LYTHRACEAE. 249 
LAGERSTROEMIA. Crape Myrtle. 
(Family Lythraceae). 
Small trees or large shrubs with 
flaking bark: deciduous. Twigs 
rather slender, angled: pith small, 
roundish, at length spongy. Buds 
moderately small, solitary, sessile, 
oblong, somewhat elbowed above 
the base, closely appressed, with 
2 acute ciliate scales. Leaf-scars 
4-ranked, separated, or approxi- 
mated in pairs, or opposite, nearly 
round, slightly raised and decur- 
rent from the sides but concave: 
bundle-trace 1, composite, crescent- 
shaped, sunken: stipule-scars lack- 
ing or glandular. 
Winter-characters of Lager- 
stroemia indica are figured by 
Shirasawa, 244, pl. 4. 
Like the oleander, the crape 
myrtle is very popular in the 
south, where it thrives, and it is 
rather frequently grown as a tubbed plant north of this,— 
say a line reaching from Washington to Cairo, Illinois. 
Twigs glabrous, 4-winged. L. indica, 
