56 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
LEGUMINOS&. 
Cladrastis was discovered in March, 1796,’ by the French botanist Michaux,’ near Fort Blount on 
the Cumberland River.’ 
The generic name, from xAddos and Opavordc, relates to the brittleness of the branches. The 
genus is represented by a single species.’ 
1 Michaux, Jour. in Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. xxvi. 135. 
2 See i. 58. 
8 A letter written by Michaux to William Blount, governor of 
the Ohio Territory, suggesting the value of the wood of this tree 
as a dyewood, was published in the Knozville Gazette of March 
15, 1796. (Michaux f. Voyage a l’Quest des Monts Alleghanys, 
255.) 
4 Maackia (Ruprecht, Bull. Acad. St. Peétersbourg, xv. 143, t. 1, 
f. 2), a small leguminous tree of the valley of the Amour River 
and of Japan, now well known in cultivation, was referred by 
Bentham (Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 554) to Cladrastis, from 
which, however, it appears generically distinct in its solitary extra- 
petiolar buds, accrescent bud-scales persistent on the base of the 
young shoots, and erect spicate inflorescence, geminate pedicels, 
four-toothed calyx, filaments connate at the base, the thickened 
suture of the pod, and in the character of its bark and its general 
habit. (See Maximowicz, Bull. Acad. Sci. St. Petersbourg, xviii. 
400 [Mel. Biol. ix. 72].) 
