LYTHRACEAE. 



249 



LAGERSTROEMIA. Crape Myrtle. 

 (Family Lythraceae). 



Small trees or large shrubs with 

 flaking bark: deciduous. Twigs 

 rather slender, angled: pith small, 

 roundish, at length spongy. Buds 

 moderately small, solitary, sessile, 

 oblong, somewhat elbowed above 

 the base, closely appressed, with 

 2 acute ciliate scales. Leaf-scars 

 4-ranked, separated, or approxi- 

 mated in pairs, or opposite, nearly 

 round, slightly raised and decur- 

 rent from the sides but concave: 

 bundle-trace 1, composite, crescent- 

 shaped, sunken: stipule-scars lack- 

 ing or glandular. 



Winter - characters of Lager- 

 stroemia indica are figured by 

 Shirasawa, 244, pi. 4. 



Like the oleander, the crape 

 myrtle is very popular in the 

 south, where it thrives, and it is 



rather frequently grown as a tubbed plant north of this, 

 say a line reaching from Washington to Cairo, Illinois. 

 Twigs glabrous, 4-winged. L. indica. 



JILL 



