104 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 





Distribution. Rich soil of the bottom-lands on the Bernado River, Cameron County, 

 and near the mouth of the Rio Grande, Texas, and southward in Mexico in the neighbor- 

 hood of the coast. 



Frequently planted as a street tree in the towns in the lower Rio Grande valley. 



4. WASHINGTONIA H. Wendl. 



Trees, with stout columnar stems and broad crowns of erect and spreading finally pen- 

 dulous leaves. Leaves flabellate, divided nearly to the middle into many narrow deeply 

 parted recurved segments separating on the margins into numerous slender pale fibres; 

 rachis short, slightly rounded on the back, gradually narrowed from a broad base, with 

 concave margins furnished below with narrow erect wings, and slender and acute above; 

 ligule elongated, oblong, thin and laciniate on the margins; petioles elongated, broad and 

 thin, flattened or slightly concave on the upper side, rounded on the lower, armed irregu- 

 larly with broad thin large and small straight or hooked spines confluent into a thin bright 

 orange-colored cartilaginous margin, gradually enlarged at base into thick broad con- 

 cave bright chestnut-brown sheaths composed of a network of thin strong fibres. Spadix 

 interfoliar, stalked, elongated, paniculate, with pendulous flower-bearing ultimate divisions 

 and numerous long spathes. Flowers perfect, jointed on thick disk-like pedicels; calyx 

 tubular, scarious, thickened at base, gradually enlarged and slightly lobed at apex, the 

 lobes imbricated in the bud; corolla funnel-formed, with a fleshy tube inclosed in the 

 calyx and about half as long as the lanceolate lobes thickened and glandular on the inner 

 surface at the base, imbricated in the bud; stamens inserted on the tube of the corolla, with 

 free filaments thickened near the middle and linear-oblong anthers; ovary 3-lobed, 3- 

 celled, with slender elongated flexuose styles stigmatic at apex; ovules lateral, erect. 

 Fruit a small ellipsoidal short-stalked black berry with thin dry flesh. Seed free, erect, 

 oblong-ovoid, concave above, with a flat base depressed in the centre, a minute sublateral 

 hilum, a broad conspicuous rachis, a minute lateral micropyle, and a thin pale chestnut- 

 brown inner coat closely investing the simple horny albumen; embryo minute, lateral, with 

 the radicle turned toward the base of the fruit. 



Three species of Washingtonia are known: one inhabits the interior dry region of south- 

 ern California and the adjacent parts of Lower California, and the others the mountain 

 canons of western Sonora and southern Lower California. 



The genus is named for George Washington. 



1. Washingtonia filamentosa O. Kuntze. Desert Palm. Fan Palm. 

 Leaves 5-6 long and 4-5 wide, light green, slightly tomentose on the folds; petioles 



Fig. 101 



