Southern Buckthorn 



779 



nodes ovate, 2 mm. long, blunt and sometimes unequal. The fruit is usually 

 oval, 7 to 8 mm. long. 



4. SOUTHERN BUCKTHORN Bumelia lycioides (Linnaeus) Gaertner 



Sideroxylon lycioides Linnaeus 



A slightly armed small tree or shrub of damp soil along streams or swamps 

 from Virginia and Illinois to Florida and Texas, becoming 9 meters tall, with a 

 trunk diameter of 1.5 dm. It is also called Ironwood, Buckthorn, Carolina 

 buckthorn, Southern Bumelia, and Chittimwood. 



The trunk is usually short, its branches rather stout. The bark is thin, smooth 

 or slightly broken into scales of a light red- 

 dish brown or grayish color. The twigs are 

 smooth, round, somewhat shining, reddish 

 brown to gray; the winter buds are very 

 small and blunt. The abundant leaves are 

 tardily deciduous, thick, almost leathery, ob- 

 long elliptic or rarely oblanceolate, 4 to 12 cm. 

 long, bluntish to taper-pointed, rarely rounded 

 at the apex, tapering at the base, pale green 

 and prominently netted- veined on both sur- 

 faces; the leaf-stalks are slender, slightly 

 grooved and from 5 to 12 mm. long. The 

 flowers appear from June to August, in dense 

 fascicles, on slender pedicels 7 to 10 mm. 

 long; their calyx is smooth, its lobes oval or 

 orbicular-ovate, 2 mm. long and blunt; co- 

 rolla-lobes longer than broad, and blunt; ap- 

 pendages lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, sharp-pointed; staminodcs broadly ovate, 

 2 to 2.5 mm. long, minutely toothed, often keeled; ovary hairy at the base. The 

 fruit is an oval berry, i to 2 cm. long, ripening in autumn. 



The wood is hard, weak, close-grained, light brown or yellow; its specific 

 gravity is about 0.75. 



Texan Buckthorn, Bumelia texana Buckley, of the plains and mountains of southwestern 

 Texas, is said to become a slightly thorny tree several meters tall. 



The twigs are stout, round and nearly black. The leaves are thick and leather)', oval or 

 oblong, 2 to 3 cm. long, rounded, truncate or notched at the apex, tapering or wedge-shaped 

 at the base, scarcely revolute on the entire margin, pale green and smooth above, smooth or 

 slightly hairy on the midrib and net-veined beneath; the leaf-stalk is slightly hairy, 5 to 10 mm. 

 long. The flowers are in few-flowered fascicles on rather stout hairy pedicels, i to 3 mm. 

 long, their calyx hairy. The fruit is an oblong or elliptic berry about i cm. long. 



Fig. 710. Southern Buckthorn. 



