ROSACEZ. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 61 
CERCOCARPUS. 
FLowers perfect; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in estivation; petals 0; 
stamens 15 to 30; carpel 1 or rarely 2. Fruit a linear-oblong akene tipped with the 
accrescent persistent plumose style. Leaves alternate, simple, persistent. 
Cercocarpus, Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et 1245. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 618. — Baillon, Hist. 
Spec. vi. 232. — Meisner, Gen. 105.— Endlicher, Ger. Pi. i. 468. 
Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, rigid terete branches, short lateral spur-like branchlets, and hard 
heavy dark-colored wood. Buds minute, the scales of the inner rows accrescent on the growing shoots, 
often colored. Leaves alternate, simple, entire or serrate, coriaceous, straight-veined, short-petiolate, 
persistent ; stipules minute, adnate to the base of the petiole, deciduous. Flowers sessile or short- 
pedicellate, solitary or fascicled, axillary or terminal. Calyx-tube cylindrical, long and pedicelliform, 
abruptly expanded at the apex into a cup-shaped five-lobed deciduous limb. Disk thin, slightly glandu- 
lar, adnate to the tube of the calyx. Stamens inserted in two or three rows on the limb of the calyx, 
those of the outer row parasepalous and alternate with those of the inner rows; filaments incurved in 
the bud, free, short, terete; anthers oblong, usually pubescent, attached on the back, introrse, two- 
celled, the cells opening longitudinally, distinct, united by a broad connective. Ovary composed of a 
single carpel, inserted in the bottom and included in the tube of the calyx, acute, terete, smooth, striate 
or suleate, sericeous ; or rarely bicarpellate ; style terminal, filiform, villose, or glabrate, crowned with a 
minute obtuse stigma; ovules solitary, subbasilar, ascending, anatropous; raphe dorsal, the micropyle 
inferior. Akene linear-oblong, coriaceous, slightly ridged, angled, or sulcate, included in the persistent 
tube of the calyx and surmounted by the long persistent plumose style, which in enlarging and length- 
ening raises the limb of the calyx now separated near the apex of the tube by a circumscissile line. 
Seeds solitary, linear-acute, erect, exalbuminous, the conspicuous hilum lateral above the oblique base ; 
testa membranaceous. Embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons ovate-oblong, elongated, 
fleshy ; radicle inferior. 
Cercocarpus is confined to the dry interior and mountainous regions of North America. Three 
species can be distinguished. The type of the genus, Cercocarpus fothergilloides,' inhabits the moun- 
tains of southern Mexico; the others are small shrubby trees of the central and western parts of the 
United States and of northern Mexico. The wood of all the species makes valuable fuel, and is 
occasionally used in the manufacture of many small objects for domestic and industrial use. 
The generic name, from xépxog and xapzdc, refers to the peculiar long-tailed fruit. 
1 Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et Spec. vi. 233, t. 589.— Baillon, Hist. Pl. i. 381, f. 436, 437. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. 
559.— Kunth, Syn. Pl. Ziquin. iii. 475.— De Candolle, Prodr. ii. Am. Cent. i. 373. — Engler & Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iii. 39, £. 17. 
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 
Leaves narrowly linear, entire . . . meet dct ish pip a a ene rial ad COL inh TROT TUES 
Leaves cuneate-obovate, coarsely Beer ee Aes the middle. . «2.1.7... 2. ©. PARvimonius, 
