790 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



red-stemmed clusters, ripening in October, subglobose, dark blue-black, or rarely yellow 

 (f. ochrocarpa Rehd.), ' in diameter, tipped with the remnants of the style rising from the 

 bottom of a small depression, with thin and bitter flesh; and an obovoid nutlet, pointed at 

 base, gradually longitudinally many-grooved, thick-walled, and 1 or 2-seeded ; seeds lunate, 

 I' long, with a thin membranaceous pale coat. 



A flat-topped tree, rarely 25-30 high, with a short trunk 6'-8' in diameter, long slen- 

 der alternate diverging horizontal branches, and numerous short upright slender branchlets 

 pale orange-green or reddish brown when they first appear, mostly light green or sometimes 

 brown tinged with green during their first winter, later turning darker green and marked by 

 pale lunate leaf-scars and small scattered pale lenticels; often a shrub, with numerous stems. 

 Bark of the trunk about f ' thick, dark reddish brown, and smooth or divided by shallow 

 longitudinal fissures into narrow ridges irregularly broken transversely. Wood heavy, 

 hard, close-grained, brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 20-30 

 layers of annual growth. 



Distribution. Rich woodlands, the margins of the forest, and the borders of streams 

 and swamps, in moist well-drained soil, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, westward along 

 the valley of the St. Lawrence River to the northern shores of Lake Superior and to Minne- 

 sota, and southward through the northern states and along the Appalachian Mountains to 

 North Carolina, up to altitudes of 3500-4000, in northern Alabama, southwestern Geor- 

 gia, and western Florida (River Junction, Gadsden County, T. G. Hat bison). 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states. 



Section 2. Gamopetalae. Corolla of united petals (divided in Elliottia in 

 Ericaceae in some species of Fraxinus In Oleacece). 



A. Ovary superior (inferior in Vaccinium in Ericaceae, partly inferior in 

 Symplocaceos, partly superior in Styraceoe) 



LIE. ERICACEAE. 



Trees or shrubs, with scaly buds, and alternate simple leaves, without stipules. Flowers 

 perfect, regular; calyx 4-5-lobed; corolla hypogynous, 5-lobed (of 4 petals in Elliottia), 

 the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens hypogynous, mostly free from the corolla, as 

 many, or twice as many as its lobes; anthers introrse, 2-celled, opening by terminal pores, 

 often a'ppendaged; ovary 4-10-celled (inferior in Vaccinium); styles terminal, simple, 

 stigma terminal; ovules numerous, anatropous or amphitropous; raphe ventral; micropyle 

 superior. Fruit capsular, drupaceous, or baccate. Seeds with fleshy or horny albumen, 

 embryo small; cotyledons small and short. 



The Heath family with seventy-one genera is widely distributed over the temperate and 

 tropical parts of the earth's surface. Of the twenty-one genera found in the United States 

 seven have arborescent representatives. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Ovary superior. 



Corolla of 4 petals; flowers in erect racemose panicles; leaves deciduous. 1. Elliottia. 

 Corolla gamopetalous, 5-lobed. 

 Fruit capsular. 



Capsule septicidal, the valves in opening separating from the persistent placentifer- 

 ous axis; calyx-lobes imbricated in the bud; leaves persistent (sometimes decidu- 

 ous). 



Flowers in terminal clusters; corolla 5-lobed; inflorescence-buds conic, covered 

 with closely imbricated scales; leaves re volute on the margins. 



2. Rhododendron. 



Flowers in axillary clusters; corolla saucer-shaped, with a short narrow tube and 

 10 pouches below the short limb, the anthers in the pouches in the bud: inflo- 

 rescence-buds elongated, covered with loosely imbricated scales; leaves flat. 



3. Kalmia. 



