Thymelaeaceae. 



245 



Dirca. Leatherwood. 

 (Family Thymelaeaceae). 



Small rounded shrubs with soft 

 wood but very tough bark: de- 

 ciduous. Twigs terete, moderately 

 slender, glabrous, light brown be- 

 coming olive or darker, with con- 

 spicuous small white lenticels, 

 gradually enlarged upwards 

 through the season's growth: pith 

 small, roundish, spongy. Buds 

 small, solitary, sessile, short-coni- 

 cal, with about 4 indistinct dark- 

 silky scales, the end-bud lacking. 

 Leaf-scars alternate, 2-ranked, 

 nearly annular and almost en- 

 circling the bud, elevated at the 

 swollen nodes: bundle-traces 5, 

 indistinct: stipule-scars lacking 



Winter-characters of Dirca pal- 

 ustris are given by Brendel, 27, 

 pi. 3; and Schneider, f. 98. 

 Though during the winter 

 the bud-scales are small and closely covered by hairs, the 

 structure of the bud becomes very evident during its unfold- 

 ing period in the spring, when the scales elongate greatly. 

 A developing bud is pictured in volume 7 of Nature Notes, 

 pp. 171-2. 



The curious lace-bark tree of Jamaica, Lagetta, possesses 

 the structural winter-characters of leatherwood, to which it is 

 closely related. 

 Twigs often forking, glossy. D. palustris. 



