264 THE PEA FAMILY. 



THE PEA FAMILY. 



PapilionacecE. 

 A large group including trees, shrubs, herbs and vines 7uith alternate, 

 usually compound leaves, and irregular flower's growing in various forms 

 of inflorescences aiid which are mostly known by their papilionaceous 

 corollas. Fricit : a legiwie. 



AflERICAN OR KENTUCKY YELLOW=WOOD. VIRGILIA. 



Cladrdstis liiica. 



FAMILY SHAPE HEIGHT RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Pea. Croivn, broad : ■>,o-'~,o feet. Western North Carolina to May, June, 



branches spreading. Kentucky and Tennessee. 



Bark: silvery grey, close. Branches: ashy, or reddish. Leaves: compound, 

 with stalks hollowed at their bases and enclosing the buds of the succeeding year; 

 odd-pinnate; with from seven to eleven oval or ovate leaflets (the terminal one 

 narrowed at the base) pointed at the apex and rather blunt at the base ; entire; 

 light green above, lighter below, glabrous. Flowers : white; fragrant, hanging in 

 full terminal panicles, often a foot or more long. Corolla : jjapilionaceous ; the 

 standard large and turned backward. Fruit : many linear pods each containing 

 from four to six seeds. 



Not so many years ago it was reported that the people of the south had 

 suddenly awakened to the beauty and rarity of this tree. It was even 

 stated in local newspapers that near Nashville, Tennessee, there had been 

 discovered a tree thought to produce the shittim wood mentioned in the 

 Bible, and of which the tabernacle was built. Perhaps this was a little im- 

 aginative. But through the forest in rich, rocky soil the yellow-wood is in- 

 deed a rare and most beautiful tree. It is, moreover, always beautiful. 

 After its long fragrant bunches of milk-white flowers have faded its leaves 

 turn in the autumn to golden yellow, while in the winter its light grey bark 

 recalls somewhat that of the beech. Its wood is unfortunately rather brit- 

 tle, causing often the boughs to break in high winds. From it sometimes 

 is extracted a clear yellow dye. It was the elder Michaux who first des- 

 cribed the tree under the name of Virgilia lutea, but later Rafinesque who 

 found it was not properly called, created for it the present genus. 



Theriiiopsis Caroliniana. 



Flowers: growing closely in long, terminal and villous racemes. Calyx: per- 

 sistent; bell-shaped 5 five-^tQotheci and covered w'th soft, white hairs, Corolla : pa,- 



