KENTUCKY COFFEE-TREE 



KENTUCKY COFFEE-TREE. STUMP-TREE 



GymnScladus dioicus. 



Gvmuocladits is of Greek derivation and refers to the stout 

 branches destitute of spray. 



Widely distributed, but rare. Not found in New England, but 

 ranging from New York to Arkansas and Indian Territory. Prefers 

 bottom lands, and a rich moist soil. Varies from seventy-five to 

 one hundred feet high with a trunk two or three feet in diameter 

 which usually separates ten or fifteen feet from the ground into three 

 or four divisions which spread slightly and form a narrow pyramidal 

 head ; or when crowded by other trees, sending up one tall central 

 branchless shaft to the height of fifty or seventy feet. Branches 

 stout, pithy, and blunt ; roots fibrous. 



Bark. — Dark gray, deeply fissured, surface scaly. Branchlets at 

 first coated with short reddish down. 



Wood. — Light brown ; heavy, strong, coarse-grained, durable in 

 contact with the ground, takes a fine polish. Sp. gr., 0.6934; weight 

 of cu. ft., 43.21 lbs. 



Winter Buds. — Minute, depressed in downy cavities of the stem, 

 two in the axil of each leaf, the smaller sterile. Bud scales two, 

 ovate, coated with brown tomentum and growing with the shoot, be- 

 come orange green, hairy and about one inch long, before they fall. 



Leaves. — Alternate, bi-pinnately compound, ten to fourteen pin- 

 nate, lowest pinnae reduced to leaflets, the others seven to thirteen 

 foliate. One to three feet long, eighteen to twenty-four inches broad, 

 by the greater development of the upper pairs of pinna?. Leaf stalks 

 and stalks of pinnae, are terete, enlarged at base, smooth when ma- 

 ture, pale green, often purple on the upper side. Leaflets ovate, 

 two to two and one-half inches long, wedge-shaped or irregularly 

 rounded at base, with wavy margin, acute apex. They come out of 

 the bud bright pink, but soon become bronze green, smooth and 

 shining above. When full grown are dark yellow green above, pale 

 green beneath. In autumn turn a bright clear yellow. Stipules 

 leaf-life, lanceolate, serrate, deciduous. 



Flowers. — June. Dicecious by abortion, terminal, greenish white. 

 Staminate flowers in a short raceme-like corymb three to four 

 inches long , pistillate flowers in a raceme ten to twelve inches long. 



Calyx. — Tubular, hairy, ten-ribbed, five-lobed ; lobes valvate in 

 bud, acute, nearly equal. 



Corolla. — Petals five, oblong, hairy, spreading or reflexed, imbri- 

 cate in bud. 



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