siMARUBE^. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 93 



KOEBERLINIA. 



Flowers perfect; sepals 4, imbricated in aestivation, deciduous; petals 4, conyo- 

 lute in aestivation, hypogjnous ; disk 0. Fruit, a 2-celled berry. Leaves bract-like, 

 minute, early-deciduous. . 



Koeberlinia, Zuccarini, PL ffort. et Herb. Monac. i. 358 sonian Contrib. iii. 66). — Bentham &, Hooker, Gen. i. 



(Milnchner Denkschrift, 1832). — Meisner, Gen. 66. — 315. — ^aWlon, Hist. PL iv. 503. 



Endlicher, Gen. 1084. —Gray, PL WrlgM. 1. 30 {Smith- 



An intricately branched^ almost leafless tree or shrub^ with tliin red-brown scaly bark. Branches 

 stoutj alternate, glabrous, covered with pale green bark, and terminating in sharp rigid straight or 

 slightly curved spines. Leaves minute^ alternate^ narrowly obovatcj rounded at the apexj deciduous. 

 Flowers minute, in short umbel-like lateral racemes produced below the ends of the branches. Pedicels, 

 from the axils of minute scarious deciduous bracts, slender, club-shaped, puberulous. Calyx composed 

 of three or four minute sepals with scarious margins, much shorter than the ob ovate-oblong subunguic- 

 ulate white petals. Stamens eight, free, hypogynous, as long as the petals ; filaments thickened in the 

 middle, subulate at the two extremities ; anthers oval, attached on the back near the base, two-celled, 

 the cells opening longitudinally. Ovary ovoidj two-celled, contracted at the base Into a short stalk, and 

 above into a short simple subulate style ; stigma terminal, obtuse, slightly emarglnate ; ovules numerous, 

 adnate in several series to the fleshy placenta, horizontal or dependent, anatropous. Fruit black at 

 maturity, subglobose, tipped with the remnants of the pointed style, two-celled ; sarcocarp thin and 

 fleshy ; the cells one to two-seeded by abortion. Seed vertical, circinate-cochleate ; testa crustaceous, 

 sUghtly rugose, striate ; albumen thin. Embryo annular, filling the tumid inner seed-coat ; cotyledons 



semi-terete ; the radicle ascending. 



The wood of Koeberlinia is very hard, heavy, and close-grained ; it contains numerous smaU ducts 

 in narrow lines faintly marking the layers of annual growth, and many thin medullary rays. It is dark 

 brown, somewhat streaked mth orange, turning almost black with exposure, with thin pale yellow or 

 nearly white sapwood composed of twelve to fifteen layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of 

 the absolutely dry wood is 1.1201, a cubic foot weighing 69.80 pounds. 



The genus Koeberlinia was named by Zuccarini In honor of C. L. Koeberhn.^ It is represented by 



a single species. 



KOEBERLINIA SPINOSA. 



Koeberlinia spinosa, Zuccarini, P;. ffoT!!. e^ i?er&. i¥onac. Wright, i. 30; ii. 26 {Smithsonian Contrib. iii. v.). — 



i. 359 {Milnchner Denkschrift, 1832). — Bentham, PL Torrey, Pot Mex. Bound. Surv. 42. — Hemsley, Pot. 



mrtweg. 35. — Walpers, Bep. i. 258. — Engelmann, Wis- PioL Am. Cent. i. 175. - Sargent, Garden and Forest, ii. 



lizemis Rep. 29 ; Emort/s Rep. 158, f . 13. — Gray, PL 352. 



Koeherlinia spinosa is a small shrub-like tree, rarely twenty or twenty-five feet in height, with a 

 short stout trunk sometimes six or eight feet long and a foot In diameter ; or more often a low branch- 

 ing shrub forming impenetrable thickets, often of considerable extent. It grows on dry gravelly mesas 



1 " Diximus hoe genus in honorem L. Koeberlin, amiei eandidisslmi, botaniei indefessi, de patria flora optime meriti," Zuccarini, ;. c. 359. 



