288 



ERICACEAE. 



OXYDENDRUM. SoUFWOOd. 



(Family Ericaceae). 



Small or moderate-sized tree: 

 deciduous. Twigs rather slender, 

 zig-zag, terete: pith pale, continu- 

 ous. Buds rather small, conical- 

 globose, solitary, sessile, with 

 about half-a-dozen scales, the end- 

 bud lacking. Leaf-scars alternate, 

 low, small, half-round or shield- 

 shaped: bundle-trace 1, C-shaped: 

 stipule-scars lacking. Fruit per- 

 sistent, panicled, as small canes- 

 cent oblong - pyramidal 5-celled 

 capsules with their valves break- 

 ing away from the style. 



Winter-character reference to 

 Oxydendrum arboreum: Schnei- 

 der, f. 123. 



The generic name Oxydendrum 

 was given to what Linnaeus had 

 called Andromeda arborea be- 

 cause of its acidity. Though a 



pure Greek derivative, its author Latinized the name by chang- 

 ing the ending on of the Greek into um in accord with a gen- 

 eral effort to Latinize all plant names, of whatever deriva- 

 tion, and a correction of this kind has been made in many 

 though not all cases where the author of a name did not do 

 this himself. Curiously, the established Latinized name of 

 this tree is sometimes written in on. 

 Twigs glabrous, olive or bright pink. O. arboreum. 



