612 TREES OP NORTH AMERICA 



fruit ripens. Fruit ripening in August and September, rarely more than ^' long; 

 seeds light brown. 



A slender tree, occasionally 30-35 high, with a stout often eccentric trunk 10'-14' 

 in diameter, dividing several feet above the ground into numerous wide-spreading 

 branches, and slender branchlets bright brown during their first season and ulti- 

 mately ashy gray; or often a broad bush sending up many slender stems 15-20 high. 

 Winter-buds about \' long. Bark of the trunk rarely more than \' thick except 

 near the base of old trees, and covered by large thin bright red-brown scales. Wood 

 heavy, hard, close-grained, not strong, brown tinged with red, with rather lighter 

 colored sap wood. The spongy bark at the base of the trunk is pliable, absorbent, and 

 astringent, and is recommended as a styptic. 



Distribution. Rich shaded river-bottoms, the borders of sandy swamps and 

 shallow ponds of the coast Pine belt, or on high sandy exposed ridges rising above 

 streams near the Gulf coast; North Carolina southward near the coast to about 

 latitude 30 in the Florida peninsula, on the keys of southern Florida, and westward 

 along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Neches River, Texas; and in Cuba, 

 Jamaica, Demarara, and Brazil. 



2. CLIFTONIA, Gaertn. f. 



A glabrous tree or shrub, with thick dark brown scaly bark, slender terete branch- 

 lets marked by conspicuous leaf-scars, and small acuminate buds covered by chest- 

 nut-brown scales. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, rounded or slightly emarginate at the 

 apex, glandular-punctate, short-petiolate, persistent. Flowers on pedicels from the 

 axils of large acuminate membranaceous alternate bracts deciduous before the open- 

 ing of the flowers, in short terminal erect racemes; calyx 5-8-lobed, equal or un- 

 equal, broadly ovate, rounded or acuminate at the apex, much shorter than the 5-8 

 obovate unguiculate concave white or rose-colored sepals; stamens 10, opposite and 

 alternate with the sepals, inserted with and shorter than the petals, 2-ranked, those 

 of the outer rank longer than the others; filaments laterally enlarged near the 

 middle, flattened below, subulate above; disk cup-shaped, surrounding the base of 

 the oblong 2-4-winged 2-4-celled ovary; stigma subsessile, obscurely 2-4-lobed; 

 ovules 2 in each cell, suspended from its apex. Fruit oblong, 2-4-winged, crowned 

 with the remnants of the persistent style, 3 or rarely 4-celled; pericarp spongy, 

 the wings thin and membranaceous. Seed 1 in each cell, terete, tapering to the ends, 

 suspended; cotyledons very short. 



Cliftonia is represented by a single species of the south Atlantic and Gulf states. 



The generic name is in honor of Dr. Francis Clifton (d. 173G), an English physi- 



1. Cliftonia monophylla, Sarg. Titi. Ironwood. 



Leaves l^'-2' long, '-!' wide, bright green and lustrous on the upper, paler on 

 the lower surface, persistent until the autumn of their second year. Flowers fra- 

 grant, appearing in February and March, in nodding racemes becoming erect, and 

 conspicuous from the long exserted dark red-brown caducous bracts. Fruit about 

 \' long, ripening in August and September; seeds ^'-\' long, light brown. 



A tree, occasionally 40-50 high, with a stout often crooked or inclining trunk, 

 occasionally 15'-18' in diameter and usually divided 12-15 from the ground into a 

 number of stout ascending branches, and slender rigid bright red-brown branchlets, 

 becoming paler during their second and third seasons; or sometimes a shrub, with 



