to which 

 T have referred, a specimen of a young, vigorous, villose-pubescent branch 

 with large leaves rounded at base and pubescent on the midrib below 

 and on the petiole collected by C. E. Faxon at Virginia Beach, Virginia, and 

 a specimen collected near New Haven, Connecticut, the northern station 

 of this tree, with puberulous branchlets, all the specimens from the region 

 east of the Mississii)pi River which I have seen have glabrous branch- 

 lets and leaves, and fruit which is depressed-globose to obovoid-oblong, 

 usually not more than 2.5-3 cm. in diameter and, except perhaps in the 

 extreme south, hard and tastringent until after the action of frost. The 

 seeds of the eastern tree so far as I have been able to examine them are 

 only slightly unsymmetric, light chestnut brown and conspicuously rugose. 

 A black-fruited form of the var. plafycarpa may be distinguished as 



Diospyros virginiana var. platycarpa, f. atra, n. f. 



I have seen only the fruit of this tree, which was collected several years 

 ago three miles southwest of Norman, Cleveland County, central Okla- 

 homa, by Mr. Joseph Thornburn, of Oklahoma City. The fruit is rounded 

 above, about 3.1 cm. broad and nearly 2.5 cm. high; the seeds in size, 

 shape, dark color and lustre and in their only slightly rugose testa re- 

 semble those of the fruit of var. platycarpa from Cotter, Arkansas. Until 

 more is known of this tree it seems best to consider it a form of that vari- 

 ety, although in shape the fruit is more like that of one of the common 

 forms of Diospyros virginiana. Less distinct is 



Diospyros virginiana var. Mosieri, n. var. — Diospyros Mosieri 

 Small in Jour. N. Y. Bot. Gard. xxii. 33 (l9^l). 



