S3^ THE TEA FAMILY. 



Stamens: numerous. Styles: five. Capsule: ovoid; hairy and opening in five 

 sections. Seeds: margined with wings. Leaves: alternate; ovate or oval, taper- 

 pointed at the apex and pointed, or rounded at the base; ciliate about the margins 

 and projecting remote bristles; bright-green above and glabrous, lighter below 

 and pubescent. A shrub six to twelve feet high with greyish brown branches. 



It seems strange that a shrub so bold and striking and fairly enchanting 

 when in blow as the mountain Stuartia should be so little known by the 

 country people through its range. Along the southern exposures of the 

 Blue Ridge, where sometimes it is fairly covered with large white flowers 

 looking lik-e single camelias the mountaineers have apparently no knowledge 

 of its existence. It is also rarely seen in cultivation, although it is hardy, 

 as far northward as New England. The Stuartias and Gordonias are, 

 moreover, the only relatives in this country of the important tea plant. 



S. Malachodcndron, round-fruited Stuartia, is a large shrub about twelve 

 feet high, and bears also beautiful creamy white flowers, the petals of which 

 have on them numerous silky white hairs. Its foliage is considerably 

 smaller than that of the other, and a specific difference is that its seeds are 

 without margins. It grows also in woods from Louisiana and Florida to 

 Virginia, and for one place is found about Summerville, S. C. 



LOBLOLLY BAY. TAN BAY. {Plate CVII.) 

 Gordbnia lasidnthns. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Tea. W/iite. Slightly fragrant. Florida to Virginia. May-July. 



FloTvers: large; solitary at the ends of long, smooth axillary peduncles. Calyx: 

 with five orbicular, silky sepals, ciliate on the margins. Corolla: with five 

 large, rounded petals, ciliate and softly pubescent on the outside. Stamens: 

 numerous, cohering in clusters to the bases of the petals. Pistil: one; stigma, 

 five-divided. Frtiit : a woody, ovoid capsule. Leaves : alternate ; oblanceolate ; 

 bluntly pointed at the apex and tapering at the base into short margined petioles ; 

 serrate, becoming entire at the base ; thick, like leather ; smooth on both sides ; 

 evergreen. A tree .forty to seventy feet high. 



As the loblolly bay raises its slender pyramidal form amid swamps hung 

 with an over-heated thick growth, and where mostly the tillandsia and amber 

 lights of the setting sun are reflected in the water, it covers itself in mid- 

 summer with pure white blossoms, waxy and faintly fragrant. They are 

 very like camelias, and the trees have about them somewhat the same charm 

 as magnolias laden with bloom. They seldom grow in swamps further 

 away than a hundred miles from the coast, although occasionally they in- 

 habit low moist woods. The wood they produce is of fine quality but 

 much too brittle to be of any real service, and the readiness of the limbs to 

 break often causes these plants to look scraggly w^hen old. 



G. Altainaha, Franklinia {Plate CVIIl), is especially interesting to us, it 



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