368 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



across and conspicuous from the broad stigmatic surfaces of the recurved and contorted 

 styles. Fruit I'-l?' in diameter, persistent during the winter, the carpels opening in the 

 autumn; seed \' long and rather longer than its wing, with a light brown coat conspicu- 

 ously marked by oblong resin-ducts. 



A tree, 80-140 high, with a straight trunk 4-5 in diameter, slender branches forming 

 while the tree is young a pyramidal head, and in old age a comparatively small oblong 

 crown, and slender branchlets containing a large pith, slightly many-angled, covered when 

 they first appear with caducous rufous hairs, light orange color to reddish brown in their 

 first winter, marked by occasional minute dark lenticels and by large arcuate leaf-scars 

 showing the ends of 3 conspicuous fibro-vascular bundles, developing in their second season 

 corky wings appearing on the upper side of lateral branches in 3 or 4- parallel ranks and 

 irregularly on all sides of vertical branches, and increasing in width and thickness for many 

 years, sometimes becoming 2'-3' broad and 1' thick. Winter-buds acute, i' long, and 

 covered by ovate acute minutely apiculate orange-brown scales rounded on the back, those 

 of the inner rows accrescent, tipped with red, and about 1' long at maturity. Wood 

 heavy, hard, straight, close-grained, not strong, bright brown tinged with red, with thin 

 almost white sapwood of 60-70 layers of annual growth; used for the outside and inside 

 finish of houses, in cabinet-making, for street pavement, wooden dishes, and fruit boxes. 



Distribution. Fairfield County, Connecticut, and in the neighborhood of the coast to 

 southeastern Pennsylvania, southward to Cape Canaveral and the shores of Tampa Bay, 

 Florida, and westward through southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to southeastern Mis- 

 souri, and through Arkansas to eastern Oklahoma and the valley of the Trinity River, 

 Texas; reappearing on the mountains of central and southern Mexico and on the highlands 

 of Guatemala; in the maritime region of the south Atlantic and Gulf states and in the basin 

 of the lower Mississippi River one of the common trees of the forest, covering rich river 

 bottom-lands usually inundated every year; in the northern and middle states on the 

 borders of swamps and low wet swales; at the north rarely more than 60-70 tall, with 

 a trunk usually not more than 2 in diameter. 



Unsurpassed in the brilliancy of the autumnal colors of the leaves; and often planted 

 as an ornamental tree in the eastern states. 



2. HAMAMEL1S L. Witch Hazel. 



Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, terete zigzag branchlets, naked buds, and fibrous roots. 

 Leaves involute in the bud, more or less unsymmetrical at base, crenately toothed or lobed, 

 the primary veins conspicuous; stipules acute, infolding the bud, deciduous. Flowers 

 perfect, autumnal or hiemal, in 3 or rarely 4-flowered terminal clusters, from buds ap- 

 pearing in summer, on short recurved peduncles from the axils of leaves of the year, fur- 

 nished near the middle with 2 acute deciduous bractlets, covered like their acute bracts and 

 bractlets with dark ferrugineous pubescence, each flower surrounded by 2 or 3 ovate acute 

 bracts, the outer slightly united at base into a 3-lobed involucre; calyx 4-parted pale pubes- 

 cent on the outer surface, orange-brown, yellow or red on the inner surface, persistent on 

 the base of the ovary, the lobes reflexed; petals bright yellow, inserted on the margin of the 

 cup-shaped receptacle, alternate with the sepals, strap-shaped, falling with the stamens 

 when the ovules are fertilized; stamens 8, inserted in 2 rows on the margin of the receptacle, 

 the 4 opposite the lobes of the calyx fertile, the others reduced to minute strap-shaped 

 scales; filaments free, shorter than the calyx, prolonged into a thickened pointed connec- 

 tive; anthers ellipsoid, opening laterally from without by persistent valves; ovary of 2 

 carpels, free at apex, inserted in the bottom of the receptacle, partly superior, remaining 

 during the winter without enlarging and surrounded and protected by the calyx; styles 

 subulate, spreading, stigmatic at apex, persistent; ovule solitary. Fruit ripening in the 

 autumn, usually 2 from each flower-cluster, capsular, 2-beaked at apex, surrounded for 

 one-third or one-half its length by the enlarged persistent calyx bearing at the base the 

 blackened remnants of the floral bracts, the thick and woody outer layer splitting from 



