30 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



forming vast thickets and distributed as an under-shrub throughout the 

 torests on the slopes of the southern Alleghanies. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. -- The wood is fine-grained, rather hard, heavy 

 and strong, with fine medullary rays and of a reddish brown color, with 

 thick lighter colored sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.7160; Percentage of 

 Ash, 0.41; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.7131; Coefficient of Elas- 

 ticity, 58484; Modulus of Rupture, 639; Resistance to Longitudinal Pres- 

 sure, 430; Resistance to Indentation, 262; Weight of a Cubic Foot in\ 

 Pounds, 44.62. 



USES. The wood is useful in turnery for tool-handles and other small 

 articles of wooden ware. The species ranks high in value for ornamental 

 planting, it being one of the most beiutiful shrubs of the North American 

 forest when in flower, and its shining evergreen foliage is attractive at all 

 seasons of the year. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. -- The leaves are occasionally employed in medi- 

 cine on account of astringent and reputed sedative and antiphlogistic prop- 

 cities, although their value is disputed by many physicians. 



NOTE. --The leaves and other succulent parts are said to be poisonous 

 to sheep, though, strangely, they ar? eaten with impunity by deer, goats, 

 partridges and pheasants. Cases of poisoning in men have been reported 

 from eating the flesh of birds which have subsisted largely on the buds and 

 leaves.* Honey gathered from the flowers possesses properties poisonous 

 to man, though not to the bees, and they raise brood on it with impunity. f 



ORDER SAPOTACE-ffi : SAPODILLA FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate or sometimes clustered, simple, entire, pinna tely- veined, mostly cori- 

 aceous, petiolate, without stipules. Flowers small, regular, perfect, in axillary clusters; 

 calyx of 5-8 persistent sepals, imbricated; corolla hypogenous, 5-8-cleft, with an internal 

 lobe-like appendage or two at each sinus and a short tube; disk none; stamens as 

 many as the lobes of the corolla and opposite them inserted on the tube: anthers 2-celled, 

 subextrorse, longitudinally dehiscent; pistil with ovary sessile, usually o-celled, with 

 simple style and termina stigma, and containing a solitary anatropous ovule. Fruit A 

 berry with persistent calyx at base and tipped with remnants of the style, usually 1-seeded, 

 the seed containing a large straight embryo with or without albumen. 



Trees, shrubs and vines with milky juice and of wide distribution throughout the warmer 

 regions of the globe, some species producing valuable timbers or fruits and one producing 

 the gutta percha of commerce. The family consists of about 400 species of 35 genera, of 

 which 5 genera are represented in the trees of the United States, all subtropical excepting 

 Bumelia. 



*U S. Dispensatory, 16th Ed , p. 1834 

 t A B C of Bee Culture, p. 263. 



