CYRILLACE.E 



667 



often a broad bush sending up many slender stems 15-20 high. Winter-buds about f long. 

 Bark of the trunk rarely more than \' thick except near the base of old trees, and covered by 

 large thin bright red-brown scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, not strong, brown 

 tinged with red, with rather lighter colored sapwood. The spongy bark at the base of 

 the trunk is pliable, absorbent, and astringent, and has been recommended as a styptic. 

 Distribution. Rich shaded river-bottoms, the borders of sandy swamps and shallow 

 ponds of the coast Pine-belt, or on high sandy exposed ridges rising above streams near 

 the Gulf coast; southeastern Virginia southward near the coast to northern Florida 

 and westward along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Neches River, Texas; in Lake 

 County, Florida, and ranging northward in Mississippi to Forrest County (near Hat- 

 tiesburg, T. G. Harbison), and in Alabama to Dallas County; in swamps near the coast 

 of western Florida often a low shrub with smaller leaves and shorter racemes (var. parvi- 

 flora Sarg.); in Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico, Demarara, and Brazil (var. racemifera Sarg.). 



2. CLIFTONIA Gaertn. f. 



A glabrous tree or shrub, with thick dark brown scaly bark, slender terete branchlets 

 marked by conspicuous leaf-scars, and small acuminate buds covered by chestnut-brown 

 scales. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, rounded or slightly emarginate at apex, glandular- 

 punctate, short-petiolate, persistent. Flowers on pedicels from the axils of large acumi- 

 nate membranaceous alternate bracts deciduous before the opening of the flowers, in short 

 terminal erect racemes; calyx 5-8-lobed, equal or unequal, broad-ovoid, rounded or acumi- 

 nate at apex, much shorter than the 5-8 obovate unguiculate concave white or rose-colored 

 sepals; stamens 10, opposite and alternate with the sepals, inserted with and shorter than 

 the petals, 2-ranked, those of the outer rank longer than the others; filaments laterally en- 

 larged near the middle, flattened below, subulate above; disk cup-shaped, surrounding the 

 base of the oblong 2-4-winged 2-4-celled ovary; stigma subsessile, obscurely 2-4-lobed; 

 ovules 2 in each cell, suspended from its apex. Fruit oblong, 2-4-winged, crowned with 

 the remnants of the persistent style, 3 or rarely 4-celled; pericarp spongy, the wings thin 

 and membranaceous. Seed 1 in each cell, terete, tapering to the ends, suspended; cotyle- 

 dons very short. 



Cliftonia is represented by a single species of the south Atlantic and Gulf states. 



The generic name is in honor of Dr. Francis Clifton (d. 1736), an English physician. 



1. Cliftonia monophylla Britt. Titi. Ironwood. 



Leaves 1V-2' long, ^'-1' wide, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler on 

 the lower surface; persistent until the autumn of their second year. Flowers fragrant, 



Fig. 602 



