22 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. STYRACEL. 
the level of the ocean, are produced in crowded fascicles or short few-flowered racemes, on slender 
drooping pedicels an inch or two long and developed from the axils of obovate yellow-green caducous 
bracts rounded or acute at the apex, gradually narrowed at the base, half to two thirds of an inch long, 
and a quarter of an inch broad. The flower-buds are ovate and obtuse. When fully expanded the 
flowers are nearly an inch long, with a slightly lobed corolla narrowed into a short tube at the base and 
bronzy red before anthesis, ten to sixteen stamens, and a four-celled ovary. The fruit, which ripens 
late in the autumn and remains on the branches until during the winter, is ellipsoidal, equally four- 
winged, an inch and a half to two inches long, and an inch broad; the stone is broadly obovate, 
obscurely ridged, and contracted into a short or sometimes elongated stipe. 
Mohrodendron Carolinum ranges from the mountains of West Virginia to southern Illinois, and 
southward to middle Florida, central Alabama and Mississippi, and through Arkansas to western 
Louisiana and eastern Texas. It inhabits rich wooded slopes and the banks of streams, and is most 
abundant in the elevated Appalachian region, growing to its largest size in the forests of Oaks, 
Hickories, Maples, Black Birches, Ashes, Buckeyes, Magnolias, and Cherry-trees which clothe the 
western slopes of the high mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, where it sends up tall straight 
trunks often free from branches for fifty or sixty feet above the ground. 
The wood of Mohrodendron Carolinum is light, soft, and close-grained, with many thin medullary 
rays; it is light brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood composed of fifty or sixty layers of annual 
growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.5628, a cubic foot weighing 35.07 
pounds. 
The earliest description of Mohrodendron Carolinum was published by Mark Catesby in the 
Natural History of Carolina in 1731.’ Introduced into gardens a few years later,’ it is valued and 
often planted for the beauty of its abundant flowers, which every year cover the branches with wreaths 
of drooping snow-white bells.’ 
Mohrodendron Carolinum is hardy in the United States as far north as eastern Massachusetts, 
where, however, it rarely loses its shrubby habit, and in central and northern Europe.‘ 
1 Frutex, Padi foliis non serratis, floribus monopetalis albis, cam-  tetraptera Meehani, Garden and Forest, v. 534, £. 91; 611), which 
pani-formibus, fructu crasso tetragono, i. 64, t. 64. originated a few years ago in the nursery of Thomas Meehan & 
2 Aiton, Hort. Kew. u. 125.— Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 1190, f.1012, Sons of Germantown, Pennsylvania, is distinguished by small flowers 
t. 196, 197. with short pedicels and cup-shaped corollas, and by thick rugose 
8 In some parts of the country Mohrodendron Carolinum is called leaves conspicuously glandular-serrate on young and vigorous 
Rattle Box, Calico Wood, and Snowdrop-tree. plants. 
* A curious seedling form of Mohrodendron Carolinum (Halesia 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 
Piate CCLVIL. MoxuropenprRon CAROLINUM. 
1. A flowering branch, natural size. 5. Side and front views of a stamen, enlarged. 
2. A flowering branch before the opening of the flowers, nat- 6. A flower, the corolla and stamens removed, enlarged. 
ural size. 7. Vertical section of an ovary, enlarged. 
3. Diagram of a flower. 8. An ovule, much magnified. 
4. A corolla laid open, slightly enlarged. 9. A winter branchlet, natural size. 
Puate CCLVIII. Moxnropenpron Caroinum. 
1. A fruiting branch, natural size. 4. A nutlet, enlarged. 
2. Vertical section of a fruit with one seed developed, natural 5. A seed, enlarged. 
size. 6. Vertical section of a seed, enlarged. 
3. Cross section of a fruit with one seed developed, natural size. 7. An embryo, enlarged. 
