* 
70 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. LEGUMINOS. 
of May or after most of the deciduous trees of the American forests have covered themselves with 
foliage,’ and in the autumn turn a bright clear yellow. The inflorescence of the sterile tree is three or 
four inches in length, the lower branches, which are somewhat swollen at the base, being usually three 
or four-flowered. The inflorescence of the female tree is ten or twelve inches long, the flowers being 
borne on stout pedicels from an inch to two and a half inches in length, or from twice to five times 
the length of those of the staminate flowers. The calyx is two thirds of an inch long, conspicuously 
ten-ribbed and clothed in the bud, like the petioles and the exterior surface of the petals, with thick 
white tomentum; when the flowers are expanded they are covered on the outer surface with pale 
hairs, and on the inner surface with thick pale tomentum. The petals are keeled, pilose on the back, 
slightly grooved, and clothed with tomentum on the inner surface, and are rather longer than the calyx- 
lobes and about twice as broad. The anthers are bright orange-colored. The ovary is sessile, covered 
with hairs, many-ovuled, and contracted into a short style dilated above into two broad lobes stigmatic 
on their inner surface. The legumes, which hang unopened on the branches throughout the winter, 
are subfalcate, with more or less thickened margins, six to ten inches in length, an inch and a half to 
two inches in breadth, and dark reddish brown covered with a slight glaucous bloom; they are borne on 
stout stalks an inch or two long, and are crowned with the thickened pointed remnants of the styles. 
Their valves are thin, tough, and woody, and contain between the seeds a thick layer of dark-colored 
sweet pulp. The seeds are three quarters of an inch long, ovate, or slightly obovate and compressed, 
with a hard bony coat and albumen, and orange-colored cotyledons. 
Gymnocladus dioicus is found growing spontaneously on the shores of Cayuga and Seneca Lakes 
in New York® and on the banks of Conococheague Creek in Franklin County, Pennsylvania ;° it 
extends westward through southern Ontario* and southern Michigan to the valley of the Minnesota 
River, to eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, and southwestern Arkansas, and to about longitude 96° 
west in the Indian Territory, and southward between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi 
River to middle Tennessee. Although distributed over a wide area, Gymnocladus dioicus is one of 
the rarest of the forest trees of eastern North America. It selects bottom-lands and the richest soil, 
where it grows in company with the Black Walnut, the Blue Ash, the Hackberry, the Cottonwood, the 
Honey Locust, the Red Elm, and the Hickories. 
The wood of Gymnocladus dioicus is heavy although nof very hard, strong, coarse-grained, liable 
to check in drying, and very durable in contact with the ground; it can be easily worked, and the 
surface will take a good polish. It contains many thin medullary rays, and bands of one or two 
rows of open ducts marking the layers of annual growth. It is rich light brown in color, tinged with 
red, the thin sapwood composed of five or six layers of annual growth, being rather lighter colored 
than the heartwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.6934, a cubic foot weighing 
43.21 pounds. It is occasionally used in cabinet-making, and for fence-posts, rails, and in construction. 
Gymnocladus dioicus, mentioned by Linneus® in 1742 as growing in Paris, was first described 
by Duhamel in the Traité des Arbres® published in 1755; according to Aiton’ it was cultivated in 
England in 1748 by the Duke of Argyll.® 
Gymnocladus dioicus is now a familiar inhabitant of the gardens and parks of the United States® 
and of northern and central Europe, and is valued for its hardiness, rapid growth, and good habit, for 
the singular appearance that its naked branches present in winter, for the lightness, grace, and cheerful 
color of its great leaves, and for its immunity from disease. 
1 The stout dark-colored branchlets destitute of spray give to 4 Brunet, Cat. Vég. Lig. Can. 19. — Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. 512. 
Gymnocladus in winter and especially in spring the appearance of 5 Gen. ed. 2, 518. 
a dead tree. This appearance has caused it to be called Chicot 6 Bunduc Canadense polyphyllum, non spinosum mas § femina, i. 
(Branche morte ou couverte de chancres) by the French settlers in 108, t. 42. 
America, and it is by this name that it is now known in France. 7 Hort. Kew. ed. 2, v. 400. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 656, t. 
2 Dudley, Bull. Cornell Univ. ii. 26 (Cayuga Fi.). 8 See i. 108. 
3 Where it was discovered by Professor T. C. Porter. ® Garden and Forest, ii. 75, £. 49. 
