ROSACE^E 



391 



nearly triangular lobes tipped with minute glands and about half as long as the nearly 

 orbicular creamy white petals. Fruit \' in diameter, subglobose or slightly pyriform, 

 bright orange-red, with thin flesh; seeds pale chestnut color, rounded at apex, acute at 

 base, about -|' long. 



A tree, 20-30 high, with a. trunk rarely more than a foot in diameter, spreading slender 

 branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and stout branchlets pubescent at first, 

 soon glabrous, becoming in their first winter brown tinged with red, and marked by the 

 large leaf-scars and by oblong pale remote lenticels, and darker in their second year, the 

 thin papery outer layer of bark then easily separable from the bright green fragrant inner 

 layers; more often a tall or sometimes a low shrub, with numerous stems. Winter-buds 

 acute, i'-f long, with dark vinous red acuminate scales rounded on the back, more or 

 less pilose, covered with a gummy exudation, the inner scales hoary-tomentose in the bud. 

 Bark \' thick, with a smooth light gray surface irregularly broken by small appressed 

 plate-like scales. Wood close-grained, light, soft and weak, pale brown, with lighter colored 

 sapwood of 15-20 layers of annual growth. The astringent fruit is employed domestically 

 in infusions and decoctions, and in homoeopathic remedies. 



Distribution. Borders of swamps and rocky hillsides; Newfoundland to Manitoba 

 and southward through the maritime provinces of Canada, Quebec and Ontario, the 

 elevated portions of the northeastern United States and the region of the Great Lakes to 

 Minnesota, and on the Appalachian Mountains from western Pennsylvania and West Virginia 

 to North Carolina and Tennessee; in North Carolina ascending to altitudes of nearly 

 6000; probably of its largest size on the northern shores of Lakes Huron and Superior; 

 in the United States, except in New England, more often a shrub than a tree; on the Appa- 

 lachian Mountains usually low, with narrower leaflets and smaller fruit than northward. 



Often cultivated in Canada and the northeastern States for the beauty of its fruit and 

 the brilliancy of its autumn foliage. Of its forms the most distinct is 



Sorbus americana var. decora Sarg. 

 Pyrun .lambucifolia A. Gray, not Cham, and Schlecht. 

 Pyrus americana var. decora Sarg. 

 Sorbus decora Schn. 



Sorbus scopulina Britt., in part, not Greene. 

 Pyrus sitchensis Rob. and Fern., not Piper. 



Leaves 4'-6' long, with 7-13 oblong-oval to ovate-lanceolate leaflets blunt and rounded, 

 abruptly short-pointed or acuminate at apex, pubescent below as they unfold, at matu- 



Fig. 348 



