66 



PLATAN ACE.E. Flatanus. 



flowers in dense globose naked unisexual heads, without perianth, mingled with 

 clavate truncate and minute hairy scales ; akenes ohpyramidal, coriaceous, 1 -celled 

 and 1 -seeded, surrounded at base by a dense ring of long hairs ; seed pendulous, 

 orthotropous. Staminate and pistillate heads on different branches, the latter termi- 

 nal, solitary or few and moniliform-spicato. Filaments very short : anthers clavate, 

 with a prolonged peltate connective. Ovaries in clusters on a globular fleshy recep- 

 tacle : style terminal, stigmatic on one side, persistent : ovules 1 (rarely 2), pendu- 

 lous. Seed with membranous testa and little or no albumen. Eadicle elongated, 

 inferior. 



A single genus of half a. dozen species, one in tlie orient of the Old World, the rest North 

 American and Mexican. 



1. PLATANUS, Tourn. BurxoNwooD. Sycamore. 



Characters as of tlie order. 



1. P. racemosa, Nutt. A widely branched tree, rarely becoming 100 feet high 

 and G feet or more in diameter : leaves very variable, densely tomentcxse when young 

 with pale or rusty tomentum, which is mostly deciduous, usually very broadly cordate 

 in outline, sometimes truncate at base, or cuneate and decurrent upon the petiole, 

 3-lobed or mostly 5-lobed usually beyond the middle, often large (sometimes 1|^ or 2 

 feet broad or more) ; lobes acute or acuminate, entire or denticulate or sometimes 

 coarsely sinuate-toothed ; sinuses acute or rounded ; petioles an inch or two long ; 

 stipules ocreate, deciduous, scarious with a foliaceous often much dilated entire or 

 toothed limb, cleft next to the petiole : fertile heads 2 to 7 in a moniliform spike, 

 an inch broad in fruit : nutlets tomentose when young, becoming glabrate, 3 lines 

 long, beaked by a slender style one-half as long or more, the basal hairs two-thirds 

 as long. — Audubon's Birds, t. 362 ; Nuttall, Sylva, i. 47, t. 15 ; Newberry, Pacif. 

 li. liep. vi. 33, t. 2, and hg.' 10. F. occideiitalis, Hook. & Arn. Bot. Beechey, 100 

 and 390. F. Californica, Benth. Bot. Sulph. 54. 



A frequent and conspicuous tree from the Sacramento Valley to Southern California. Bark 

 very white ; wood brittle, but is said to receive a good polish aiul to be more duralde than that of 

 the eastern species. The largest tree whose measurement has been reported is growing in San- 

 tiacfo Canon, Los Angeles County. This was measured by Miss J. li. Bash of Sau Jose, and 

 found to be 29 feet and 7 inches in circumference. 



Order LXXXVI. BUXACE.^. 



Monffcious trees or shrubs, or even herbs, with coriaceous simple evergreen 

 leaves, without stipules, and regular 4 - G-parted perianth free from the compound 

 ovary; distinguished from the following order especially by the watery juice, 

 loculicidal capsule, and inverted ovules, i. e. the anatropous ovules, suspended from 

 the summit of the cells, have the rhaphe dorsal or averse from (instead of next to) 

 the placenta or axis. Segments of the perianth imbricate in 2 rows : stamens 4 or 

 more : ovary 2- or 3-celled, with as many short mostly excentric styles, and 1 or 2 

 ovules in each cell. 



An order of .5 genera and 25 species, of trojjical and warm-temperate regions, of which the Box 

 (valuable for its fine-grained hard wood) is the type ; represented in the Atlantic States by a 

 single herbaceous species {Pnchysandra procuvibcvs), and on the Pacilic by the following Cali- 

 fornian genus, which is peculiar in having central styles, solitary ovules, and exalbununous seeds 

 with thin-coriaceous testa. 



