366 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



fully expanded, and about half the size of the round white petals turning purple in fading; 

 stamens 20-30, with purple filaments villose toward the base, l|'-2' long; anthers yellow; 

 ovary raised on a slender stipe about 1|' in length. Fruit 9'-12' long, terete, sometimes 

 slightly torulose, pubescent-lepidote, the long stalk appearing jointed by the enlargement 

 of the pedicel and torus below the insertion of the stipe; seed light brown, 1|' long. 



Fig. 327 



A small slender shrubby tree, 18-20high, with a trunk sometimes 5 '-6' in diameter, 

 and thin angled branchlets dark gray, smooth or slightly rugose, and covered with minute 

 ferrugineous scales. Bark rarely more than |' thick, slightly fissured, the dark red-brown 

 surface broken into small irregularly shaped divisions. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, 

 yellow faintly tinged with red, with lighter colored sap wood of about 15 layers of annual 

 growth. 



Distribution. Coast of Florida; Cape Canaveral and Cape Sable to the southern keys; 

 generally distributed, but nowhere abundant; common on several of the Antilles. 



XX. HAMAMELIDACEJE. 



Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, slender terete branchlets, naked or scaly buds, and 

 fibrous roots. Leaves alternate, petiolate, stipulate, deciduous. Flowers perfect or uni- 

 sexual; calyx 4-parted or 0; petals 4 or 0; stamens 4-8; anthers attached at the base, in- 

 trorse, 2-celled; ovary inserted in the bottom of the receptacle, 2-celled; ovules 1 or many, 

 anatropous, suspended from an axile placenta; micropyle superior; raphe ventral. Fruit 

 a woody capsule opening at the summit. Seed usually 1 ; embryo surrounded by fleshy 

 albumen; cotyledons oblong, flat, longer than the terete radicle turned toward the hilum. 

 The Witch Hazel family with twenty genera is confined to eastern North America, south- 

 western, southern, and eastern Asia, the Malay Archipelago, Madagascar, and South 

 Africa. Of the three North American genera two are arborescent. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT GENERA. 



Flowers usually unisexual, capitate, without petals, limb of the calyx short or nearly obso- 

 lete; capsules consolidated by their base into a globose head; seed with a terminal 

 wing; leaves palmately lobed. 1. Liquidambar. 



Flowers usually perfect, with calyx and corolla; capsules not consolidated into a head; seed 

 without a wing. 2- Hamamelis. 



