616 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



rounded capitate stigma; ovules numerous, suspended from the inner angle of the ovary, 

 superposed, amphitropous. Legume terete, much contracted between the seeds, woody or 

 fleshy, usually many-seeded, each seed inclosed in a separate cell, indehiscent. Seed 

 oblong or oval, sometimes somewhat compressed; seed-coat thick, membranaceous or 

 crustaceous; cotyledons thick and fleshy; radicle short and straight or more or less elon- 

 gated and incurved. 



Sophora is scattered over the warmer parts of the two hemispheres, with about twenty 

 species of trees, shrubs or herbs; of the six North American species two are small trees. 

 Several of the species produce valuable wood, and from the pods and flower-buds of the 

 Chinese Sophora japonica L., a dye is obtained used to dye white cloth yellow and blue 

 cloth green. This tree is often cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in northern 

 China, Japan, the eastern United States, and in western, central, and southern Europe. 



The generic name is from Soph-era, the Arabic name of some tree with pea-shaped flowers. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES. 



Flowers violet blue, in terminal racemes; the upper calyx-lobes larger than the others and 

 united; legume woody; seeds without albumen; leaves coriaceous, persistent. 



1. S. secundiflora (C, E, H). 



Flowers white, in axillary racemes; calyx-lobes equal; legume fleshy; seeds with albumen; 

 leaves thin, deciduous. 2. S. affinis (C). 



1. Sophora secundiflora DC. Frijolito. Coral Bean. 



Leaves persistent, covered when they unfold, especially on the lower surface of the 

 leaflets, with silky white hairs, and at maturity 4 '-6' long, with a stout puberulous petiole 

 slightly enlarged at base, and 7-9 oblong-elliptic leaflets rounded, emarginate or sometimes 



Fig. 564 



mucronate at apex, gradually contracted at base into a short thick petiolule, coriaceous, 

 lustrous and dark yellow-green above, rather paler below, glabrous or sometimes slightly 

 puberulous along the under side of the stout midrib, entire, with thickened margins, con- 

 spicuously reticulate- veined, l'-2' long, '-!' wide, without stipels. Flowers with a 

 powerful and delicious fragrance, appearing with the young leaves in very early spring, 

 1' long, on stout pedicels sometimes 1' in length, from the axils of subulate deciduous 

 bracts \' or more long, and bibracteolate with 2 acute bractlets, in terminal 1-sided 

 canescent racemes 2'-3' in length; calyx campanulate, slightly enlarged on the upper side, 

 the 3 lower teeth triangular and nearly equal, the 2 upper rather larger and united almost 



