The Honey Locusts 



537 



The wood is hard, close-grained, yellowish brown, its specific gravity about 



0-75- 



3. CALIFORNIA REDBUD — Cercis ocddentalis Torrey 



Usually a widely branched shrub, this species sometimes becomes a tree 6 

 meters tall. It occurs from the coast mountains to 

 the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada of Cali- 

 fornia, from the northern part of the state to San 

 Diego county. It has also been found in Diamond 

 VaUey, Utah. 



The twigs are slender, smooth and brown. The 

 leaves are kidney-shaped, usually broader than long, 

 5 cm. to rarely 7.5 cm. wide, notched or blunt at the 

 apex, shallowly or deeply heart-shaped at the base, 

 entire on the margin, thick and leathery, bright green, 

 smooth and somewhat shining on both surfaces; the 

 leaf-stalk is slender, 2 to 2.5 cm. long. The flowers, 

 which appear in March and April, are clustered, on 

 rather long, slender stalks, the bell-shaped calyx 

 usually of a dark reddish color, its teeth short and 

 broad ; petals magenta. The pod is flat, oblong, to linear-oblong, 5 to 7 cm. long, 

 purplish, turning brown, tapering at each end and stalked in the calyx. 



Fig. 496. — California Redbud. 



in. THE HONEY LOCUSTS 



GENUS GLEDITSIA [CLAYTON] LINNAEUS 



ULEDITSIA contains about 11 species of trees, usually armed on the 

 trunk and branches with simple or compound thorns. They occur 

 mostly in the warmer portions of the north temperate zone, being most 

 abundant in Asia, and eastern North America, and fossils from the 

 Tertiary formations of Europe have been referred to the genus. The pulp of the 

 pods of the Japanese tree has been used as soap; their wood is of but ordinary 

 value. 



The leaves are deciduous, evenly bipinnate or merely pinnate, often both on 

 an individual leaf, stipulate; leaflets small, numerous, and scalloped. The flowers 

 are polygamous, small, green or white, in slender axillary, usually spicate clusters; 

 the calyx- tube is bell-shaped, nearly equally 3- to 5-lobed; the corolla of as many 

 nearly equal petals as there are calyx-lobes; stamens 10, inserted with the petals 

 on the margin of the disk, slightly exserted, on short, free filaments, the anthers 

 uniform, 2-celled, much smaller or abortive in the pistillate flowers; ovary borne 

 in the bottom of the calyx-tube, nearly sessile, rudimentary or absent in the stami- 

 nate flowers; style short; stigma terminal, somewhat dilated, ovules 2 or many. 



