66 PLATANACE.fi. Platanus. 



flowers in dense globose naked unisexual heads, without perianth, mingled with 

 clavate truncate and minute hairy scales ; akenes obpyramidal, coriaceous, 1 -celled 

 and 1 -seeded, surrounded at base by a dense ring of long hairs ; seed pendulous, 

 orthotropous. Staminate and pistillate heads on different branches, the latter termi- 

 nal, solitary or few and moniliform-spicate. Filaments very short : anthers clavate, 

 with a prolonged peltate connective. Ovaries in clusters on a globular fleshy recep- 

 tacle : style terminal, stigmatic on one side, persistent : ovules 1 (rarely 2), pendu- 

 lous. Seed with membranous testa and little or no albumen. Radicle elongated, 

 inferior. 



A single genus of half a dozen species, one in the orient of the Old World, the rest North 

 American and Mexican. 



1. PLATANUS, Tourn. BUTTONWOOD. SYCAMORE. 

 Characters as of the order. 



1. P. racemosa, Nutt. A widely branched tree, rarely becoming 100 feet high 

 and 6 feet or more in diameter : leaves very variable, densely tomentose when young 

 with pale or rusty tomentum, which is mostly deciduous, usually very broadly cordate 

 in outline, sometimes truncate at base, or cuneate and decurrent upon the petiole, 

 3-lobed or mostly 5-lobed usually beyond the middle, often large (sometimes 1^ or 2 

 feet broad or more) ; lobes acute or acuminate, entire or denticulate or sometimes 

 coarsely sinuate-toothed ; sinuses acute or rounded ; petioles an inch or two long ; 

 stipules ocreate, deciduous, scarious with a foliaceous often much dilated entire or 

 toothed limb, cleft next to the petiole : fertile heads 2 to 7 in a moniliform spike, 

 an inch broad in fruit : nutlets tomentose when young, becoming glabrate, 3 lines 

 long, beaked by a slender style one-half as long or more, the basal hairs two-thirds 

 as long. Audubou's Birds, t. 362; Nuttall, Sylva, i. 47, t. 15; Newberry, Pacif. 

 R. Rep. vi. 33, t. 2, and tig. 10. P. occideiitalis, Hook. & Arn. Bot. Beechey, 1GO 

 and 390. P. Calif urnica, Benth. Bot. Sulph. 54. 



A frequent and conspicuous tree from the Sacramento Valley to Southern California. Bark 

 very white ; wood brittle, but is said to receive a good polish and to be more durable than that of 

 the eastern species. The largest tree whose measurement has been reported is growing in San- 

 tiago Canon, Los Angeles County. This was measured by Miss J. A*. Bash of San Jose, and 

 found to be 29 feet and 7 inches in circumference. 



ORDER LXXXVI. BUXACE^ffil. 



Monoecious trees or shrubs, or even herbs, with coriaceous simple evergreen 

 leaves, without stipules, and regular 4 - 6-parted perianth free from the compound 

 ovary ; distinguished from the following order especially by the watery juice, 

 loculicidal capsule, and inverted ovules, i. e. the anatropous ovules, suspended from 

 the summit of the cells, have the rhaphe dorsal or averse from (instead of next to) 

 the placenta or axis. Segments of the perianth imbricate in 2 rows : stamens 4 or 

 more : ovary 2- or 3-celled, with as many short mostly excentric styles, and 1 or 2 

 ovules in each cell. 



An order of 5 genera and 25 species, of tropical and warm-temperate regions, of which the Box 

 (valuable for its fine-grained hard wood) is the type ; represented in the Atlantic States by a 

 single herbaceous species (Pachysandra procumbcns), and on the Pacific by the following Cali- 

 fornian genus, which is peculiar in having central styles, solitary ovules, and exalbuminous seeds 

 with thin-coriaceous testa. 



