TJLMACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



61 



PLANERA AQUATIOA. 



Water Elm. 



Nat 



WiU- 



denow. Spec. iv. pt. ii. 967 ; BerL Baumz. ed. 2, 281 ; Enum. 

 Suppl. 14. — Persoon, Syn. \. 291. — Du Mont de Cour- 

 set, Bot. Cult, ed, 2, vJ. 388. — Nuttall, Gen. i. 202. 



Gray's Man 



36, f . 12. 



PL W. Texas). 



1, Handh. Lauhholzk. 

 Nat. Herh. ii. 407 (Mt 



Anonymos aquatica, Walter, FL Car. 230 (1788). 



Schmidt, Oestr. Baumz. iv. 14, t. 197. — Hayne, Dendr. Planera ulmifolia, Michaux f. Hist. Arh. Am. iii. 283, t. 7 



FL 208. 



Nat. s^r. 2, xv. 355 : Hist 



Nouveau 



Veg. xi. 116. — Planchon, Ann. ScL Nat. sdr. 3, x. 261 ; 



CandolLe 



W 



(1813). — Poiret, Lam. Diet. Suppl. iv. 429, 



Duhamel^ vii. 65. — Curtis, Rep. Geolog. Stirv. N. Car. 



1860, iii. 81. 



Chapm 



an, FL 417. 



Koch, Dendr . ii. 424. — Lauche, Ulraus aquatica, Rafinesque, FL Ltidovic. 165 (1817). 



Deutsche Dendr. 350, £. 135. — Sargent, Forest Trees Planera Richardi, Torrey & Gray, Pacific R. R. Rep. ii 



N. 



Watson 



175 (not Michaux) (1855). 



A tree^ thirty to forty feet in height^ with a short trunk rarely exceeding twenty inches in diameter, 

 and rather slender spreading branches which form a low broad head. The bark of the trunk is about 

 a quarter of an inch thick and light brown or gray, separating into large scales which in faUing 

 disclose the red-brown inner bark. The branchlets, when they first appear, are brown tinged with red, 

 and during their first winter are dark red and ultimately become reddish brown or ashy gray. The 

 leaves unfold in February and March, and when fully grown are two to two and a half inches long and 

 three quarters of an inch to an inch wide, and are borne on petioles varying from an eighth to a quarter 

 of an inch in length ; they are dark dull green on the upper surface and paler on the lower surface, 

 with yellow midribs and veins. The flowers appear with the leaves ; and the fruit, which is a third of 

 an inch in length, ripens in April. 



Planera aquatica inhabits deep swamps covered with water during several months of every year, 

 and is distributed from the valley of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina to western Florida, and 

 through southern Alabama and Mississippi to the valley of the Trinity River in Texas, ranging north 

 through western Louisiana and Arkansas to southern Missouri and central Kentucky, and to the valley 

 of the lower Wabash River in Illinois. Comparatively rare and confined to the neighborhood of the 

 coast in the Atlantic and the eastern Gulf states, the Water Elm is very abundant in western Louisiana 

 and southern Arkansas, where it attains its largest size.^ 



Planera aquatica was introduced into the gardens of Europ 



ly in the present century,^ and 



was 



occasionally cultivated in botanical collections, from which it has now, however, almost entirely 



disappeared. 



Although it possesses much botanical interest, the Water Elm has little else to recommend it as an 



inhabitant of parks and gardens, and the high temperature of the region which it inhabits and the 

 character of the soil and situation in which it grows make it a difficult tree to cultivate beyond the 

 borders of its native swamps. 



1 F. L. Harvey, Am. Jour. Forestry^ i, 451. 



2 Loudon, Arl. Brit. iii. 1413, f. 1251. 



