848 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



mostly entire or remotely serrate, thin, dark green and glabrous on the upper surface, rather 

 paler and glabrous or furnished with small axillary tufts of white hairs on the lower surface, 

 3'-4' long and '-lf wide; petiolules slender, H'-lf ' or that of the terminal leaflet up to 

 1|' in length. Flowers dioecious, in a short glabrous panicle inclosed in the bud by broad- 

 ovate rounded chestnut-brown pubescent scales; staminate flower with a minute obscurely 

 lobed calyx and 2 stamens, with short filaments and linear-oblong apiculate anthers; calyx 

 of the pistillate flower cup-shaped, deeply divided, and as long as the ovary gradually nar- 

 rowed into the slender style. Fruit ripening in May, oblong-obovate to spatulate, acute 

 or acuminate at apex, l'-l|' long and j' wide, the wing decurrent nearly to the base of the 

 compressed many-rayed clavate body gradually narrowed into a long slender base sur- 

 rounded by the enlarged deeply lobed calyx. 



A tree, rarely more than 30 high, or with a trunk more than a foot in diameter, and 

 terete slender branchlets light green when they first appear, becoming in their first winter 

 light brown tinged with red or ashy gray, and marked by occasional lenticels and by the 

 small elevated nearly circular leaf-scars displaying a short row of large fibro-vascular bun- 

 dle-scars. Winter-buds: terminal acute, with dark brown puberulous scales. Bark of 

 the trunk darK gray tinged with red, l'-l|' thick, and divided by shallow interrupted fis- 

 sures into narrow ridges. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown, with thick lighter 

 colored sap wood. 



Distribution. Texas, banks of streams and mountain canons, valley of the Colorado 

 River (Bastrop and Travis Counties), and those of the San Antonio and Nueces Rivers to 

 the lower Rio Grande, and over the Edwards Plateau to Palo Pinto County; in northeastern 

 Mexico. 



14. Fraxinus velutina Torn 



Leaves 4 '-5' long, with a broad densely villose petiole grooved like the slender rachis on 

 the upper side, and 3-5 elliptic to ovate or slightly obovate leaflets acute at apex, narrowed 

 and rounded or cuneate at base, finely crenulate-serrate above the middle, pubescent above 



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and tomentose below when they unfold, and at maturity thick, pale green, glabrous on the 

 upper surface, tomentose on the lower surface, I'-l^' long and f'-l' wide, with a promi- 

 nent midrib and primary veins, and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; petiolules of the lat- 

 eral leaflets <' or less or that of the terminal leaflet up to \' in length. Flowers dioecious, 

 appearing in March and April with the unfolding of the leaves, on long slender pedicels, in 



