830 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



with small apiculate teeth, when they unfold ciliate on the margins, slightly stellate-pubes- 

 cent on the midrib and veins above, and coated below with hoary tomentum, and at ma- 

 turity pale green and glabrous or nearly glabrous above, pale tomentose and villose on the 



Fig. 736 



midrib and veins below, 2^'-5' long and l'-3' wide; petioles j' in length, hoary-tomentose 

 early in the season, becoming pubescent. Flowers opening in early spring after the leaves 

 are more than half grown, f'-l' long, on slender pubescent or tomentose pedicels |' in 

 length, in tomentose leafy erect or spreading axillary racemes 5' or 6' long, their bracts and 

 bractlets linear, minute, tomentose, caducous; calyx more or less coarsely 5-toothed, mem- 

 branaceous, tomentose on the outer surface; corolla 5-parted, the lobes longer than the 

 tube, imbricated in the bud, membranaceous, oblong-obovate, rounded or acute at apex, 

 stellate-pubescent on the outer surface; stamens 10, about as long as the corolla, vil- 

 lose-pubescent below the middle, united below into a short ring; ovary slightly inferior, 

 obovoid, tomentose, 3-celled; style filiform, glabrous, exserted; ovules 3 or 4 in each cell. 

 Fruit hoary-tomentose, slightly obovoid, rounded and tipped at apex with the remnants of 

 the style, gradually narrow r ed and surrounded below by the calyx, |' long, and \' in diam- 

 eter, the outer coat crustaceous, indehiscent; seed obovoid, dark orange-brown, filling the 

 cavity of the fruit. 



A tree, rarely 40 high, with a tall straight trunk sometimes 8' in diameter, short 

 spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender branchlets thickly 

 coated when they first appear with hoary stellate pubescence more or less persistent during 

 three seasons, ultimately glabrous and light or dark chestnut-brown; more often a broad 

 shrub 6-20 high. Bark of the trunk %'-%' thick, close, smooth and dark red-brown. 

 Winter-buds: axillary, often 3, superposed, acute, covered with hoary ultimately rusty 

 tomentum, about \' long. 



Distribution. Low wet woods and the borders of swamps; southeastern Virginia, south- 

 ward usually near the coast to the valley of the Apalachicola River, Florida, and through 

 the Gulf states to western Louisiana, ranging inland to northern Georgia, northeastern 

 Mississippi, and to the valley of the Red River at Natchitoches, Louisiana; of its largest 

 size and perhaps only arborescent near Laurel Hill, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. 



LIX. SYMPLOCACE^. 



Trees or shrubs, with simple pubescence, watery juice, scaly buds, and fibrous roots. 

 Leaves simple, alternate, coriaceous or thin, pinnately veined, usually becoming yellow 



