180 CHINESE ECONOMIC TREES 



The flowers appear in early spring before the leaves and are 

 frequently borne on the old wood, even on the trunk of young trees. 

 The papilionaceous blossoms produced in such profusion as to cover the 

 tree with a mass of bloom and the handsome heart-shaped leaves, make 

 this a desirable ornamental plant. 



Cercis racemosa Oliver. 



Tree to 10 m. tall. Leaves tomentose beneath, slightly smaller than 

 the preceding. Flowers small on slender pedicels of pink in many- 

 flowered drooping racemes. Pods 4-10 cm. long. The most ornamental 

 species of all. 



Central China. 



GYMNOCLADUS 



Trees with stout contorted branches and deeply fissured or thick 

 flaking bark. Leaves deciduous, alternate, bipinnate, with usually 

 alternate pinnae and leaflets; stipules large, deciduous. Leaflets ovate, 

 entire, petiolate. Flowers racemose or in racemose corymbs, dioecious, 

 greenish white or purplish on long slender pedicels. Calyx tubular, lined 

 with a glandular disk, thick ribbed, 5 lobed; petals 4 or 5, pubescent, as 

 long as or slightly longer than the calyx lobes; stamens 10, free, inserted 

 on the disk with the petals; ovary sessile or slightly stipitate, 4 or many 

 oviuYd; style short, capitate or 2 lobed. Pods oblong, thick, tipped, 

 slightly curved, tardily dehiscent into 2 woody valves, pulpy between 

 the seeds. Seeds ovoid to subglobose attached to a slender funicle; testa 

 hard and bony. 



2 species, 1 in temperate N. America, the other in Southern and 

 South-western China. 



Gymnocladus chinensis Baillon. 



Tree 12 m. high. Bark smooth and light gray on young trees. 

 Branchlets pubescent. Young leaves silvery, mature leaves pale green; 

 leaflets numerous, 20-24, pubescent beneath, oblong, obtuse rarely acute 

 at the apex, rounded at the b;ise, oji short pubescent petiolules. 

 Inflorescence polygamous, in pubescent racemes. Flowers white or 

 purplish; calyx pubescent; petals ovate-oblong; ovary glabrous; style 

 short, crowned by a somewhat capitate stigma ; ovules few, mostly 4. 

 Pods flat, brown, glabrous, 7-10 cm. long, 3-4 cm. wide. Seeds 2-4, 2 

 cm. in diameter, globose, smooth, black. 



