﻿368 The New York State College of Forestry 



4 or none; stamens 4—8 or indefinite, -with 2-celled introrse anthers; pistil 

 consisting of a 2-celled ovarv inserted in the bottom of the receptacle; crowned 

 vdth 2 subulate styles stigmatie on the inner face. Fruit a woody, 2-beaked 

 capsule, dehiscent at the summit; seeds 1 or several, albuminous, with straight 

 embryo. 



THE SWEET GUM. Genus LIQUIDAMBAR L. 

 Large timber trees with balsamic juices, scaly bark, terete and 

 often winged pithy branchlets, star-shaped leaves and fibrous roots. 

 Four species are included in the genus, one of which is indigenous 

 to the United States. 



Leaves alternate, deciduous, simple, nearly orbicular, serrate, deeply 5-7 

 palmately-lobed, borne on long petioles ; stipules lanceolate, caducous. Flowers 

 monoecious (or rarely perfect), the staminate in terminal, racemose, subglobose, 

 capitate clusters each subtended by 4 caducous bracts, the pistillate in solitary 

 long-stalked globular heads from the axils of the upper leaves; stamens 

 numerous, interspersed with minute scales, with oblong anthers and filiform 

 filaments; pistillate flowers surrounded by long-awned scales; calyx obconic, 

 short-Hmbed, bearing 4 stamens or staminodia at the summit; pistil con- 

 sisting of a partly inferior ovary tenniuated by two elongated, subulate, 

 recurving styles. Fruit a globose, spiny, Avoody head consisting of many 

 united capsules, each tipped vdth the 2 hardened, incurved, beak-like, elongated 

 styles and dehiscing by two valves at the summit; seeds 1-2, compressed, 

 angulate, winged; sterile seeds numerous, much smaller, resembling sawdust. 



PLANE-TREE FAMILY. PLATANACEAE 



A monogeneric family consisting of trees with watery juice, 

 zigzag branches, subpetiolar buds, alternate stipulate leaves, and 

 bark which exfoliates in large irregular scales from the trunk and 

 larger branches. The sole genus consists of six or seven species 

 confined to North and Central America, eastern Europe, and 

 southwestern Asia. Three species are found in the United States, 

 one widely distributed in the eastern states, a second on the Pacific 

 Coast, and a third in the southwest. Platanus orientalis L. from 

 the Old World, is widely grown in the United States as a street 

 and shade tree. 



Leaves alternate, simple, broadly ovate, cordate, cimeate, or tnincate at 

 the base, palmately 3-7-lobed and veined, the lobes entire, dentate, or coarsely 

 sinuate-toothed; petioles long, abruptly enlarged and enclosing the buds at 

 the base; stipules large, foliaceous and sheathing the branchlet on sterile 

 shoots, thin, searious and caducous on flowering shoots; when yotmg the 

 branchlets, leaf-blades, petioles and stipules are covered with stellate hairs. 

 Flowers monoecious, minute, appearing witli the unfolding of the leaves in 

 unisexual, pedunculate, globose heads; staminate head dark red, axillary; 

 sepals 3-0, scale-like, slightly united at the base: petals 3-6. cuneiform, 

 about twice as long as the sepals; stamens 3-6, opposite the sepals, with 



