30 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



ORDER CORNACEJE : DOGWOOD FAMILY. 



Leaves opposite (except in one species), simple, mostly entire. Flowers in cymes, 

 often involucrate, polypetalous (exceptionally apetalous), 4-numerous ; calyx-tube 

 adherent to the ovary, its limbs minute ; petals valvate in the bud, oblong, sessile, 

 and, with the stamens, borne on an epigynous disk in the perfect flowers; ovary 

 1-celled, bearing a single suspended ovule; style single, somewhat club-shaped. 

 Fruit a 1-2-seeded baccate drupe, bearing the persistent limb of the calyx. 



Trees, shrubs or rarely herbs, with bitter, tonic bark. 



GENUS GARRYA, DOUGLAS. 



Leaves entire, or nearly so, coriaceous, evergreen, and with short petioles con- 

 nate at base; branchlets more or less 4-angled. Flowers dioecious, in axillary aments, 

 solitary or three together between decussately connate bracts, apetalous ; the starni- 

 nate with calyx 4-parted, the segments linear and valvate; stamens 4, distinct; disk 

 and ovary wanting; pistillate flowers with calyx-limb of 2 short lobes or obsolete; disk 

 and stamens none ; pistil with 2 persistent styles, stigmatic on the inner side and 1- 

 celled ovary, containing 2 pendent ovules suspended by funiculi from top of 

 cell. Fruit an ovoid or subglobose blue or purple berry, containing 1-2 oblong 

 compressed seeds with copious fleshy albumen and minute embryo with oblong 

 cotyledons. 



131. GARRYA ELLIPTICA, DOUGLAS. 

 SILK-TASSEL TREE, QUININE TREE. 



Ger., Seidenquastenbaum ; Fr., Arbre a signets de soie; Sp., Arbol de 



borlita de seda. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. Leaves elliptical, l-4 in. long, rounded or acute and 

 rnucrornate at apex, truncate or rounded at base, thick, concave beneath, margins 

 revolute and undulate, smooth, dark green and shining above, densely pale-tomen- 

 tose beneath as with the petioles and new growths at first. Flowers in solitary or 

 clustered pendulous aments; the staminate 2-5 in. long, tassel-like with truncate or 

 acute bracts silky as with the calyx-lobes; pistillate aments shorter and stouter, 1-4| 

 in. long, with acute or acuminate bracts; ovary densely silky-tomentose, sessile. 

 Fruit subglobose, about J in. in diameter, tipped with the remnant of the styles, 

 conformed to each other by mutual pressure in the compact raceme, densely pale 

 silky tomentose, with purple juicy flesh, this finally in drying separating from the 

 epicarp, which retains its original form, and dries down about the one or two com- 

 pressed seeds. 



(The specific name, elliptica, is a Latin word and descriptive of the elliptical form 

 of the leaves.) 



The Silk-tassel Tree is more often a crookedly branched shrub than a 

 tree, but it does occasionally attain the stature of a tree. The largest we 

 have seen was 12 in. (0.30 m.) in diameter of trunk which branched 

 about five feet from the ground into a wide-spreading, irregular top not 

 more than 20 ft. (6 m.) in height. The bark of trunk is of a brownish- 

 gray color and rough with thin irregular friable scales. It is a peculiarly 

 handsome and striking tree in January and February, with its long cat- 

 kins hanging in clusters like tassels of thick " chinchilla " worsted. 



HABITAT. From the vicinity of Monterey northward to the Colum- 

 bia River, growing on hill-sides and the slopes of streams near the coast. 



