854 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



1. Forestiera acuminata Poir. 



Leaves elliptic, acuminate and long-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at 

 base, serrate above the middle with small remote incurved teeth, glabrous with the excep- 

 tion of occasional hairs on the upper side of the slender midrib, yellow-green on the upper 

 surface, paler on the lower surface, %\'-k\' long and I'-l^' wide, with usually 5 or 6 pairs of 

 slender primary veins and slightly thickened and incurved margins, deciduous; petioles 

 slender, often slightly winged above the middle, \'-\' in length. Flowers appearing in 

 April and May before the leaves from ovoid pointed buds \' long, with thickened pale chest- 

 nut-brown scales; calyx reduced to a narrow slightly lobed ring; corolla 0; stamina te in 

 many-flowered fascicles, on short pedicels from the axils of broad-obovate thin yellow 

 apiculate conspicuous bracts; stamens 4, on long slender filaments; anthers bright yellow; 

 ovary reduced to a minute ovoid body; pistillate flowers on slender pedicels |' long, in gla- 

 brous pedunculate several-flowered panicles f'-l|' long, their bracts caducous; stamens 

 with shorter filaments and abortive or rarely fertile anthers, or usually ; ovary oblong- 

 ovoid, slightly unsymmetric, gradually narrowed into the long slender style enlarged into 

 the thickened imperfectly 2-lobed terminal stigma. Fruit falling as soon as ripe in June 

 and July, oblong-ovoid, gradually narrowed, acute and tipped with the remnants of the 

 style at apex, gradually narrowed and rounded at base, slightly compressed and unsym- 

 metric, dark blue-purple, \'-\\' long, about J' thick, with thin dry flesh, and a striate stone 

 rounded at base, straight on one side and rounded on the other, its wall covered with thin 

 vertical scales spongy in appearance, and conspicuously longitudinally ridged on the inner 

 surface the ridges terminating in long slender tips forming the acuminate apex of the stone; 

 seeds ellipsoid, slightly compressed, striate, light brown, about \' in length. 



Fig. 757 



A tree, rarely 50 high, with a short trunk 8'-10' in diameter, small spreading branches, 

 and slender light brown branchlets becoming darker in their second year, and marked by 

 numerous lenticels and by the small elevated nearly orbicular leaf-scars. Winter-buds: 

 terminal ovoid, pointed, about iV long, with numerous scales increasing in size from the 

 outer to the inner ranks; usually much smaller, and generally a shrub 10-15 high and 

 broad. Bark close, slightly ridged, dark brown. 



Distribution. Borders of streams and. swamps in low moist soil; valley of the lower Wa- 

 bash River, southwestern Indiana, southern Illinois northward along the Mississippi River 

 to Pike County, and to central Tennessee, and from southern Missouri through Arkansas 

 to eastern Oklahoma (near Muskogee, Muskogee County) and eastern Texas to the valley 



