166 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



by small scattered lenticels, coated at first with dense pale tomentum, soon becoming 

 bright red-brown, scurfy, and glabrous or pubescent. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, nearly 

 f ' long, with numerous loosely imbricated lanceolate acute red-brown scurfy-pubescent 

 scales. Bark thin, smooth, nearly white. 



Distribution. Deep swamps, Round Lake, Jackson County, and Appalachicola, and 

 Saint Andrews Bay, Florida; near Mobile and Stockton, Alabama; near Poplarville, Pearl 

 County, Mississippi, and Bogalusa, Washington Parish, Louisiana. 



3. Myrica californica Cham. Wax Myrtle. 



Leaves oblanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, acute at apex, remotely serrate except at the 

 gradually narrowed base with small incurved teeth, decurrent on a short stout petiole, 

 thin and firm, dark green and lustrous above, yellow-green, glabrous or puberulous and 



Fig. 161 



marked by minute black glandular dots below, 2'-4' long, \'-\' wide, with a narrow yellow 

 midrib and numerous obscure primary veins arcuate near the thickened and revolute 

 margins, slightly fragrant, gradually deciduous after the end of their first year. Flowers 

 subtended by conspicuous bractlets, those of the two sexes on the same plant; staminate 

 in oblong simple aments often 1' long, pistillate in shorter aments in the axils of upper 

 leaves, androgynous aments occurring between the two with staminate flowers at their base 

 and pistillate flowers above, or with staminate flowers also mixed with the pistillate at then- 

 apex; scales of the aments ovate, acute, coated with pale tomentum; stamens numerous, 

 with oblong slightly emarginate dark red-purple anthers soon becoming yellow; ovary ovoid, 

 with bright red exserted styles. Fruit in short crowded spikes ripening in the early au- 

 tumn and usually falling during the winter, globose, papillose, dark purple, covered with 

 a thin coat of grayish white wax; seed pale reddish brown, minute. 



A tree, occasionally 40 high, with a trunk 14'-15' in diameter, short slender branches 

 forming a narrow compact round-topped head, and stout branchlets coated at first with 

 loose tomentum, dark green or light or dark red-brown, glabrous or pubescent during their 

 first season, becoming in their second year much roughened by the elevated leaf -scars, darker 

 and ultimately ashy gray; usually smaller at the north and toward the northern and south- 

 ern limits of its range reduced to a low shrub often only 3-4 tall. Winter-buds ovoid, 

 acute, about \' thick, with loosely imbricated ovate acute dark red-brown tomentose scales 

 nearly \' long when fully grown and long-persistent on the branch. Bark smooth, compact, 

 xV~i' thick, dark gray or light brown on the surface and dark red-brown internally. Wood 

 heavy, very hard and strong, brittle, close-grained, light rose color, with thick lighter 

 colored sapwood. 



