72 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



ULMACE^. 



glabrous, green, and lustrous, and is 



wned 



the spreading white stigmas which open before the 



stamens of the sterile flowers shed their pollen. The fruit is ovate, on 

 inch long, and bright orange-red, with thin dry flesh and a smooth light b 

 brown and marked with a larofe dark spot at the chalaza. 



hth to one quarter of 



The seed is light 



C 



Mlssiss IpjJiens 



habits rich bottom-lands and the banks of streams 



lionally dry 



limestone hills, and is distributed from southern Indiana and Ilhnois through Kentucky, Tennessee, and 



shores of Bay Biscay 



Florida,^ and through Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas 



abits Bermuda.^ In the basin of the lower Ohio River, whe 



abundant 



Alabama to the 



Nuevo Leon ; it 



and grows to its largest size,^ it is often found associated with Celtis occidentalls, from which it may 



be distinguished by its smaller size and proportionately shorter trunk, by the larger and more numerous 



excrescences which cover its bark, by 



narrower an 



d 



ally 



d 



o-e-red f 



In Kentucky and Tennessee Celtis 3Iississi2)piensis is the most 



smaller bright 



species 



the Gulf 



is exceedingly common 



of the Mississippi River, especially in Arkan 



Louisiana, Texas, and Nuevo Leon, where in the valley of the Rio Grande it forms broad heads of 

 long graceful pendulous branches. 



The wood of Celtis Mississippiensis is rather soft, not strong 



d 



grained, and 



bands of several rows of large open ducts marking the layers of annual growth, groups of smaller ducts 

 arranged in intermediate concentric rings, and thin medullary rays ; it is light clear yellow, with thick 

 lighter colored sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7956, a cubic foot 

 weighing 49.57 pounds. Confounded in commerce with the wood of Celtis occidentalism it is used for 

 the same purposes. 



In Texas Celtis Mississippiensis gradually passes into the vari( 



bushy 



forty to fifty feet in height, with 



variety reticulata ; * this is a small 

 branches and a short trunk covered with smooth 



blue-gray bark on which the excrescences are sometimes over an inch high and are usually interrupted 



broken into 



fc> 



ths ; or in arid regions it is often reduced to a low shrub 



The 



broadly ovate, acute or rarely acuminate, rounded or cordate and usually oblique and very unequal at 

 the base, entire or rarely furnished above the middle with a few large teeth, thick and coriaceous, dark 

 green and glabrous or scabrate on the upper surface, and pale and yellow-green, glabrous or hirsute on 

 the lower surface, which is covered with a network of prominent yellow veinlets impressed on the upper 



The fruit varies from one quarter to one half of an inch in lengi;h and is dark orange-red. 

 Celtis Mississippiensis y var. reticulata^ is distributed from the neighborhood of Dallas in Texas 



side. 



to the Rio Grande, and westward through New Mexico and Arizona to southern Utah and Nevada and 

 the western rim of the Colorado Desert in California, reappearing in Lower California.^ In eastern 

 Texas it grows usually on dry limestone hills, and farther west near the banks of streams and in 

 mountain canons. 



The 



fie 



vity of the absolutely dry wood of Celtis Mississipjnensis 



reticulata, is 



0.7275, a cubic foot weighing 45.34 pounds 



er's Rep, vi. 238. 



54 



Nat 



Watson 



1 A. H. Curtiss, North American Plants, 1881, No. 172. 



2 Lefroy, Bull U. S, Nat. Mus, No. 25, 41 (Bot, Bermuda). C 

 There are a number of Celtis-trees in the Walsingham Tract in 



Bermuda, in addition to those mentioned by General Lefroy. In Celtis occidentalism var. reticulata, Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 



the shape, size, and texture of the leaves, which are entire or occa- 10th Census U. S. ix. 126 (1884) ; Garden and Forest, iii. 40, f. 



sionally furnished with one or two large teeth, and in the size of 

 the fruit, they appear identical with the trees of Bay Biscayne. 



3 Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat, Mus. 1882, 72. 



^ Celtis Misshsiwiensis. var. reticulata. 



Nat 



12. — Koehne, Deutsche Dendr. 138. — Dippel, Handb. Lauhholzk. 

 ii. 45. 



Valley Exped.). 

 ^ Celtis Mis<iiss\ 



Celtis reticulata, Torrey, Ann. Lye. N. Y. ii. 247 (1828). — Ra- Island off the coast of Lower California, in 1872, by Dr. J- A. 



finesque, New Fl. iii. 35. — Nuttall, Sylca, i. 133, t. 39. — Plan- Veatch ; and in the San Julio Canon on the mainland in AprU, 



r, xvii. 1889, by Mr. T. S. Brandegee {Proc. Cal Acad. ser. 2, ii. 205 [PL 



R. R. Baja Cal]). 



Nat 



178. — Walper 



Pacific 



Rep. ii. 175. —Watson, Cat. PI. Wheeler, 



Wheel 



