720 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



June and falling irregularly during the winter. Flowers in 2-4-floweivd short-stemmed 

 fascicles, on branchlets of the year. Fruit ripening irregularly during the summer, \' long, 

 dark blue or black, with a sweet pleasant flavor. 



A tree, sometimes 30 high, with a trunk 6 '-8' in diameter, erect rigid zigzag branchlets 

 terminating in a stout spine and covered at first with soft velvety pubescence, becoming 

 glabrous before the end of their first season, pale red-brown and often covered with thin 

 scales; more often a shrub. Bark of the trunk about f ' thick, divided into flat shallow 

 ridges, the dark brown surface tinged with red separating into thin scales. Wood very 

 heavy, hard, close-grained, light red, with light yellow sapwood of 7-8 layers of annual 

 growth; burning with an intense heat and valued as fuel. 



Distribution. Southwestern Texas from Jackson County (Vanderbilt) and Corpus 

 Christi, Nueces County, to the Rio Grande and to Comal and Valverde Counties; in 

 northeastern Mexico; of tree-like habit and of its largest size on the high sandy banks of 

 the lower Rio Grande and its tributaries; often covering large areas with dense impenetra- 

 ble chaparrai. 



2. REYNOSIA Griseb. 



Trees or shrubs, with rigid unarmed terete branches, and scaly buds. Leaves mostly 

 opposite, entire, coriaceous, short-pet iolate, reticulate-veined, persistent. Flowers minute, 

 on stout pedicels bibracteolate near the base and two or three times longer than the flower, 

 in small axillary sessile umbels; calyx persistent, .3-lobed, the lobes deltoid or ovate, acute or 

 acuminate, spreading, petaloid, deciduous; disk fleshy; petals 0; stamens 5, inserted on the 

 margin of the disk, rather shorter than the calyx-lobes; filaments incurved; anthers oval; 

 ovary free from the disk, almost superior, conic, 2-3-celIed, contracted into a short erect 

 thick style; stigma 2-3-lobed. Fruit drupaceous; flesh thin; stone crustaceo-membrana- 

 ceous. Seed ovoid or subglobose; seed-coat very thin, conspicuously rugose and tubercu- 

 late; embryo axile in copious subcorneous ruminate albumen; cotyledons oblong. 



Reynosia is distributed from southern Florida and the Bahama Islands to the Antilles. 

 Four species are recognized; of these, one, a small tree, extends into southern Florida. 



The generic name is in honor of Alvaro Reynoso (1830-1888), the distinguished Cuban 

 chemist and writer on agriculture and scientific subjects. 



1. Reynosia septentrionalis Urb. Red Ironwood. Darling Plum. 

 Leaves oblong to ovate or obovate, or sometimes nearly orbicular, rounded, truncate or 



Fig. 647 



frequently emarginate and usually minutely apiculate at apex, gradually narrowed at base 

 into a short broad petiole, very thick and coriaceous, dark green on the upper, rather paler 



