TERNSTKCEMlACEiE. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMEIUCA. 



45 



GORDONIA ALTAMAHA. 



Franklinia. 



Flowers, subsessile ; filaments distinct. Capsule globose, septieidally 5-valved from 

 the base to the middle ; seeds destitute of wings. Leaves membranaceous, deciduous. 



Gordonia Altaraaha, Sargent, Garden and Forest, ii. 

 616. 



Franklinia Altamaha, Marshall, Arhust. Am. 49. — Bar- 

 tram, Trav. 16, 467. — Rafinesque, Atlant. Jour. 79, f. 



G. pubescens, L'Heritier, Stirp. Nov, 156. — Lamarck, Diet. 

 ii. 770. — Cavanilles, Diss. ii. 308, 1. 162. — "WiUdenow, 

 Spec. lii. 841. — Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 42. — Ventenat, 

 Jard. Malm. 1. 1. — Nouveau Dulmmel^ ii. 237. — Des- 

 fontaines, Hist. Arh. i. 484. — Michaux f. Hist. Arh. Am. 

 iii. 135, t. 2. — Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. ii. 451. — Nuttall, 

 Gen. ii. 84. — Loiscleur, Herb. Amat. iv. t. 236. — Elliott, 

 Sk. ii. 171. — De Candolle, Prodr. i. 528. — Don, Gen. 

 S]/st. i. 573. — Audubon, Birds, t. 185. — Spach, Hist, 



Veg. iv. 80. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. i. 380, £. 94. — Torrey 

 & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 223. — Gray, Gen. 111. ii. 102, t. 

 141, f. 11-14, t. 142. — Choisy, Mem. Ternst. et Camel. 

 51. — Chapman, Fl. 60. — Goodale & Spraguo, Wild 

 Flowers, 193, t. 47. — Sargent, Forest Trees iV. Am. 10th 

 Census XJ. S. ix. 25. 

 G. Franklini, L'Hei-itier, Stirp. Nov. 156. — Willdenow, 

 Spec. iii. 841. — Nouveau Duhamel, ii. 237. — Desfon- 

 taines. Hist. Arb. i. 484. — Poiret, Lam. Diet. Suppl. ii. 

 816. 



Michauxia sessilis, Salisbury, Prodr. 386. 

 Lacathea florida, Salisbury, Farad. Lond. t. 56. — CoUa, 

 Hort. lllpul. Appx. i. 134. 



A tree or slirub, " fifteen or twenty feet high branching alternately," * "vvith stout slightly angled 

 branchlets covered with dark red-brown bark, dotted with minute pale wart-like excrescences and con- 

 spicuously marked with large prominent leal-scars. The scales of the stout acuminate winter-buds are 

 covered with a thick pale silky tomentum. The leaves are ob ovate-oblong, rounded or pointed at the 

 apex, and gradually and regularly narrowed at the base into a short grooved petiole ; they are sharply ser- 

 rate usually above the middle only, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, and pale on the lower, 

 and turn scarlet in the autumn before falling ; they are five or six inches long and two inches broad. 

 The flowers, which in Philadelphia begin to appear about the middle of September, continue to open 

 untU the buds are destroyed by frost. They are borne on short stout peduncles, at first pubescent, and 

 finally glabrous, produced from the axils of the upper leaves, and marked with the broad conspicuous 

 scars of the two minute lateral subfloral bracts, which are pubescent and early-deciduous. The sepals are 

 nearly circular, half an inch long, with ciliolate margins, and are covered on the outer surface with short 

 pale hairs. The white membranaceous petals, which before the expansion of the flower form a large 

 spherical bud, are obovate with more or less crenulate margins j they are an inch or an inch and a half 

 long by an inch broad, and are densely coated with fine pubescence on the outer surface. The anthers 

 are yellow. The ovary is conspicuously ridged, pubescent, truncate, and crowned with the slender decid- 

 uous style which nearly equals the stamens in length. The seeds, sis or eight, or by abortion fewer in 

 each cefl of the woody capsule, are closely packed together on the whole length of the thick axile pla- 

 centa ; they are nearly half an inch long and angled by mutual pressure. The embryo is not known.^ 



Gordonia Altamaha is not now known to grow anywhere naturally. It was discovered by John 

 Bartram in 1765, during one of his journeys through the southern states, near Fort Barrington on the 

 Altamaha River in Georgia, occupying with PincJcneya pubens an area of two or three acres. William 

 Bartram, who had accompanied his father during the journey of 1765, revisited the Altamaha River 

 eight years later, and again in 1778, and collected roots and seeds of the beautiful flowering tree which 

 had so impressed his father and hunself that they had thought it worthy of the name of Frankhnia, 



^ Bartram, Trav. 467. 



2 I have never seen the bark of an old plant of Franklinia, or 

 been able to examine its wood. 



