ROSACES 379 



Distribution. Steep slopes of canons in dry rocky soil; on the islands of Santa Catalina, 

 Santa Cruz, San Clemente, Santa Rosa, California; most abundant and of its largest size on 



Fig. 336 



the northern shores of Santa Cruz; on Santa Catalina much smaller and rarely arborescent. 

 Now occasionally cultivated in California. 



3. MALUSHall. Apple. 



Trees, with scaly bark, slender terete branchlets, small obtuse buds covered by im- 

 bricated scales, those of the inner ranks accrescent and marking the base of the branchlet 

 with conspicuous ring-like scars, and fibrous roots. Leaves conduplicate in the bud in the 

 American species, simple, often incisely lobed, especially those near the end of vigorous 

 branchlets, petiolate, deciduous, the petioles in falling leaving narrow horizontal scars 

 marked by the ends of three equidistant fibro- vascular bundles; stipules free from the 

 petioles, filiform, early deciduous. Flowers in short terminal racemes, with filiform de- 

 ciduous bracts and bractlets, on short lateral spur-like often spinescent branchlets; calyx- 

 tube obconic, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, acuminate, becoming reflexed, 

 persistent and erect on the fruit or deciduous; petals rounded at apex, contracted below 

 into a stalk-like base, white, pink or rose color; stamens usually 20 in 3 series, those of the 

 outer series opposite the petals; carpels 3-5, usually 5, alternate with the petals, united into 

 an inferior ovary; styles united at base; ovules 2 in each cell, ascending; raphe dorsal; 

 micropyle inferior. Fruit a pome with homogeneous flesh, and papery carpels joined at 

 apex, free in the middle; seeds 2, or by abortion 1 in each cell, ovoid, acute, erect, without 

 albumen; seed-coat cartilaginous, chestnut-brown and lustrous; embryo erect; cotyledons 

 plano-convex, fleshy; radicle short, inferior. Malus is confined to North America where 

 nine species have been recognized, to western and southeastern Europe, and to central, 

 southern, and eastern Asia. Of exotic species, Malus pumila Mill, of southeastern Europe 

 and central Asia, the Apple-tree of orchards, has become widely naturalized in north- 

 eastern North America. Several of the species of eastern Asia and their hybrids are cul- 

 tivated for their handsome flowers, or for then- fruits, the Siberian Crabs of pomologists. 



Malus is the classical name of the Apple-tree. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 



Calyx persistent on the green or rarely yellow fruit covered with a waxy exudation; leaves 

 of vigorous shoots laterally lobed; anthers dark (Chloromeles). 

 Leaves glabrous at maturity. 



