ERICACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 133 
OXYDENDRUM. 
FLoweErs perfect; calyx free, 5-parted, the divisions valvate in estivation; corolla 
gamopetalous, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in estivation; stamens 10; ovary superior, 
5-celled; ovules numerous, ascending. Fruit a 5-celled many-seeded capsule. Leaves 
alternate, membranaceous, deciduous, destitute of stipules. 
Oxydendrum, De Candolle, Prodr, vii. 601 (1839).— Meis- Andromeda, Linnzus, Gen. 123 (1737) (in part). —A. L. 
ner, Gen. pt. ii. 153. — Endlicher, Gen. Suppl. i. 1412.— de Jussieu, Gen. 160 (in part). 
Bentham & Hooker, Gen. ii. 585. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. xi. 
180. 
A tree, with thick deeply furrowed bark, slender terete glabrous light red or brown branchlets 
marked by elevated nearly triangular leaf-scars displaying a lunate row of crowded fibro-vascular bundle- 
scars and many elevated oblong dark lenticels, acid foliage, and fibrous roots. Winter-buds axillary, 
minute, partly immersed in the bark, obtuse, covered with opposite broadly ovate dark red scales 
rounded at the apex, those of the inner ranks accrescent.' Leaves alternate, revolute in vernation, 
oblong or lanceolate, acute, gradually contracted at the base into long slender petioles, serrate with 
minute incurved callous teeth, penniveined, with conspicuous bright yellow midribs and reticulate 
veinlets, thin and firm, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale and glaucous on the lower, 
glabrous, or at first slightly puberulous, deciduous. Flowers in puberulous panicles of secund racemes 
appearing in summer and terminal on axillary leafy shoots of the year, the lower racemes from the axils 
of the upper leaves. Pedicels produced from the axils of lanceolate-acute caducous bracts, clavate, erect, 
coated with hoary pubescence, and bibracteate above the middle, the bractlets linear-acute, caducous. 
Flower-buds ovate-acute, puberulous. Calyx free, divided nearly to the base, pubescent or puberulous 
on the outer surface, persistent, the divisions ovate-lanceolate and acute. Corolla hypogynous, cylin- 
drical to ovate-conical, white, puberulous, the lobes minute, ovate-acute, reflexed. Stamens ten, included ; 
filaments subulate, broad, pilose, inserted on the very base of the corolla; anthers linear-oblong, nar- 
rower than the filaments, attached on the back above the base, introrse, two-celled, the cells opening 
longitudinally from the apex to the middle; pollen grains compound. Disk thin, obscurely ten-lobed. 
Ovary broadly ovoid, pubescent, five-celled; style columnar, thick, exserted, crowned with a simple 
stigma ; ovules numerous in each cell, attached to an axile placenta rismg from the base of the cell, 
ascending, amphitropous ; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Capsule small, ovoid-pyramidal, crowned 
with the remnants of the persistent style, five-lobed, puberulous, loculicidally five-valved, the valves 
ligneous, septiferous, separating from the central persistent placentiferous axis, many-seeded. Seeds 
ascending, elongated ; testa membranaceous, loose, reticulated, produced at both ends into long slender 
points. Embryo minute, axile in fleshy albumen, cylindrical; radicle terete, next the hilum. 
The wood of Oxydendrum is heavy, hard, and very close-grained, with a satiny surface susceptible 
of receiving a beautiful polish ; it contains numerous medullary rays, and is brown tinged with red, with 
lighter colored sapwood composed of eighty or ninety layers of annual growth. The specific gravity 
of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7458, a cubic foot weighing 46.48 pounds. It is sometimes used locally 
for the handles of tools and the bearings of machinery.’ 
1 Oxydendrum does not appear to forma terminal bud, the apex specimen, from the mountains of Tennessee, in the Jesup Collection 
of the branchlet appearing as a minute black point close to the of North American Woods in the American Museum of Natural 
upper axillary bud, which the following year prolongs the branch. History in New York, is eleven inches in diameter inside the bark, 
2 Oxydendrum increases its trunk-diameter slowly. The log- and shows eighty-six layers of annual growth. 
