THE CORKWOOD FAMILY 



LEITNERIACEiE Drude 



iJHE family consists of but a single genus, with one known species, a 

 small tree or shrub of the south central United States. It is of 

 no economic value. 



The Leitneriaceae have alternate, somewhat leathery, deciduous 

 leaves, without stipules. The flowers are dioecious, borne in catkins, which appear 

 before the leaves from buds formed the previous season. The staminate catkins 

 have taper- pointed concave imbricated bracts, on a stout, hairy rachis; the flowers 

 have no perianth; the 3 to 12 stamens are borne upon a curved receptacle, their 

 filaments slender or awl-shaped and incurved, the anthers oblong, notched at the 

 apex, and face inward. The pistillate flowers are in shorter, more slender catkins, 

 their bracts less taper-pointed; a rudimentary perianth of minute glandular scales 

 surrounds the ovary, which is composed of a single carpel, ovoid, hairy, and 

 i-celled, terminated by an oblique elongated flattened style, stigmatic on the 

 outer surface; ovule solitary. The fruit is a cluster of compressed drupes, sub- 

 tended by the scarcely altered bracts. The embryo has 2 oblong cotyledons 

 slightly cordate at the base; endosperm fleshy. 



CORKWOOD 



GENUS LEITNERIA. CHAPMAN 

 Species Leitneria fioridana Chapman 



PECULIAR small tree or shrub, confined to swamps in southern 

 Missouri, Florida, and Texas, spreading widely by thick, stolon-like 

 branches just beneath the surface of very wet soil. It attains a height 

 of 7 meters, with a trunk diameter of 14 cm. 

 The trunk is straight and slender, much enlarged near the base, from which it 

 gradually tapers upward. The branches are spreading, forming a rather open 

 tree. The thin bark is 1.5 mm. thick, gray to brown, slightly fissured and some- 

 what ridged. The twigs are stout, round and pithy, bright green or reddish, 

 densely hairy, becoming smooth after the first year, red-brown and marked with 

 triangular leaf-scars; the terminal buds are conic, 3 mm. long, their several scales 

 oblong, imbricated, densely hairy; the lateral buds are smaller. The leaves are 

 thick and firm, narrowly eUiptic, oblong or elUptic-lanceolate, rarely oval, i to 

 2 dm. long, sharp-pointed or the lower blunt, gradually narrowed at the base, 



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