868 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



a prominent midrib and slender primary veins; persistent; petioles slender, densely stel- 

 late-pubescent, f '-!' in length. Flowers appearing throughout the year on pedicels |' 

 long and much thickened at maturity, in broad many-flowered dichotomous stellate- 



Fig. 766 



pubescent cymes on peduncles 1/-4' in length from the axils of upper leaves; calyx about \' 

 long, densely stellate, the lobes triangular-ovate; corolla about f '-!' wide after the expan- 

 sion of the oblong-ovate lobes; stamens exserted. Fruit globose, yellow, |' f ' in diameter, 

 surrounded at base by the densely stellate calyx, with ovate acute lobes about \' long; 

 seeds nearly orbicular to obovoid, much compressed, yellow, r \' in diameter. 



A tree, rarely 20 high, with a trunk 4' or 5' in diameter, spreading branches forming a 

 flat-topped head, and stout unarmed branchlets densely stellate-tomentose during their 

 first season, becoming glabrous and light orange-brown or gray-brown in the following year; 

 usually smaller and generally a shrub. Bark of the trunk thin, close, much roughened by 

 many wart-like excrescences, light greenish or yellowish gray. 



Florida, rich hummocks, Merritt's Island on the east coast, southward to the shores of 

 Bay Biscayne, and to the Cape Sable region; on the Bahama Islands, and many of the An- 

 tilles, in Mexico and Central America, in the tropics of the Old World and in southeastern 

 China; now thoroughly established but more probably introduced than indigenous in 

 Florida. 



LXIV. BIGNONIACE^). 



Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and opposite or rarely alternate simple (in the arbo- 

 rescent genera of the United States) leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect, large and 

 showy; calyx closed in the bud, bilabiately splitting in anthesis; corolla hypogynous, 2- 

 lipped, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens 2 or 4, inserted on the corolla, 

 introrse; anthers 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; staminodia 1 or 3; ovary ses- 

 sile, 1 or 2-celled, gradually narrowed into a slender simple style 2-lobed and stigmatic at 

 apex; ovules numerous, horizontal, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a 

 linear woody loculicidally 2-valved capsule, or a berry. Seeds without albumen; embryo 

 filling the cavity of the seed. 



The Bignonia family with about one hundred genera, many of them of scandent plants, 

 is widely distributed in the tropics and most abundant in the New World, with a few genera 

 extending into temperate regions. Of the five genera of the United States three are arbo- 

 rescent. Many of the species are important timber-trees. 



