766 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



at the apex, wedge-shaped or cordate at the base, and entire, or sparingly creuately 

 serrate above the middle, covered above when they unfold with short pale hairs and 

 pubescent beneath, and at maturity thin and rather coriaceous, dark green above, 

 paler below, l'-2' long and l'-2' wide, or when more than one much smaller, with 

 broad rather conspicuous midribs and obscure veins, and when solitary raised on stout 



grooved petioles often 1^' long, or short-petiolulate in the compound leaves. Flow- 

 ers appearing when the leaves are about two thirds grown, in short compact pubescent 

 panicles from the axils of leaves of the previous year, with strap-shaped or lanceolate 

 acute bracts \' long and covered with thick brown tomentum, perfect or unisexual 

 by the abortion of the stamens, the 2 forms occurring in, the same panicle; calyx cup- 

 shaped, minutely 4-toothed; anthers linear- oblong, orange color, raised on slender 

 filaments nearly as long as the stout columnar style divided at the apex into 2 stig- 

 matic lobes. Fruit oblong or obovate-oblong, J' long, with a wing rounded and 

 sometimes slightly emarginate at the apex, surrounding the long flattened striately 

 nerved body, and ^' wide. 



A tree, 18-20 high, with a short trunk 6'-7' in diameter, stout contorted 

 branches forming a round-topped head, and branchlets at first quadrangular, dark 

 green tinged with red and covered with pale pubescence, orange color and puberu- 

 lous in their first winter and marked by elevated pale lenticels and narrow lunate 

 leaf -scars, and in their second or third year terete and ashy gray; often a low shrub, 

 with numerous spreading stems. Winter-buds terminal, broadly ovate, acuminate 

 or obtuse, covered with thick orange-colored tomentum, and \'-\' long. Bark of the 

 trunk dark brown slightly tinged with red, \' thick, and divided by shallow fissures 

 into narrow ridges separating into small thin appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, 

 close-grained, light brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 30-50 layers of 

 annual growth. 



Distribution. In the neighborhood of streams; valley of the McElmo River, 

 southwestern Colorado, through southern Utah, and on the western slopes of the 

 Charleston Mountains, southern Nevada; not rare. 



