178 ECONOMIC BOTANY OF ALABAAIA 



8. Sumter County. 



lOE. Pike, Henry, Coffee and Covington Counties. 



low. Wilcox County (Buckley). Choctaw and Butler Counties. 



11. Clarke County. 



12. Washington, Covington and Geneva Counties. 



13. Mobile and Baldwin Counties (Mohr). Escambia County. 



Asimina angustifolia, Gray. (Formerly confused with A. 



pygmaca.)* 



A low shrub with narrow leathery leaves and rather large 

 cream-colored flowers, appearing in summer. Fruit doubtless 

 edible, like that of the other species. 



Grows in dry sand, where the surrounding vegetation is too 

 sparse to carry fire, in long-leaf pine regions. 



lOE. Dale County (E. A. Smith). 

 12, 13. Geneva County. 



RANUNCULACEAE. Crowfoot or Buttercup Family. 



A large family in temperate regions, represented almost en- 

 tirely by herbs, but one species in the eastern United States is a 

 low shrub. 



XANTHORRHIZA, Marshall. (ZantJwrhha. L'Her.) 

 (Only one species.) 



Xanthorriza simplicissima, Marsh. (Z. apiifolia. L'Her.) 



Yellow-root. 



A low creeping shrub with essentially unl)ranched slender 

 crooked knotty stems rising scarcely a foot above the ground, and 

 bearing a bunch of parsley-like deciduous leaves at the top. The 

 roots and inner bark are bright yellow, whence the name. The 

 flowers are dark purple, small and delicate, in loose clusters, ap- 

 pearing in March and April. 



This has some use as an ornamental plant. One nursery- 

 man's catalogue says of it : — "Undoubtedly the finest American 

 undershrub for planting under trees, along roadways, walks and 

 borders, or where conditions of extreme moisture prevail. . . . 

 Now used by the thousands in parks and private grounds." An- 

 other says : — "Very ornamental. Every year it is being used more 

 extensively as an under-planting and ground cover, giving a soft 

 fern-like aspect of singular beauty." The bark of the root has 



*See G. V. Nash, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, 23 :240-242, 1896. 



