ULMACEJE 



299 



1. Celtis occidentalis, L. Hackberry. Sugarberry. 



Leaves broadly ovate, more or less falcate, gradually or abruptly contracted into 

 long narrow points, rounded and usually very oblique at the base, coarsely serrate, 

 with callous-tipped teeth except at the entire ends, 3-ribbed, when they unfold pale 

 yellow-green, coated on the lower surface with soft silky white hairs and pilose on 

 the upper surface, at maturity thin, light green and lustrous, smooth, scabrate or 

 scabrous above, paler and glabrous or slightly hairy below on the prominent midribs 

 and primary veins, arcuate and united near the margins and connected by con- 

 spicuous reticulate veinlets, 2^'^t' long, l'-2' wide, turning light yellow late in the 

 autumn before falling; their petioles slender, hairy, '-f long; stipules linear, 

 strap-shaped, white and scarious, nearly ^' long, or on sterile shoots ovate, acute, 

 concave, sometimes f long and \' wide. Flowers on slender drooping pedicles; 

 calyx divided usually into 5 linear acute thin and scarious lobes rounded on the 



back, more or less laciniately cut at the apex, tinged with red, and often furnished 

 with a tuft of pale hairs; torus hoary-tomentose. Fruit on slender stem ^'-f long) 

 ripening in September and October and often remaining on the branches during the 

 winter, oblong, about \ f long, dark purple, with a thick tough skin, dark orange-colored 

 flesh, and a smooth thick- walled oblong pointed light brown nut; seed pale brown. 

 A tree, sometimes 130 high, with a straight slender trunk 2^-3 in diameter, 

 often free of branches for 70 or 80, and slender slightly zigzag and glabrous or 

 puberulous branchlets containing a thick light-colored pith, light green when they 

 first appear, gradually becoming tinged with red and in their first winter bright red- 

 brown, rather lustrous, and marked by horizontal semioval or oblong leaf-scars show- 

 ing the ends of 3 fibro-vascular bundles, darker in their second or third year, and 

 ultimately dark brown slightly tinged with red; usually much smaller and in the 

 eastern states generally short-trnnked, with stout spreading ri<;id or frequently pen- 

 dulous branches forming a handsome round-topped tree. Winter-buds ovate, 

 pointed, flattened, about \' long, with 3 pairs of chestnut-brown ovate acute pubes- 

 cent caducous scales closely imbricated in '2 ranks, inereasing in size from without 

 inward and gradually passing into the stipules of the lower leaves. Bark I'-l^' thick, 



