714 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



Georgia (Miss J.King); hummocks, peninsular of Florida to Alachua and Manitee Coun- 

 ties; not common; in Cuba. 



3. Sapindus Drummondii Hook. & Arn. Wild China-tree. 



Leaves appearing in March and April, with a slender grooved puberulous rachis, with- 

 out wings, and 4-9 pairs of alternate obliquely lanceolate acuminate leaflets, glabrous on 

 the upper surface and covered with short pale pubescence on the lower surface, coriaceous, 



Fig. 642 



prominently reticulate- venulose, pale yellow-green, 1'-$' long, '-f ' wide, short-petiolulate; 

 deciduous in the autumn or early winter. Flowers appearing in May and June in clusters 

 6 '-9' long and 5 '-6' wide, with a pubescent many-angled stem and branches; sepals acute 

 and concave, ciliate on the margins, much shorter than the obovate white petals rounded 

 at apex, contracted into a long claw hairy on the inner surface and furnished at base with a 

 deeply cleft scale hairy on the margins; filaments hairy, with long soft hairs. Fruit ripen- 

 ing in September and October, persistent -on the branches until the following spring, gla- 

 brous, not keeled, yellow, \' in diameter, turning black in drying; seeds obovoid, dark 

 brown. 



A tree, 40-50 high, with a trunk sometimes l|-2 in diameter, usually erect branches, 

 and branchlets at first slightly many-angled, pale yellow-green, pubescent, becoming in 

 their second year terete, pale gray, slightly puberulous, and marked by numerous small 

 lenticels. Bark of the trunk \'-\' thick, separating by deep fissures into long narrow plates 

 broken on the surface into small red-brown scales. Wood heavy, strong, close-grained, 

 light brown tinged w r ith yellow, with lighter colored sapwood of about 30 layers of annual 

 growth; splitting easily into thin strips and largely used in the manufacture of baskets used 

 in harvesting cotton, and for the frames of pack-saddles. 



Distribution. Moist clay soil or dry limestone uplands; southwestern Missouri to north- 

 eastern and southern Kansas, eastern Louisiana (Tangipahoa Parish R. S. Cocks), and to 

 extreme western and southwestern Oklahoma, through eastern Texas to the Rio Grande, 

 over the Edwards Plateau, and in the mountain valleys of western Texas and of southern 

 New Mexico and Arizona; in northern Mexico. 



2. EXOTHEA Macf. 



A tree, with thin scaly bark, and terete branchlets covered with lenticels. Leaves petio- 

 late, abruptly pinnate or 3 or rarely 1-foliolate, glabrous, without stipules, persistent; leaf- 

 lets oblong or oblong-ovate, acute, rounded or emarginate at apex, with entire undulate 



