76 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



half grown when the flowers open during the last week of May and 

 then membranaceous, light yellow green, smooth and glabrous on 

 the upper surface with the exception of a few short hairs along the 

 midribs and pale and glabrous on the lower surface, at maturity 

 subcoriaceous, dark green and very smooth above, pale below, 

 conspicuously reticulate- venulose, 6-7 cm long and 5-6 cm wide, 

 with slender midribs and primary veins deeply impressed on the 

 upper side of the leaf; petioles stout, wing-margined at the apex, 

 deeply grooved, villose on the upper side while young, becoming 

 glabrous, 1.5-2 cm in length. Flowers 1.2-1.4 cm in diameter, on 

 slender slightly villose pedicels, in wide many -flowered corymbs; 

 calyx tube narrowly obconic, glabrous, the lobes slender, acuminate, 

 glandular-serrate below the middle, glabrous on the outer, villose on 

 the inner surface, reflexed after anthesis; stamens 10; anthers dark 

 rose color; styles two or three. Fruit ripening early in September, 

 in many-fruited drooping clusters, subglobose to obovate, full and 

 rounded at the ends, crimson, lustrous, marked by numerous small 

 pale dots; calyx enlarged and prominent, with a deep narrow cavity 

 and foliaceous coarsely serrate reflexed and appressed lobes, dark 

 red and villose on the upper side and mostly persistent on the ripe 

 fruit; flesh thin, dry and yellow; nutlets usually two, rounded and 

 obtuse at the ends, irregularly ridged on the broad back, deeply 

 penetrated on the inner face by broad irregular cavities, 6-7 mm 

 long and about 5 mm wide. 



A tree or treelike shrub 6-7 m high, with a trunk sometimes 

 15-18 cm in diameter covered with dark gray scaly bark, large 

 spreading and ascending ashy gray branches forming a round- 

 topped symmetrical head, and stout branchlets marked by oblong 

 pale lenticels, light orange-green and glabrous when they first 

 appear, becoming bright chestnut-brown and very lustrous during 

 their first winter and ultimately dull gray brown, and armed with 

 numerous stout nearly straight purplish shining spines 2.5-4 cm 

 long. 



Rich bottom lands of the Hudson river; North Greenbush, 

 Charles H. Peck (tr 60, type), May and September 1903. 



This species is named in honor of Louis C. Beck (1798-1853), a 

 native of Schenectady, Professor of chemistry in the Medical Col- 

 lege at Albany, and author of the Botany of the Northern and 

 Middle States, published in 1833, an d of numerous papers on botany 

 and chemistry. 



