26 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood soft, light, rather coarse-grained, with 

 very small medullary rays and annual layers marked by several rows of small 

 open ducts. It is of a beautiful golden brown color, with pure white sap- 

 wood of only one or two layer's growth. Specific Gravity, 0.6425 Per- 

 centage of Ash, 0.50; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.6393; Weight 

 of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 40.04. 



USES. - - This Avood yields an orange-colored dye, and its durability in 

 contact with the soil makes it a useful wood for fence posts. It was formerly 

 a much more abundant tree than at present, as the demand for it in earlier 

 clays for the above uses greatly reduced its abundance. 



ORDER BOSACE-ffi : ROSE FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate and with stipules which sometimes fall early or are rarely wanting. 

 Flowers regular; sepals 5 or rarely fewer, united at the base and often furnished outside 

 with hractlets resembling the sepals; petals as many as the sepals, or, rarely, wanting, 

 distinct and inserted on a disk which lines the calyx-tube; stamens distinct, numerous 

 (with rare exceptions) and inserted with the petals on the disk of the calyx-tube; pistils 

 1-many, distinct or united and often combined with the calyx-tube. Fruit various, as 

 drupe, pome, achenium, etc. ; seeds solitary or few, mostly albumenless, with straight 

 embryo and large thick cotyledons. 



Trees, shrubs and herbs, many of great economic value in the production of most useful 

 fruits, beautiful flowers, choice perfumes, etc. 



GENUS PRUNUS, TOURNEFORT. 



Leaves simple; stipules free and commonly deciduous. Flowers perfect, with calyx 

 regular, free and falling away after flowering; petals widely spreading; stamens 15-30: 

 pistil solitary with style terminal or nearly so, and ovary containing 2 pendulous ovules. 

 Fruit a drupe, fleshy, with a smooth 1-seeded (rarely 2-seeded) pit. 



Trees and shrubs. (Prunus is the ancient Latin name of the plum-tree.} 



257. PRUNUS AMERICANA, MARSH. 

 WILD PLUM. 



Ger., AmeriJcanischer Schlehdorn. Fr., Prunier d'Amerique. Sp., Ciruelo 



Ameticano. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves ovate to obovate, 2 1 />-4 in. long, narrowed and rounded 

 or tapering at base, acuminate at apex, sharply and sometimes doubly-serrate, nearly 

 glabrous when they unfold and at maturity rugose, dark green above, paler and with 

 prominent reticulate veins beneath; petioles mostly glandless. Flowers when leaves are 

 about half grown, in 2-4-flowercd glabrous umbels; calyx lobes sometimes entire, pilose 

 inside; petals white, rounded with claw. Fruit subglobose or slightly elongated with 

 tough acerb skin orange or red often with pale spots: pit oval, rather smoothish and 

 turgid and slightly ridged on the ventral side and obscurely grooved on the dorsal. 



Var. lanata Sudw. is a form ranging from Missouri to Texas with pubescent under sur- 

 faces of leaves, calyx-lobes, pedicels arcl branchlets. 



