OLEACE.E 



839 



River, and to the valley of the Neches River (Beaumont, Jefferson County), Texas, and 

 northward through western Louisiana to southwestern (Malvern, Hot Springs County) 

 Arkansas; east of the Mississippi River occasionally appearing in isolated stations remote 

 from the coast (Anson County, North Carolina, C. L. Boynton, Pike County, Georgia, 

 R. H. Harper, Forest County, Mississippi, T. G. Harbison); in Cuba. 



6. Fraxinus pauciflora Nutt. Water Ash. 

 Fraxinus floridana Sarg. 



Leaves 5 '-9' long, with an elongated stout terete petiole, and 3-7, usually 5, elliptic to 

 oblong-obovate or ovate leaflets, acuminate oij rarely abruptly pointed at apex, gradually 

 narrowed and rounded at the often unsymmetric base, finely or coarsely serrate, scurfy- 

 pubescent above and hoary-tomentose below when they unfold, and at maturity thick and 



Fig. 743 



firm, dark green and glabrous or puberulous on the upper surface and more or less tomen- 

 tose on the lower surface, 3'-4' long and l'-l \' wide, with a slender midrib, and thin pri- 

 mary veins arcuate and united within the thickened revolute margins; petiolules of the lat- 

 eral leaflets \'-\' long, much shorter than those of the terminal leaflet. Flowers dioecious, 

 appearing late in February or early in March, in elongated panicles inclosed in the bud by 

 chestnut-brown pubescent scales; staminate flower composed of an annular disk and 2 or 3 

 stamens, with short filaments and apiculate anthers; calyx of the pistillate flower cup- 

 shaped, slightly lobed, as long as the ovary gradually narrowed into the slender style. 

 Fruit oblong to lanceolate or oblanceolate, surrounded at base by the persistent calyx, l'-2' 

 long, \'-\' wide, marked on eafch of the 2 faces by a broad impressed midvein, the body near 

 the base of the many-nerved wing narrowed, rounded, and emarginate at apex. 



A tree, 30-40 high, with a trunk sometimes 12' in diameter, small spreading branches, 

 and slender terete branchlets light orange-brown and occasionally marked by large pale 

 lenticels during their first season, ashy gray and roughened the following year by the large 

 horizontal obcordate elevated leaf-scars displaying a central ring of fibro- vascular bundle- 

 scars. Winter-buds terminal, broad-ovoid, acute, rusty-pubescent, about \' long. Bark 

 of the trunk iV-|' thick, light gray, and broken on the surface into small thin closely ap- 

 pressed scales. 



Distribution. Deep swamps; valleys of the St. Mary's a"nd Flint Rivers (Albany), south- 

 ern Georgia; Florida, near Jacksonville, Duval County, valley of the Caloosahatchee River, 

 and Bonita Springs, Lee County, to the shores of Lake Okeechobee, and in the valley of the 

 lower Apalachicola River; most abundant in southern Florida. 



