

18 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



Coniferae) several in a whorl. Parts of the flower in fours or fives, very 

 rarely in threes. 



A second class of Flowering Plants and comprising the rest of the group is the Endo- 

 genous or Monocotyledonoits Plants, characterized by having stems in which the wood 

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

 verse section exhibits the wood as dots and not in concentric rings. Leaves mostly 

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

 unequal. Parts of the flower generally in threes. In southern United States and else- 

 where in or near the tropics trees are found, such as the Palms, etc., which belong tu 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 bv far 

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

 sented in "American Woods " are representatives of it. 



ANGIOSPERM^E. 



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 dimensions of trees, 

 within the limits of the United States, we purpose to consider in the follow- 

 ing pages : 



ORDER MAGNOLIACE-ffi : MAGNOLIA FAMILY. 



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

 transparent dots, feather-veined; leaf 1 buds covered with membranous stipules, which soon 

 fall away. Flowers single, large, polypetalous, polyandrous. polygamous, hypogenous, per- 

 fect: 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. aggregated 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 of Prof. Pierre Magnol, an early French 

 botanist.) 



