784 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



length, oblong or slightly obovoid, crowned with the pointed remnants of the style, dark 

 purple, marked by conspicuous scattered pale dots, and 1' long, with thick tough skin and 

 thin acid flesh; stone obovoid, rounded at the narrow apex, pointed at base, flattened, light 



Fig. 703 



brown or nearly white, and about 10-ridged, the ridges acute and wing-like, with thin 

 separable margins, and sometimes united by short intermediate ridges. 



A tree, 80-100 high, with a trunk 3-4 in diameter above the greatly enlarged tapering 

 base, comparatively small spreading branches forming a narrow oblong or pyramidal head, 

 stout pithy branchlets dark red and coated with pale tomentum when they first appear, 

 soon becoming glabrous or nearly so, and in their first winter light or bright red-brown and 

 marked by small scattered pale lenticels and by the conspicuous elevated nearly orbicular 

 leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 large fibro- vascular bundles, and thick corky roots. 

 Winter-buds; terminal nearly globose, with broad ovate light chestnut-brown scales 

 keeled on the back and rounded and apiculate at apex, those of the inner ranks accrescent 

 and at maturity oblong-ovate or oblong-obovate, rounded at apex, 1' or more long, and 

 bright yellow; axillary minute, obtuse, nearly imbedded in the bark. Bark of the trunk 

 about I' thick, dark brown, longitudinally furrowed, and roughened on the surface by 

 small scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, difficult to split, light brown or 

 often nearly white, with thick sapwood sometimes composed of more than 100 layers of 

 annual growth; used in the manufacture of wooden-ware, broom-handles, and wooden 

 shoes, and largely for fruit and vegetable boxes. The wood of the roots is sometimes em- 

 ployed instead of cork for the floats of nets. 



Distribution. Deep swamps inundated during a part of every year; coast region of the 

 Atlantic states from southeastern Virginia to northern Florida, through the Gulf states to 

 the valley of the Nueces River, Texas, and through Arkansas and southern and southeast- 

 ern Missouri to western Kentucky and Tennessee, and to the valley of the lower Wabash 

 River, Illinois; of its greatest size in the Cypress-swamps of western Louisiana and eastern 

 Texas. 



! LH. CORNACEJE. 



Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, scaly buds, and alternate or opposite deciduous 

 leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect or polygamo-dicecious; calyx 4 or 5-toothed, 

 petals 4 or 5; stamens inserted on the margin of the epigynous disk; anthers oblong; 

 introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 1 or 2-celled; ovule solitary, 

 suspended from the interior angle of the apex of the cell, anatropous; micropyle supe- 

 rior. Fruit drupaceous, l^or 2-seeded. Seed oblong-ovoid; seed-coat membranaceous; 



