BOSACE.E 393 



scure reticulate ridges. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, dark red-brown, with thin 

 lighter colored sap wood of 7 or 8 layers of annual growth. The fruit-covered branches 

 are gathered in large quantities and used in California in Christmas decorations. 



Distribution. Usually in the neighborhood of streams or on dry hills and especially 

 on their northern slopes, and often on steep sea-cliffs; California: coast region from Men- 

 docino County to Lower California; most common and of its largest size on the islands off 



Fig. 349 



the California coast; on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and on the San Bernardino 

 Mountains up to altitudes of 2000 above the sea and usually shrubby; very abundant 

 and forming groves of considerable extent on the island of Santa Catalina. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in California, and rarely in the countries 

 of southern Europe. 



6. AMELANCHIER Med. 



Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, slender terete branchlets, acute or acuminate buds, 

 with imbricated scales, those of the inner rows accrescent and bright-colored, and fibrous 

 roots. Leaves alternate, conduplicate in the bud, simple, entire or serrate, penniveined, 

 petiolate, deciduous; stipules free from the petioles, linear, elongated, rose color, cadu- 

 cous. Flowers in erect or terminal racemes, on slender bibracteolate pedicels developed 

 from the axils of lanceolate acuminate pink deciduous bracts; calyx-tube campanulate 

 or urceolate, the lobes acute or acuminate, recurved, persistent on the fruit; disk green, 

 entire or crenulate, nectariferous; petals white, obovate-oblong, spatulate or ligulate, 

 rounded, acute or truncate at apex, gradually contracted below into a short slender claw; 

 stamens usually 20, inserted in 3 rows, those of the outer row opposite the petals; filaments 

 subulate, persistent on the fruit, anthers oblong; ovary inferior or superior, more or less 

 adnate to the calyx-tube, the summit glabrous or tomentose, 5-celled, each cell incom- 

 pletely divided by a false partition; styles 2-5, connate below, spreading and dilated 

 above into a broad truncate stigma; ovules 2 in each cell, erect; micropyle inferior. Fruit 

 subglobose or pyriform, dark blue or bluish black, often covered with a glaucous bloom, 

 open at the summit, the cavity surrounded by the lobes of the calyx and the remnants 

 of the filaments; flesh sweet, dry or juicy; carpels membranaceous, free or connate, gla- 

 brous, or villose at apex. Seeds 10 or often 5 by the abortion of 1 of the ovules in each 

 cell, ovoid-ellipsoid; seed-coat coriaceous, dark chestnut-brown, mucilaginous; embryo 

 filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons plano-convex; radicle inferior. 



Amelanchier is widely distributed with many species through the temperate, northern 



