



HAMAMELIDACE^ 341 



A tree, 80-140 high, with a straight trunk 4-5 in diameter, slender branches 

 forming while the tree is young a pyramidal head, and in old age a comparatively 

 small oblong crown, and slender branchlets containing a large pith, slightly many- 

 angled, covered when they first appear with caducous rufous hairs, light orange 

 color to reddish brown in their first winter, marked by occasional minute dark 

 lenticels and by large arcuate leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 conspicuous fibro- 

 vascular bundles, developing in their second season corky wings appearing on the 

 upper side of lateral branches in 3 or 4 parallel ranks and irregularly on all sides of 

 vertical branches and increasing in width and thickness for many years, sometimes 

 becoming 2'-3' broad and 1' thick. Winter-buds acute, \' long, and covered by 

 ovate acute minutely apiculate orange-brown scales rounded on the back, those of 

 the inner rows accrescent, tipped with red, and about 1' long at maturity. Wood 

 heavy, hard, straight, close-grained, not strong, bright brown tinged with red, with 

 thin almost white sapwood of GO-70 layers of annual growth; used for the outside 

 finish of houses, in cabinet-making, for street pavement, wooden dishes, and fruit 

 boxes. 



Distribution. Fan-field County, Connecticut, to southeastern Missouri, south- 

 ward to Cape Canaveral and the shores of Tampa Bay, Florida, and through Ar- 

 kansas and the Indian Territory to the valley of the Trinity River, Texas, reappearing 

 on the mountains of central and southern Mexico and on the highlands of Guatemala; 

 in the maritime region of the south Atlantic states and in the basin of the lower 

 Mississippi River one of the most common trees of the forest, covering rich river 

 bottom-lands usually inundated every year; in the northern and middle states on 

 the borders of swamps and low wet swales; at the north rarely more than G0-70 

 tall, with a trunk usually not more than 2 in diameter. 



Unsurpassed in the brilliancy of the autumnal colors of the leaves; and often 

 planted as an ornamental tree in the eastern states. 



2. HAMAMELIS, L. Witch Hazel. 



Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, terete zigzag branchlets, naked buds, and fibrous 

 roots. Leaves involute in the bud, unsymmetrical at the base, crenate-toothed, the 

 primary veins conspicuous and nearly parallel with the margins; stipules acute, 

 infolding the bud, deciduous. Flowers autumnal, perfect, in terminal 3-tiowered 

 clusters on axillary simple peduncles furnished near the middle with 2 acute decid- 

 uous bractlets, each flower surrounded by 2 or 3 ovate acute bracts, the outer 

 slightly united at the base into a 3-lobed involucre; calyx 4-parted, persistent, on the 

 base of the ovary, the lobes reflexed; petals inserted on the margin of the cup- 

 shaped receptacle, alternate with the sepals, strap-shaped; stamens 8, inserted in 2 

 rows on the margin of the receptacle, the 4 opposite the lobes of the calyx fertile, 

 the others reduced to minute strap-shaped scales; filaments free, shorter than the 

 calyx, prolonged into a thickened pointed connective; anthers elliptical, opening 

 laterally from without by persistent valves; ovary of 2 carpels, free at their apex, 

 inserted in the bottom of the receptacle, partly superior; styles subulate, spreading, 

 stigmatic at the apex, persistent; ovule solitary. Fruit a capsule, 2-beaked at the 

 apex, the thick and woody outer layer splitting from above loculicidally before the 

 opening of the thin crustaceous inner layer. Seed oblong, acute, suspended; testa 

 crustaceous, chestnut-brown, shining, forcibly discharged when ripe by the contrac- 

 tion of the edges of the valves of the bony endocarp; embryo surrounded by thick 





