RHAMNACE,. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 25 
CONDALIA OBOVATA. 
Purple Haw. Log Wood. 
FLowers fascicled ; stigma 3-lobed ; ovary 1-celled. 
Torrey, Bot. Mex. Bound. Surv. 47. — Sargent, Forest 
Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 40. — Trelease, 
Trans. St. Louis Acad. v. 361. 
Condalia obovata, Hooker, Icon. t. 287. — Torrey & Gray, 
Fl. N. Am. i. 685. — Gray, Gen. Ill. ii. 172, t. 164; Jour. 
Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. vi. 169 (Pl. Lindheim. ii.) ; Pl. 
Wright. i. 32; ii. 27 (Smithsonian Contrib. iii., v.). — 
A small tree, rising sometimes to a height of thirty feet, with a slender trunk six or eight inches in 
diameter, and erect rigid zigzag branches terminating in stout spines; or more often ashrub. The bark 
of the trunk is an eighth of an inch thick, divided into flat shallow ridges, the dark brown surface 
tinged with red, separating into thin scales. The bark of the young branches is gray when they first 
appear, and is then clothed with soft velvety pubescence ; this disappears before the end of the season, 
when they are quite glabrous, thew pale red-brown bark then often covered with thin scales. The 
leaves appear in May and June, and fall irregularly during the winter, a few usually remaining on the 
branches until the period of new growth in the followmg year. They are spatulate or oblong-cuneate, 
short-petioled, entire, mucronate, and often fascicled on the short spinescent lateral branchlets; they 
are half an inch to an inch long, a third of an inch broad, and rather thin, pale yellow-green, pubescent 
especially on the lower surface when they first appear, and glabrous at maturity, with a conspicuous 
midrib and about three pairs of prominent primary veins. The flowers are produced on the shoots of 
the year on very short stemmed two to four-flowered fascicles. The fruit ripens irregularly during the 
summer ; it is a quarter of an inch long, dark blue or black, and possesses a sweet pleasant flavor. 
Condalia obovata is generally distributed through western Texas from the shores of Matagorda 
Bay to the Rio Grande, and through the drier portions of northeastern Mexico. It attains a tree-like 
habit and its greatest size on the elevated sandy banks of the lower Rio Grande and its tributary 
streams. In less favored situations and on dry mesas it sometimes covers large areas with dense 
impenetrable chaparral. 
The wood of Condalia obovata is very heavy, hard, and close-grained. It is light red, with light 
yellow sapwood composed of seven or eight layers of annual growth, and contains numerous irregularly 
arranged open ducts and obscure medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 
1.1999, a cubic foot weighing 74.78 pounds. The wood of this tree burns with an intense heat, and is 
selected for fuel in the region where it abounds.’ 
Condalia obovata was discovered in Texas in 1833, probably near the mouth of the Rio Grande, 
by Thomas Drummond.’ 
during several years in the northern and northwestern parts of the 
continent, and later in western Texas, which he was one of the first 
He went to Apalachicola in 1835 for the pur- 
1(C. G. Pringle, Garden and Forest, ii. 393. Lindheimer (Gray, 
Pl. Lindheim. ii. 169) is the only authority for the statement that 
the wood dyes blue, and that Condalia obovata is called, therefore, 
Blue Wood or Log Wood. 
2 Thomas Drummond (d. 1835) ; a native of Scotland, and one 
of the most industrious and successful of the botanical explorers of 
A nurseryman by profession, and then 
botanists to visit. 
pose of exploring the entire Florida peninsula, but soon left west- 
ern Florida with the intention of reaching Key West by the way of 
Havana, in which place he suddenly died. Drummondia, a genus 
of American Mosses, was dedicated to him by his patron, Sir Wil- 
the North American flora. 
liam Jackson Hooker, by whom his plants were described. The 
curator of the Belfast Botanic Garden, Drummond came to America 
in 1825 as the assistant naturalist to the second Overland Arctic 
Expedition under Sir John Franklin. He traveled extensively 
familiar Drummond Phlox of gardens was discovered by him in 
Texas. 
