THY MELAEACEAE. 245 
Dirca. Leatherwood. 
(Family Thymelaeaceae). 
Small rounded shrubs with soft 
wood but very tough bark: de- 
ciduous. Twigs terete, moderately 
slender, glabrous, light brown be- 
coming olive or darker, with con- 
spicuous small white lenticels, 
gradually enlarged upwards 
through the season’s growth: pith 
small, roundish, spongy. Buds 
small, solitary, sessile, short-coni- 
cal, with about 4 indistinct dark- 
silky scales, the end-bud lacking. 
Leaf-scars alternate, 2-ranked, 
nearly annular and almost en- 
circling the bud, elevated at the 
swollen nodes: bundle-traces ae 
indistinct: stipule-scars lacking 
Winter-characters of Dirca pal- 
ustris are given by Brendel, 27, 
pl. 3; and Schneider, f. 98. 
Though during the winter 
the bud-scales are small and closely covered by hairs, the 
structure of the bud becomes very evident during its unfold- 
ing period in the spring, when the scales elongate greatly. 
A developing bud is pictured in volume 7 of Nature Notes, 
pp. 171-2. 
The curious lace-bark tree of Jamaica, Lagetta, possesses 
the structural winter-characters of leatherwood, to which it is 
closely related. 
Twigs often forking, glossy. D. palustris. 
