4 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



LAURACE-a!! 



PERSEA BORBONIA. 



Red Bay. 



Leaves oblong or oblong-lanceolate, obscurely veined, glabrous. Brancblets pu^ 



berulous. 



Persea Borbonia, Sprengel, Syst. ii. 268 (1825). — Coulter, Laurus Carolinensis, a glabra, Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i. 



Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herh. ii. 383 {Man. PL W. Texas). 



276 (1814). 



Laurus Borbonia, Linnaeus, Spec. 370 (1753). — Miller, Laurus Carolinensis, y obtusa, Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. L 



Diet. ed. 8, No. 5. — Fabricius, Enum, Hort. Hehn. 



276 (1814). 



389. 



Marshall, Arbust. Am. 73. — Castiglioni, Viagf. Persea Carolinensis, C G. Nees ab Esenbeck, Syst. Laur. 



negli Stati Unitij ii. 273. — Walter, FL Car. 133. 

 Lamarck, Diet. iii. 450. — Willdenow, Spec. ii. pt. 



481. 



Nouveau DuhaTYiel^ ii. 113, t. 33. — Persoon, Syn 



i. 449. — Desfontaines, Hist. Arb. i. 65. 

 Laurus Carolinensis, Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 245 



(1803). — Persoon, Syn. i. 449. — Desfontaines, Hist. 



150 (exel. var. a) (1836). — Spach, Hist. Veg. x. 492. 

 Dietrich, Syn. ii. 1339. — Curtis, Rep. Geolog. Surv. N. 

 Car. 1860, iii. 63. — Chapman, Fl. 393. — Meisner, De 

 Candolle Prodr. xv. pt. i. 50. — Sargent, Forest Trees 

 N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 118. — Mez, Jahvh. 

 Konig. Bot. Gart. v. 175 {Lauracece Americance Mo- 



Arb. i. 

 t. 2). 

 461. 

 f. 5-12. 



65. 



Michaux f. Hist 



nog.). 



Watson & Coulter, Gray's Man. ed. 6, 447. 



Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i. 276. — Elliott, Sk. i. Tamala Borbonia, Rafinesque, Sylva Telliir. 136 (1838). 

 Sprengel, Syst. ii. 265. — Schnizlein, Icon. t. 106, Persea Carolinensis, u, glabriuscula, Meisner, De Can* 



dolle Prodr. xv. pt. i. 51 (1864). — Mez, Jahrb. Konig. 



Bot. Gart. v. 176 {Lauracece Americance Monog.). 



Laurus Caroliniana, Poiret, Lam. Diet. Suppl. iii. 323 



(1813). 

 i. 258. 



Willdenow, Fnuin. Suppl. 22. — Nuttall, Ge7i 



A tree, sixty to seventy feet in height, with a trunk two and a half to three feet in diameter, stout 

 erect branches which form a dense shapely head, and thick fleshy yellow roots ; or usually much smaller. 

 The bark of the trunk is one half to three quarters of an inch thick^ dark red^ deeply furrowed, and 

 irregularly divided into broad flat ridges which separate on the surface into small thick appressed scales. 



coated with 



The branches, when they first appear, are many angled, light red-brown, and glabrous or 

 pale or rufous pubescence, and in their second year are terete and dark green. The winter-buds, 

 which are unprotected by scales, are a quarter of an inch long, and coated with thick rufous tomentum. 

 The leaves are revolute in vernation, oblong or oblong-lanceolate^ entire, often slightly contracted into 

 long points rounded at the apex, and gradually narrowed at the base into stout rigid red-brown petioles 



half to two thirds of an inch in length, and flattened 



d 



ewhat grooved on the upper side 



when they unfold they are thin, tinged with red, and pilose on both surfaces ; and at maturity they are 

 thick and coriaceous, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale and glaucous on the lower 

 surface, three or four inches long and three quarters of an inch to an inch and a half wide, with 

 thickened shghtly revolute margins, narrow orange-colored midribs rounded on the upper side, remote 



obscure primary veins arcuate near the margins, and fine closely reticulated 



they appear early 



in the spring, and remain on the branches until after the appearance of the new growth of the following 

 year, when they graduaUy turn yellow, and, falling during the spring and summer, leave small circular 

 leaf -scars in which appear the ends of single fibro-vascular bundles. The flowers unfold in April and 

 May in the axils of leaves of the year in two or three-flowered cymes gathered into short panicles which 



borne on slender glabrous peduncles half an inch 



ch in length ; they are raised on short 



the middle with 



stout pedicels furnished near 



flowers of the ultimate divisions of the inflorescence being produced from 



acute deciduous bracts. The calyx is pale yellow or creamy white and about an eighth of an inch 



minute caducous bractlets, those of the lateral 



the axils of small lanceolate 



