832 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



the flowers the following spring; petioles stout, slightly winged, |'-' in length. Flowers; 

 flower-clusters inclosed in the bud by ovate acute orange-colored scales brown and ciliate 

 on the margins, each of the flow 7 er-buds surrounded by 3 imbricated oblong bracts rounded 

 or pointed at apex and ciliate on the margins, the longest as long as the calyx and one third 

 longer than the 2 lateral bracts; flowers fragrant, opening from the 1st of March at the 

 south to the middle of May on the southern Appalachian Mountains, on short pedicels en- 

 larged into thick hemispheric receptacles covered with long white hairs, in nearly sessile 

 many-flowered clusters in the axils of leaves of the previous year; calyx oblong, cup-shaped, 

 dark green and puberulous, with minute ovate scarious lobes rounded at apex; corolla 

 creamy white, \' long, with rounded lobes; stamens exserted, with slender filaments united 

 at base into 5 clusters, and orange-colored anthers; ovary 3-celled, furnished on the top 

 with 5 dark nectariferous glands placed opposite the lobes of the calyx, and abruptly con- 

 tracted into a slender style gradually thickened toward the apex and longer than the corolla. 

 Fruit ripening in the summer or early autumn, ovoid, \' long, dark orange-colored or brown; 

 seed ovoid, pointed, with a thin papery chestnut-brown coat. 



A tree, occasionally 30-35 high, with a short trunk barely exceeding 6'-8' in diameter, 

 slender upright branches forming an open head, and stout terete pithy branchlets light 

 green and coated with pale or rufous tomentum when they first appear, or sometimes gla- 

 brous, and covered with scattered white hairs, reddish brown to ashy gray, tinged with red 

 and usually more or less pubescent or often covered with a glaucous bloom during their 

 first and second years, later growing darker, roughened by occasional small elevated lenti- 

 cels and marked by the low horizontal obcordate leaf-scars displaying a central cluster of 

 large fibro- vascular bundle-scars; or more often a shrub. Whiter-buds ovoid, acute, cov- 

 ered with broad-ovate nearly triangular acute scales, those of the inner rows accrescent on 

 the young branchlets, and at maturity oblong-obovate, rounded and often apiculate at 

 apex, light green, glabrous or pilose, ciliate on the margins, and often \' in length. Bark of 

 the trunk \'-\' thick, ashy gray slightly tinged with red, divided by occasional narrow fis- 

 sures and roughened by wart-like excrescences. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light red 

 or brown, with thick lighter colored often nearly white sapwood of 18-20 layers of annual 

 growth. The leaves are sweet to the taste and are devoured in the autumn by cattle and 

 horses, and, like the bark, yield a yellow dye occasionally used domestically. The bitter 

 aromatic roots have been used as a tonic. 



Distribution. Moist rich soil, often in the shade of dense forests; peninsula of Delaware 

 to northern Florida and from the coast to altitudes of nearly 4000 on the Blue Ridge in 

 North and South Carolina, and to eastern Texas and southern Arkansas; in the Gulf states 

 usually along the borders of Cypress-swamps. 



LX. OLEACE^l. 



Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, scaly buds, their inner scales accrescent, opposite 

 leaves, without stipules, and fibrous roots. Flowers perfect, dioecious or polygamous, 

 regular; calyx 4-lobed, or 0; corolla of 2-4 petals, or 0; disk 0; stamens 2-4, rudimentary or 

 in unisexual pistillate flowers; anthers attached on the back below the middle, often apicu- 

 late by the prolongation of the connective, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudi- 

 nally usually by lateral slits: ovary free, 2 or rarely 3-celled, rudimentary or in the stami- 

 nate flower; style simple; ovules 2 in each cell, pendulous, anatropous; micropyle superior. 

 Fruit (in the North American arborescent genera) a samara or berry. Seed pendulous; 

 seed-coat membranaceous; embryo straight in copious fleshy albumen; cotyledons flat, 

 much longer than the short terete superior radicle turned toward the minute hilum. 



The Olive family with twenty-five genera is widely distributed in temperate and tropical 

 regions chiefly in the northern hemisphere. Of the five genera indigenous to the United 

 States four are arborescent. To this family belong Olea europcea L., the Olive-tree of the 

 Mediterranean basin, now largely cultivated in California for its fruit, and the Lilacs, For- 

 sythias, Privets, and Jasmines, favorite garden plants in all countries with temperate cli- 

 mates. 



