MORACE.E 



307 



conspicuous oblong pale hiluin, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous, light 

 chestnut-brown; embryo recurved; cotyledons oblong, nearly equal; radicle elon- 

 gated, incumbent, ascending. 



The genus is represented by a single species of eastern North America. 



The generic name, from r6^oy and v\ov, alludes to the Indian use of the wood. 



1. Toxylon pomiferum, Raf. Osage Orange. Bow Wood. 



Leaves 3'-5' long, 2'-3' wide, turning bright clear yellow before falling in the 

 autumn ; their petioles l^'-2' long. Flowers : racemes of the staminate flowers 

 !'-!' long; heads of the pistillate flowers, f'-l' in diameter. Fruit 4'-5' in diam- 

 eter, ripening in the autumn, and soon falling to the ground. 



A tree, sometimes oO-60 high, with a short trunk 2-3 in diameter, and stout 

 erect ultimately spreading branches forming a handsome open irregular round- 

 topped head, and branchlets light green often tinged with red and coated with soft 

 pale pubescence when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, light brown slightly 

 tinged with orange color during their first winter, and ultimately paler. Winter- 

 buds depressed-globose, partly immersed in the bark, covered by few closely imbri- 

 cated ovate rounded light chestnut-brown ciliate conspicuous scales. Bark '-!' 

 thick and deeply and irregularly divided into broad rounded ridges separating 011 



the surface into thin appressed scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard, very strong, 

 flexible, coarse-grained, very durable, bright orange color turning brown on expos- 

 ure, with thin light yellow sapwood of 5-10 layers of annual growth; largely used 

 for fence-posts, railway-ties, wheel-stock, and formerly by the Osage and other 

 Indians west of the Mississippi River for bows and war-clubs. The bark of the roots 

 contains moric and morintannic acid, and is used as a yellow dye. The bark of the 

 trunk is sometimes used in tanning leather. 



Distribution. Rich bottom-lands; southern Arkansas to the southern portions of 

 the Indian Territory, southward in Texas to about latitude 35 36'; most abundant 

 and of its largest size in the valley of the Red River in the Indian Territory. 



Largely planted in the prairie regions of the Mississippi basin as a hedge plant, 

 and occasionally in the eastern states; hardy in New England. 



