283. OXYDENDRUM ARBOREUM SoRREL-TREE 29 



Resistance of Longitudinal Pressure, 365; Resistance of Indentation, 

 161; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 32.37. 



USES. The Cotton Gum is the most valuable timber tree of its 

 genus, its large columnar trunks producing lumber especially useful 

 for boxes, fruit-crates, etc., where toughness and lightness are import- 

 ant requisites. The wood is also used in the manufacture of wooden 

 ware and that of the roots is used for floats, etc., as a substitute for 

 cork, and in the manufacture of surgical tents. For the last men- 

 tioned use few if any other woods equal it in value. 



ORDER ERICACE<S2: HEATH FAMILY. 



Leares alternate, simple, and without stipules. Floicers regular, perfect; calyx 

 free from the pistil, 4-5-lobed; corolla regular, hypogenous, 5-lobed or parted 

 (exceptionally 4-lobed or somewhat 2-lipped) imbricated; stamens as many or 

 twice as many as the lobes of the corolla and mostly free; anthers intror s e, 

 2-celled, each cell opening by a terminal pore commonly prolonged and bearing 

 an appendage; ovary superior (inferior in Vaccinium), 4-10-celled, with numer- 

 ous anatropous ovules; style simple, columnar and with capitate stigma. Fruit 

 a capsule, drupe or berry; seeds with small embryo and albumen. 



A large and interesting family of trees and shrubs of world-wide distribution 

 in tropical and temperate regions. A few over a thousand species are known, 

 grouped in about sixty genera. Of these twenty-one genera are found within the 

 United States, seven having arborescent representatives. 



GENUS OXYDEXDRUM, D. C. 



Leaves deciduous, revolute in bud, petiolate, narrow-oblong, about equally 

 pointed at both ends, subentire or denticulate, lustrous, dark green above, paler 

 and with yellowish veins beneath. Flowers (in summer) in terminal unilateral 

 racemes, with bibracteolate pedicels; sepals 5, persistent; corolla ovoid-cylindric, 

 white, puberulous. with 5 minute reflexed lobes; stamens 10, with broad filaments 

 and narrower linear anthers opening by clefts; ovary ovoid, 5-celled, with numer- 

 ous amphitropous ovules and thick exserted style having terminal stigma. Fruit 

 a 5-angled. n-celled, ovoid-pyramidal capsule, tipped with the remnants of the 

 style, loculicidally dehiscent, and at maturity liberating numerous elongated 

 seeds pointed at both ends. 



The name is from two Greek words referring to a slightly tart flavor of the 

 leaves. 



A genus of a single American species of the south Atlantic and Gulf states and 

 the lower Mississippi basin. They are trees with roughly furrowed bark, some- 

 what acidulous juices and twigs with segmented pith. 



283. OXYDENDRUM ARBOREUM, DC. 



SORREL-TREE. SOUR-WOOD. 

 Ger., Sauerampferbaum; Fr. ? Arbre d'oseille; Sp., Arbol de acedera. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leares alternate, deciduous, revolute in the bud. 

 oblonsr to lanceolate, cuneate at base, acute or accuminate at apex, irregularly 

 serrulate with slender teeth, lustrous dark srreen above, pale and glaucous 

 beneath. Floirers (July- August ) numerous, white, about y 3 in. long, in terminal 



