

STYRACACEAE 243 



coarsely crenate-dentate. The blade is acute and short-pointed, 

 rarely obtuse, at the apex, and narrowed at the base to a 

 very short petiole. It is smooth above and either smooth or 

 nearly so beneath, but the petioles commonly are somewhat 

 pubescent. 



The white flowers, which are regularly 5-parted, are borne 

 in groups of 2 to 7 in short, leafy racemes. They appear from 

 the last of May until about the middle of June. The fruit, 

 which matures from the last of September on into October, 

 is a nearly globose, densely white-pubescent, dry drupe about 

 14 inch in diameter, which breaks at the tip into 3 thin valves 

 to expose the brown stone it contains. 



DiSTRiBUTiox. — The American Snowbell is an inhabitant of 

 moist thickets and swamps from Virginia w^est to Missouri and 

 south to Florida and Louisiana. In Illinois, it occurs infrequent- 

 ly in the Wabash and Ohio river valleys; it is reported from 

 Lawrence, Massac and Pulaski counties. 



STYRAX PULVERULENTA Michaux 

 Downy Storax 



The Downy Storax, fig. 63, is a shrub 4 to 10 feet high with 

 slender stems and branchlets covered by stellate-pubescent, thin, 

 reddish-brown bark, which eventually becomes gray. The oval 

 to oblong leaves are alternate, without stipules, acute at each 

 end, denticulate or nearly entire on the margins, and short 

 petioled. The blades are 1 to 2i'2 inches long by 1 to \]4. 

 inches wide, green and smooth above but pale and densely 

 covered on the lower surface with stellate hairs. 



The w^hite flowers are borne in short, 2-flowered, terminal 

 racemes or, often, in pairs in axils of leaves on the current 

 season's growth. The petals are oblong-lanceolate and acute, 

 and the calyx is small. The flowering period ranges from late 

 in ]\Iay until about the middle of June, and fruit matures in 

 late September and October as a globose, whitely hairy, dry 

 and leathery, 1-seeded drupe, ]/-^ inch in diameter, which breaks 

 open in 3 parts at the top, revealing a single globular seed. 



Distribution. — The Downy Storax ranges in moist woods 

 and thickets from Virginia to Arkansas and south to Florida 

 and Texas. In Illinois, it has been recorded only once, in a 

 cypress swamp near Rago in Johnson County. 



