TERNSTRCEMIACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMEPdCA. 



41 



GORDONIA LASIANTHUS. 



Bay. Loblolly Bay. 



Flowers on long slender peduncles ; tube of the filaments short, 5-lobed, adnatc to 

 the base of the petals. Capsules ovoid ; seeds winged. Leaves evergreen. 



Gordonia Lasianthus, Ellis, FUl. Trans. Ix. 518, t. 11 ; 

 Letters, t. 2. — LiniiEeus, Maiit. 570. — L'Herltier, Sthy. 

 J<fov. 156. — Cavanllles, Diss. ii. 307, t. 161. — Walter, 

 Fl. Car. 111. — Bartram, Trav. 161. — Lamarck, Diet. 

 ii. 770; III. iii. 146, t. 594, f. 1. — Swartz, Obs. 111.— 

 Willdenow, Spec. iii. 840. — Michaux, Fl. Dor.-Am. ii. 



42. Sot. Mag. t. 668. — Nouveau Duhamel, ii. 236, t. 



68. — Desfontaines, Hist. Arh. i. 484. — Michaux £ Hist. 

 Arh. Am. iii. 131, t. 1. — Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i. 451. — 

 Nuttall, Gen. il. 84. — De Candolle, Proc/r. i. 528. — Elli- 

 ott, >S/A;. ii. 171. —Don, Gen. Syst. i. 573, f. 99. — Audu- 

 bon, Birds, t. 168. — Reiclienbach, Fl. Exot. t. 151.— 



Spach, Hist. Veg. iv. 79. — Loudon, Arh. Brit. i. 379, f. 

 93. — Torrey & Gray, i^;. N.Am. i. 223. — Gray, Gen. 

 III. ii. 102, t. 140, 141. — Choisy,il/'em. Temst. et Camel. 

 51. — Payer, Organ. Compt. 533, 1. 149, f. 1-23. — Chap- 

 man, Fl. 60. — Curtis, Geolog. Surv. N. Car. 1860, iii. 

 80. — Baillon, Hist. Fl. iv. 230, f. 254, 255 ; Diet. ii. 725, 

 f. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. lOtk Census U. S. ix. 

 25. — Watson & Coulter, Gray's Man. ed. 6, 96. 



Hypericum Lasianthus, Linngeus, Spec. 783. — Hill, Veg. 

 Syst. XV. t. 1, f. 3. 



G. pyramidalis, Salisbury, Prodr. 386. 



A tree, sixty to seventy-five feet in height, with a tall straight trunk eighteen or twenty inches in 

 diameter, and branches which generally grow upright at first, and then spread into a rather narrow com- 

 pact head; or rarely a low shrub. The bark of the trunk of full-grown individuals is nearly an inch 

 thick and deeply divided into regular parallel rounded ridges, their dark red-brown scaly surface broken 

 into many regular shallow furrows. The bark of the stout branchlets, marked during several years with 

 lar-e circular leaf-scars, is dark brown and rugose, becoming furrowed during the second or third 

 season. The winter-buds are narrowly acuminate and covered with pale silky hairs. The leaves are 

 coriaceous, lanceolate-oblong, pointed and narrowed gradually at the base into stout channeled petioles, 

 minutely crenately-toothed usuahy above the middle only, dark green, smooth and shmmg. The flow- 

 ers, which begin to expand in July and continue to open successively during several weeks, are borne 

 on slender peduncles two and a half to three inches long. The subfloral bracts, of which there are 

 usually three or four, are ovate, minute and caducous. The sepals are ovate and a tlurd to half an 

 inch long by as much broad, fringed on the margins with short white hairs and covered ou the outer 

 surface with a dense velvet-like pubescence. The petals are rounded at the extremity, gradually and 

 regularly contracted to the base, and silky puherulent on the back. They are white an inch and a 

 quarter to an inch and a half long and an inch broad. The stamlnal cup is fleshy, deep y five-lobed, 

 and pubescent on the inner surface. The anthers are yellow. The ovary is pubescen , ovate, and grad- 

 ually contracted into the stout style which equals the stamens in length. The seeds are ±lat neai :^ 

 square, slightly concave on the inner and rounded on the outer sur^face with a black rugose oiM 

 dotted with small pale brown excrescences. They are nearly one sixteenth of an inch ong and liaK 1 e 

 length of the thin membranaceous oblong or obhque .-ing, which is pointed or rounded at «- exti n ty 

 and pale brown. The embryo fiUs the cavity of the seed, and is nearly straight. The cotyledons are 

 oval, subcordate, foliaceous; the short radicle centripetal superior. , , , . l r ,lf „„,,t^ 



GordonAa Lasiantlms is confined to the region adjacent to the south Atl-^i-ud Gul^ <^ 

 The most northern point where it is found growing naturaUy is in the southenr part of ''^^^^^^'^^^^^ 

 it extends south to Cape Malabar and Cape Eomano in Florida, and westward to the valley of the ft1.s 

 sissippl River. It is most common in Georgia and' east Florida, much less common m west Florida 

 Alabama, and rare towards the western limits of its range. 



