80 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. LEGUMINOSE. 
compressed orange-colored embryos. The legumes, which are fully grown in August, and which are 
often produced in great quantities, fall in the autumn. 
Gleditsia aquatica is found in the coast region of the southern Atlantic states from South 
Carolina to Matanzas Inlet in Florida, and in the Gulf states from the shores of Tampa Bay to the 
valley of the Brazos River in Texas ; it spreads northward through western Louisiana and southern 
Arkansas to middle Kentucky and Tennessee, and to southern Illinois and Indiana. The Water 
Locust is rare east of the Mississippi River, where it grows in deep river-swamps with the Cypress, the 
Cotton Gum, the Scarlet Maple, and the Swamp Oak, but abounds on the rich bottom-lands west of 
the Mississippi, where it attains its greatest size and often occupies extensive tracts of low rich ground 
submerged during a considerable part of the year. 
The wood of Gleditsia aquatica is heavy, and very hard and strong, although rather coarse- 
grained, with a fine surface which takes a high polish. It contains thin, conspicuous medullary rays, 
and bands composed of one to three rows of open ducts marking the layers of annual growth. It is 
rich bright brown tinged with red, the thick sapwood composed of about forty layers of annual growth, 
being a light clear yellow. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7342, a cubic foot 
weighing 45.76 pounds. 
The Water Locust was discovered in South Carolina by Mark Catesby, who introduced it into 
English gardens,’ and who published the first description and figure of it in 1731 in his Natural 
Mistory of Carolina? 
The Water Locust has not proved hardy in New England, and is now very rarely cultivated even 
in the more temperate parts of Europe. 
1 Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 653, f. 364. Acacia Americana palustris abrue foliis spinis rarioribus, Miller, 
2 Acacia Abruce foliis, triacanthos, capsula ovali unicum semen  VJDict. No. 2. 
claudente, i. 43, t. 43. Cesalpinoides foliis pinnatis ac duplicato-pinnnatis, g. Linneus, 
Hort. Cliff. 489. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 
Puate CXXVII. Guepitsta aquatica. 
. A flowering branch of the staminate plant, natural size. 
. A flowering branch of the pistillate plant, natural size. 
. A staminate flower, enlarged. 
. Vertical section of a staminate flower, enlarged, 
A stamen, enlarged. 
. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 
- Vertical section of a pistillate flower, enlarged. 
CID T&T Po do 
. Vertical section of an ovary, enlarged. 
PuatE CXXVIII. Gueprrsia aquatica, 
. A fruiting branch, natural size. 
A legume, natural size. 
. A legume, one of the valves removed, natural size. 
. Vertical section of a seed, natural size. 
. Cross section of a seed, natural size. 
. An embryo, natural size. 
- A portion of a branch with a doubly pinnate leaf, natural size. 
ANOnhonw ke 
