856 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



the upper surface, pale and glabrous on the lower surface except on the stout midrib and 

 conspicuous arcuate primary veins more or less covered with short white hairs; turning 

 bright clear yellow before falling early in the autumn; petioles stout, puberulous, '-!' in 

 length. Flowers slightly and agreeably fragrant, appearing when the leaves are about 

 one third grown, in loose pubescent drooping panicles 4'-6' in length, the bracts at the 

 base of the lower branches of the inflorescence oblong, glabrous on the upper surface, 

 pubescent on the lower surface, and sometimes 1' Jong, those at the base of the upper 

 branches oval, successively smaller, and gradually passing into the minute laciniate bracts 

 subtending the lateral pedicels of the 3-flowered clusters terminating the last divisions of 

 the panicle; some individuals bearing occasional perfect flowers among others function- 

 ally dioecious, some with sterile or rarely perfect anthers and a well-developed stigma, and 

 others with an imperfectly developed stigma and fertile anthers; calyx light green, glabrous, 

 with acute entire or laciniately cut lobes; corolla 1' long, marked on the inner surface near 

 the base by a row of bright purple spots; anthers light yellow, w r ith a green connective. 

 Fruit ripening in September, in loose few-fruited clusters, their bracts leaf-like and some- 

 times 2' in length, oval or short-oblong, 1' long, dark blue or nearly black, and often 

 covered with a glaucous bloom; seeds ' long, ovoid, narrowed at apex and covered with 

 a thin light chestnut-brown coat marked by reticulate veins radiating from the hilum. 



A tree, 20-30 high, with a short trunk 8'-10' in diameter, stout ashy gray or light brown 

 branches forming an oblong rather narrow head, and stout branchlets light green and cov- 

 ered with pale pubescence or sometimes glabrous when they first appear, terete or slightly 

 angled in their first winter, often much thickened below the nodes, light brown or orange 

 color, and marked by large scattered darker colored lenticels and by the elevated semior- 

 bicular leaf-scars displaying a semicircular row of conspicuous fibro- vascular bundle-scars; 

 often a shrub, w r ith several stout thick spreading stems. Winter-buds broad-ovoid, acute, 

 I' long, with about 5 pairs of scales increasing in length from the outer to the inner pair, 

 ovate, acute, keeled on the back, light brown and slightly pilose on the outer surface, 

 bright green and lustrous on the inner surface, and ciliate on the margins with scattered 

 white hairs, those of the inner pair at maturity obovate, gradually narrowed below, folia- 

 ceous, and l'-l|' long. Bark of the trunk j'-f ' thick, and irregularly divided into small 

 thin appressed brown scales tinged with red. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, and light 

 brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood. The bark is tonic and is sometimes used in 

 decoctions and in the treatment of intermittent fevers, or as an aperient and diuretic, and 

 in homoeopathic practice. 



Distribution. Banks of streams in rich moist soil; southeastern Pennsylvania to the 

 Manitee River region, western Florida, and through the Gulf states to northern Arkansas 

 (Baxter and Cleburne Counties), southwestern Oklahoma (near Page, Leflore County) and 

 the valley of the Brazos River, Texas; ascending on the southern Appalachian Mountains 

 to altitudes of 4000. 



Often cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern United States, and in western and 

 central Europe. 



4. OSMANTHUS Lour. 



Trees or shrubs, with terete or slightly angled branches, and fibrous roots. Leaves sim- 

 ple, persistent. Flowers fragrant, polygamo-dicecious or perfect, on ebracteolate pedicels 

 subtended by scale-like bracts, in short axillary racemes or in short axillary or rarely ter- 

 minal fascicles; calyx minute, 4-toothed or divided, the divisions imbricated in the bud, 

 persistent under the fruit; corolla tubular, 4-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, ovate, 

 obtuse, spreading after anthesis; stamens 2, inserted on the tube of the corolla opposite the 

 lateral lobes of the calyx, or rarely 4; filaments terete, short; anthers ovoid or linear-oblong, 

 blunt, or apiculate by the prolongation of the connective, attached on the back below the 

 middle, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally by marginal slits, sometimes rudimentary 

 or in the pistillate flower; ovary subglobose; style columnar, short or elongated, crowned 

 with an entire capitate stigma; ovules laterally attached near the apex of the cell; raphe 



