22 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



wood occurs as threads or bundles running through a cellular, pith-like tissue so that 

 a transverse section exhibits the wood as dots and not in concentric rings. Leaves 

 mostly parallel- veined. Embryo with single cotyledon, or rarely two, and then alter- 

 nate and unequal. Parts of the flower generally in threes. In southern United 

 State and elsewhere in or near the tropics trees are found, such as the Palms, etc., 

 which belong to this class, but none that we have to. do with at present. 



Exogenous plants are subdivided into two well-marked groups or sub- 

 classes Angiospermce and Gymnospermce. The former includes by far 

 the greater part of the Flowering Plants, and most of the species repre- 

 sented in "American Woods " are representatives of it. 



Flowering, exogenous plants in which there is a complete pistil with 

 stigma and closed ovary containing ovules which develop into seeds at 

 maturity. This sub-class comprises many groups of plants known as 

 Orders, and such as are represented by plants which attain the dimen- 

 sions of trees, within the limits of the United States, we propose to con- 

 sider in the following pages : 



ORDER M AGNOLIACEJE : MAGNOLIA FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, simple, coriaceous, entire or lobed (never toothed), marked with 

 minute transparent dots, feather-veined ; leaf buds covered with membranous 

 stipules, which soon fall away. Flowers single, large, polypetalous, polyandrous, 

 polygamous, hypogenous, perfect ;. sepals and petals colored alike, in three or more 

 circles of three each, imbricated in the bud, deciduous ; anthers adnate ; pistils 

 numerous, packed together and covering the elongated receptacle, and forming in 

 Fruit a sort of fleshy or dry cone containing one or two seeds in each carpel, with a 

 minute embryo in fleshy albumen. 



Trees or shrubs with aromatic and bitter bark. 



GENUS MAGNOLIA, L. 



Leaves folded lengthwise in the bud, embracing and embraced by the sheathing 

 stipules. Leaf-buds conical. Flowers large, fragrant ; sepals 3 ; petals 6-9 ; anthers 

 longer than the filaments and opening inward ; carpels 2-valved and 2-seeded, aggre- 

 gated and coherent in a mass. Fruit a fleshy, somewhat woody cone, each carpel 

 opening at maturity along its back, letting out its 1 or 2 berry-like seeds, suspended 

 each by a long, extensile thread. 



Trees and shrubs. (Genus named in compliment to Prof. Pierre Magnol an early 

 French botanist.) 



101. MAGNOLIA GRANDIFLORA, L.* 

 BIG LAUREL, BULL BAT, MAGNOLIA. 



Ger., Grossllumige Magnolia; Fr., Grand Magnolier ; Sp., Magnolia 



floregrande. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS : Learns evergreen, thick, coriaceous, entire, oblong to 

 ovate or obovate, 6 to 12 in. in length, acute at both ends, bright shining green 

 above, more or less rusty tomentose beneath, with straight prominent mid-rib and 



* Magnolia fo&tida, Sarg. 



