84 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



MORACE^. 



divided to the base into four thick rounded lobes, the two outer lobes being much broader than the 



others, and is dark 



green 



and covered with pale scattered hairs, which are most abundant on the 



margins o£ the lobes. 



The 



ovary is flattened, green and glabrous, and is surmounted 



a short 



style, divided into two short white stigmatic branches. The fruit, which ripens from May to July, and 

 is sparingly produced on wild trees, is haK an inch long, dark purple or nearly black, and sweet and 

 palatable. The drupe is two lines long, ovate, rounded at both ends, with a thin fleshy outer covering 



The seed is ovate, pointed, and covered with a membranaceous 



and a thick-walled light brown nutlet. 



pale yellow testa. 



In the United States Moms celtidifolia is 

 southward in Texas, and through the mountain regions of western Texas and southern New Mexico to 



distributed from the valley of the Colorado River 



the Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona ; in the east it grows on dry limestone hills, where it usually 

 appears as a low shrub, or on the banks of streams, where it is associated with the Black Walnut, the 



Ash-leaved Maple, the Spanish Buckeye, and the Texas Oak, often developing into a shapely 

 farther west it is found only in 



elevated mountain canons in the neighborhood of streams 



It 



IS 



common on the mountain rancres of northern Mexico from Nu 

 southward through southern Mexico and Central America to Peru 



Leo 



to Chihuah 



d 



ranges 



The wood of Monis celtidifolia is heavy, hard, close-grained, and contains numerous thin medul 



rowth ; it is dark orang 



lary rays and bands of smaU open ducts marking the layers of annual ^ 



or sometimes dark brown, with thick light yellow sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry 



wood is 0,7715, a cubic foot weighing 48.08 pounds. It was formerly used for bows by the Indians of 



Texas 



1 



Discovered by Humboldt among the Andes of Ecuador, Moms celtidifol 



first noticed 



Texas in the neighborhood of the German colony of New Braunfels by Ferdinand Lindheimer 



the countries south of the United States it is frequently planted as a fruit-tree,^ 

 which it produces is inferior in size and flavor to that of the Red and Black Mulberry 



In 



although the fruit 



1 Havard, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. viii. 507, 



2 See i. 74. 



s Kunth, Syn. PL ^quin. i. 370. 



EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 



Plate CCCXXI. Morus celtidifolia. 



1. A branch with staminate flowers, natural size. 



2. A branch with pistillate flowers, natural size. 



3. A staminate flower, enlarged- 



4. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 



5. Vertical section of a pistil, enlarged. 



6. A fruiting branch, natural size. 



7. Vertical section of a fruit, enlarged. 



8. A nutlet cut open transversely, enlarged. 



9. An embryo, enlarged. 



10- A winter branchlet, natural size. 



