718 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



remnants of the style rising from the bottom of a small depression, with thin and 

 bitter flesh; and an obovoid nutlet, pointed at the base, gradually longitudinally 

 many-grooved, thick-walled, and 1 or 2-seeded ; seeds lunate, \' long, .with a thin 

 membrauaceous pale coat. 



A flat-topped tree, rarely 25-30 high, with a short trunk 6'-8' in diameter, 

 long slender alternate diverging horizontal branches, and numerous short upright 

 slender branchlets pale orange-green or reddish brown when they first appear, mostly 

 light green or sometimes brown tinged with green during their first winter, later 

 turning darker green and marked by pale lunate leaf-scars, and small scattered pale 

 lenticels; often a shrub, with numerous stems. Bark of the trunk about \' thick, 

 dark reddish brown, and smooth or divided by shallow longitudinal fissures into 

 narrow ridges irregularly broken transversely. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, 

 brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 20-30 layers of annual 

 growth. 



Distribution. Rich woodlands, the margins of the forest, and on the borders of 

 streams and swamps, in moist well-drained soil; New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 

 westward along the valley of the St. Lawrence River to the northern shores of Lake 

 Superior and to Minnesota, and southward through the northern states and along 

 the Alleghany Mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern states. 



Section 2. Gamopetalse. Corolla of united petals (divided 

 in Elliottia in Ericaceae ; in some species of Fraxinus in 

 Oleacece). 



A. Ovary superior (inferior in Vaccinium in Ericaceae ; 



partly inferior in Symplocacece and Styracece). 



XLIX. ERICACEJE. 



Trees or shrubs, with scaly buds, and alternate simple leaves without stip- 

 ules. Flowers perfect, regular ; calyx 4 5-lobed ; corolla hypogynous, 5-lobed 

 (of 4 Petals in Elliottia), the lobes imbricated in the bud ; stamens hypogy- 

 nous, mostly free from the coi'olla, as many, or twice as many as its lobes ; 

 anthers introrse, 2-celled, opening by terminal pores, often appendaged ; ovary 

 4-10-celled (inferior in Vaccinium] ; styles terminal, simple ; stigma ter- 

 minal ; ovules numerous, anatropous or amphitropous ; raphe ventral ; micro- 

 pyle superior. Fruit capsular, drupaceous, or baccate. Seeds with fleshy or 

 horny albumen ; embryo small ; cotyledons small and short. 



The Heath family with about sixty-seven genera is widely distributed over 

 the temperate and tropical parts of the earth's surface. Of the twenty-one 

 genera found in the United States seven have arborescent representatives. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Ovary superior. 

 Fruit capsular. 



Corolla of 4 petals ; flowers in erect terminal racemose panicles ; leaves deciduous. 



1. Elliottia. 



Capsule septicidal, the valves in opening 1 separating from the persistent placentiferous 

 axis ; calyx-lobes imbricated in the bud ; leaves persistent. 



