562 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



|'-f long, in 2-5-flowered umbels; calyx-tube narrow-obconic, bright red, glabrous or 

 puberulous, green on the inner surface, the lobes lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, obtuse 

 or acute, eglandular or obscurely glandular above the middle, usually dentate toward the 

 apex, glabrous or puberulous on the outer surface, soft-pubescent on the inner surface; 

 petals rounded and irregularly laciniate at apex, contracted below into a long narrow claw, 

 bright red at base, f ' long and \ f wide. Fruit ripening in June at the south and from the 

 middle of August to early October at the north, subglobose or slightly elongated, usually 

 rather less than 1 ' in diameter, in ripening turning from green to orange often with a red 

 cheek, becoming bright red when fully ripe, usually destitute of bloom and more or less 

 conspicuously marked by pale spots, with a thick tough acerb skin and bright yellow suc- 

 culent rather juicy acid flesh; stone oval slightly rugose rounded at apex, more or less nar- 

 rowed at base, f '-!' long and f-' f' wide, often as thick as broad, slightly and acutely 

 ridged on the ventral suture and obscurely grooved on the dorsal suture. 



A tree 20-35 high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 1 in diameter and dividing usually 4 

 or 5 from the ground into many spreading branches often pendulous at the end and form- 

 ing a broad graceful head and slender glabrous branchlets at first bright green, light 

 orange-brown during their first winter, becoming darker and often tinged with red and 

 marked by minute circular raised lenticels, and furnished with long slender remote some- 

 times spinescent lateral branchlets; usually spreading by shoots from the roots into broad 

 thickets, or in the Gulf States growing with a single stem. Winter-buds acute, |'-|' long, the 

 chestnut-brown scales more or less erose on the margins, the inner scales when fully grown 

 foliaceous, \' long, oblong, acute, remotely serrate, with 2 narrow acuminate latera 1 lobes. 

 Bark about \' thick, dark brown tinged with red, the outer layer separating into long thin 

 persistent plates, southward often lighter-colored. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, 

 strong, dark rich brown tinged w : ith red, w r ith thin lighter-colored sapwood. The fruit is 

 sometimes used in the preparation of jellies and preserves, and is eaten raw 7 or cooked. 



Distribution. In the middle and northern states in rich soil, growing along the borders 

 of streams and swamps; in the south Atlantic states often in river swamps; west of the 



I 



Fig. 516 



Mississippi on bottom-lands, dry uplands and low mountain slopes; western Connecticut 

 (Gaylordsville,Litchfield County), Eastern Greenbush, Rensselaer County and central New 

 York to southern Ontario, central Michigan and northern Indiana, and northwestward to 

 North Dakota, Manitoba (near Brandon), the Bitter Root Mountains, Wyoming and west- 

 ern Montana (Dixon, Sanders County), and southward to western Florida, central Mis- 

 sissippi. Alabama, eastern Louisiana, Missouri, southern Arkansas, eastern Kansas and 

 Oklahoma, and in the Rocky Mountain region along the eastern foothills of Colorado to 



