76 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA 



RUTACE^. 



P TELE A TRIFOLIATA. 



Hop Tree. Wafer Ash. 



Flowers polygamo-moncEcious. Fruit broadly winged. Leaves usually trifoliate 



Ptelea trifoliata^ LinnKus, Spec. 118. ~ Miller, /)ic;:. ed. 

 8. — Medieus, Bot. BeohacU. 215. — Marsiiall, Arhust. 

 Am. 115. — Walter, FL Car. 88. — Lamarck, III. i. 336, 

 t. 84. — Moeneli, Meth. 55. — Willdenow, Spec. i. 670 ; 

 Emm. i. 166. — Noiiveau Duhaviel, i. 251, t. 57. — Mi- 

 chaux, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 99. — Schkuhr, Eandb. i. 83, t. 



25 Poii-et, Lam. Diet. v. 706. — Persoon, Syn. i. 



145. — Desfontaines, Hist. Arb. ii. 344. — Robin, Voyages, 

 ili. 509. — Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 1. 107. — Nuttall, Gen. 

 i. 104. — Guimpel, Otto & Hayne, Abbild. Holz. 94, t. 

 74. — Hayne, De7idr. Fl. 8. — ElHott, Sk. i. 210. — 

 Roemer & Schultes, Syst. iii. 291. — Torrey, Fl. XJ. S. 

 189 ; Fl. N. Y. i. 133. — De Candolle, Brodr. ii. 82. — 

 Sprengel, Syst. i. 441 — Turpin, Diet. Sci. Nat. xliv. 2, t. 



128. — A. de Jussieu, Mim. Mus. xn. t. 26, f. 42. — Don 

 Ge7i. Syst. I 806. — Spaeh, Hist. Veg. ii. 369. — Lindley! 

 FL Med. 215. — Loudon, Arh. Brit. i. 489, t. — Torrey 

 & Gray, Fl. N. Am, i. 215. — Dietrich, Syn. i. 497. _ 

 Gray, Gen. III. ii. 150, t. 157. — Agardh, Theor. et Syst. 

 Fl. t. 19, f. 7, 8. -Chapman, Fl. 66. — Curtis, Rep. 

 Geolog. Surv. N. Car. 1860, iii. 107.- Schnizlein, Icon. 

 t. 250, f. 15-26. - Baillon, Hist. Fl. iv. 395, f. 445, 

 446. — Kofh, Dendr. i. 566. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. 

 Cent. i. 171. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. \Oth Census 

 If. S. ix. 31. — Watson & Coulter, Gi-ay's Man. ed. 6 

 107. 



P. pentaphylla, Fabricius, Enum. Fl, Ilelmst. 416. 

 P. viticifolia, SaHsbury, Frodr. 68. 



_ A smaU round-headed tree, rarely twenty or twenty-fne feet in height, mth a straight slender trunk 

 SIX or eight inches m diameter ; or, more often, a low spreading shrub. The bark of the trunk is rarely 

 more than an eighth of an inch thick, ^vith a smooth dark gray surface marked with numerous oblong 

 wart-like excrescences which also appear on the dark brown lustrous bark of the young branches 

 These are conspicuously marked during the winter by the scars left by the falKng of the leaf-stalks, 

 which almost surround and coyer the depressed nearly round buds which are pale or ahnost white, and 

 covered with scattered silky hairs. The leaves are alternate, or rarely opposite, and are borne on stout 

 petioles with thickened bases, and two and a half to three inches long. When they first appear tiey 

 are covered, as are the young shoots, the branches of the inflorescence, and the petioles, with short fine 

 pubescence, and become glabrous at maturity. The leaflets are sessile, ovate or oblong and pointed, 

 the terminal one generally larger and more gradually contracted at the base than the others; they are 

 entire or finely serrate, rather coriaceous at maturity, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale 

 on the lower, four to six inches long by two and a half to three inches broad, with prominent midribs 

 and prmiary veins. The flowers appear in the extreme south as early as March, and in the north dur- 

 ing the early part of the month of June. The fertile and sterile flowers are produced together in com- 

 pound terminal spreading cymes, the sterile flowers being usuaUy less numerous and falling soon after 

 the opening of their anther cells. The slender pedicels, an inch or an inch and a half long, are thickly 

 covered with pubescence, as are the calyx and the ovate-oblong petals. The ovary is puberulent. The 

 truit with its^ wing is ahnost orbicular, or sometimes slightly obovate, and nearly an inch across. It 

 npens m Florida in early summer, or at the north late in the autumn, and hangs at maturity on long 

 Slender reflexed pedicels, the remnants of which remain upon the branches untfl the plants begin thch- 

 growth the following spring. i" a 



Pomt Pelee on the north shore of Lake Ontario is the point farthest north where Ptdm trifoliata 

 has been observed growing naturally.' It is found on Long Island, New York ; it is common in Penn- 

 syn ania, and thence extends west to Minnesota and south to northern Florida and through Texas and 



' J. W. Burgess, Bot. Gazette, vii. 95. 



