824 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



An intricately branched tree, occasionally 40-50 high, with a trunk 18'-20' in diameter, 

 dividing at some distance above the ground into a number of stout upright branches form- 

 ing a narrow round-topped head, and slender terete slightly zigzag branchlets, coated at 

 first with pale or rufous tomentum, ashy gray, glabrous or puberulous during their first 

 winter, later becoming brow r n and marked by minute pale lenticels and by small elevated 

 semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying a lunate row of fibro- vascular bundle-scars; often much 

 smaller, and toward the northern and western limits of its range a low many-stemmed 

 shrub. Winter-buds obtuse, barely more than -fa' long, with broad-ovate scales rounded on 

 the back and coated with rufous tomentum. Bark of the trunk smooth, light gray slightly 

 tinged with red, the outer layer falling away in large irregularly shaped patches displaying 

 the smooth gray inner bark. Wood heavy, with black heartwood often streaked with 

 yellow and clear bright yellow sap wood; used in turnery and for the handles of tools. The 

 fruit, which is exceedingly austere until it is fully ripe, stains black, and is sometimes used 

 by Mexicans in the valley of the Rio Grande to dye sheepskins 



Distribution. Southwestern Texas, Matagorda County (neighborhood of Matagorda 

 and Bay City) to the lower Rio Grande, and northward to San Saba, Lampasas and Bexar 

 Counties; in Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas; possibly in southern Lower California; 

 abundant in western and southern Texas; in the neighborhood of the coast on the borders 

 of prairies in rich moist soil; westward on dry rocky mesas and in isolated canons; very 

 common and of its largest size in the region between the Sierra Madre and the coast of the 

 Gulf of Mexico in Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. 



LVIII. STYRACE^E. 



Trees or shrubs, with stellate pubescence or lepidote, watery juice, and scaly buds. 

 Leaves alternate, simple, penniveined, without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect; calyx 

 more or less adnate to the tube of the corolla; disk 0; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells 

 opening longitudinally; ovary superior or partly superior, crowned with a simple style; 

 ovules anatropous. Fruit drupaceous, with thin dry flesh, and a thick-walled 1-seeded 

 bony stone. Seeds, with albumen. 



The Storax family is confined to North and South America, the Mediterranean region, 

 eastern Asia and the Malay Archipelago. Of the six genera of this family two are repre- 

 sented in the flora of North America. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Calyx adherent to the whole surface of the ovary; corolla 4-lobed. Fruit oblong-obovoid, 

 2 or 4-celled and 2 or 4-winged. 1. Halesia. 



Calyx adherent to the base only of the ovary; corolla usually 5-parted. Fruit subglobose, 

 1-celled. 2. Styrax. 



i. HALESIA L. SILVER BELL TREE. 



Trees or shrubs, with stellate pubescence, slender terete pithy branchlets, without a ter- 

 minal bud, axillary buds with imbricated accrescent scales, and fibrous roots. Leaves in- 

 volute in the bud, thin, elliptic, oblong-ovate or oblong-ovoid, denticulate, deciduous. 

 Flowers opening in early spring, on slender elongated drooping ebracteolate pedicels from 

 the axils of foliaceous acuminate or acute caducous bracts, in fascicles or short racemes 

 from the axils of leaves of the previous year; calyx- tube obconic, adherent to the whole 

 surface of the ovary, the limb short, 4-toothed, with minute triangular teeth, open in the 

 bud; corolla epigynous, campanulate, 4-lobed, or divided nearly to the base, the lobes con- 

 volute or imbricated in the bud, thin and white or rarely tinged with rose; stamens 8-16; 

 filaments elongated, shorter than the corolla, slightly attached at base, or sometimes free, 

 flattened below; anthers oblong, adnate or free at the very base; ovary 2 or 4-celled, gradu- 

 ally contracted into an elongate glabrous or tomentose style stigmatic at apex; ovules 4 in 

 each cell, attached by elongated funiculi at the middle of the axis, the 2 upper ascending, 



