LAURACEjE. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



11 



OCOTEA OATESBYANA. 



Flowers perfect ; filaments of the stamens of the third series biglandular. Leaves 

 oblong-lanceolate, pale on the lower surface. 



Ocotea Catesbyana. 



Laurus Catesbyana, Michaux, FL Bor.-Am. i. 244 



XV. pt. i. 165 (in part) (not C. G, Nees ab Esenbeck) 



(1864). 



Sargentj Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census 



(1803). 



Poiret, Lam, Diet. Suppl. iii. 321. — Pursh, 



U. S. ix. 119. 



FL Am. Sept. i. 275 (in part). — Sprengel, Syst. ii. 265. Persea Catesbyana, Chapman, FL 393 (1865). 

 Laurus Catesbaei, Persoon, Si/7i. i. 449 (1805). — Nuttall, Nectandra coriacea, Mez, Jahrb. Konig. Bot. Gart. v. 459 



Gen. i. 258. 



? Gymnobalanus Catesbyanus, C. G. Nees ab Esenbeck, 



Sijst. Laur. 483 (1836). 

 Nectandra Willdenovianaj Meisner, De Candolle Prodr. 



{Lauracece Americance Monog.) (in part) (not Grisebach) 

 (1889). 

 Nectandra sanguinea, Hitchcock, Rep. Missouri Bot. 

 Gard. iv. 125 (not RottboeU) (1893). 



A tree^ twenty to thirty feet in height^ with a trunk rarely exceeding eight inches in diameter^ and 

 slender spreading branches which form a narrow round-topped head. The bark of the trunk^ which is 

 about an eighth of an inch thick, is dark reddish brown, and is roughened on the otherwise smooth 

 surface by numerous small lenticular excrescences. The branches are thin, terete, glabrous when they 

 first appear, and dark reddish brown ; they soon become hghter colored, and in their second year are 

 light brown or gray tinged with red, and often marked by minute pale lenticels, and in their second 



and third years by small semiorbieular leaf-scars in which appear single central fibro-vascular bundle- 

 scars. The leaves are alternate, oblong-lanceolate, entire, slightly contracted above into long points 

 rounded at the apex, and gradually narrowed below into broad flat petioles, which vary from one third 

 to one hal£ of an inch in length, and are grooved on the upper and rounded on the lower side ; when 

 they unfold they are thin, membranaceous, light green tinged with red, and sometimes puberulous on 

 the lower surface ; and at maturity they are thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale 

 below, three to six inches long, and an inch to two inches broad, with thickened slightly revolute 



margins, broad stout midribs impressed on the upper side toward the base, and slender remote primary 



and united 



the margins and connected by coarsely reticulated conspicuous 



The flowers appear in early spring, and are produced in elongated panicles vdth slender glabrous light 

 red peduncles developed singly or two or three together from the axils of the leaves of the year or from 



those of the previous year, and three or fom^ inches in 



length ; 



they are borne on thin glabrous or 



puberulous pedicels bibracteolate near the middle, and when expanded are nearly a quarter of an inch 

 across ; the calyx is creamy white, with a campanulate tube much shorter than the six ovate deciduous 

 lobes which are rounded at the apex, nearly of equal size, pubescent on the outer surface, coated with 

 pale tomentum on the inner surface, and about twice as long as the stamens j these are in four series, 

 those of the inner series being reduced to Hnear staminodia somewhat enlarged at the apex, and tipped 

 with minute abortive anthers ; the filaments of the two outer series are slightly hirsute at the base and 

 shorter than the introrse anthers ; the filaments of the third series are as long or longer than the 

 extrorse anthers, and are furnished at the base with two conspicuous globose stalked yeUow glands ; the 

 anthers are flattened, emarginate, innate and four-celled, the lower cells being a Httle larger and nearer 

 the margins than the upper cells. The ovary is ovate and glabrous, and is gradually narrowed into a 

 short glabrous style which is about as long as the stamens of the outer series. The fruit ripens in the 

 autumn, and is ovate or subglobose, two thirds of an inch long, lustrous, dark blue or nearly black, and 

 surrounded at the base by the thickened cup-like tube of the calyx, which is truncate or obscurely lobed 

 and brio"ht red like the thickened pedicels ; the flesh is thin and dry, and closely invests the large 



