CLAMMY LOCUST 



CLAMMY LOCUST 



Robinia vischsa. 



Usually a shrub five or six feet high, but known to reach the 

 height of forty feet in the mountains of North Carolina with the habit 

 of a tree. Commonly cultivated at the north for the beauty of its 

 flowers. 



Bark. — Smooth, dark brown tinged with red. Branchlets dark 

 reddish brown covered with dark glandular hairs which exude a 

 clammy sticky substance ; later, these become bright red brown, 

 and sticky, finally they turn light brown and become dry. 



Wood. — Light brown ; heavy, hard, close-grained. Sp. gr., 0.8094; 

 weight of cu. ft., 50.44 lbs. 



Winter Bttds. — Small, naked, in groups, sunk in the scars of the 

 fallen leaves, protected by a scale lined with tomentum ; do not 

 appear until spring. 



Leaves. — Alternate, pinnately compound, seven to twelve inches 

 long ; petiole stout and dark, slightly enlarged at base. Leaflets 

 thirteen to twenty-one, oblong, an inch and a half to two inches 

 long, rounded or wedge-shaped at base, entire, rounded and mu- 

 cronate at apex. Feather-veined ; midrib and primary veins as well 

 as the secondary petioles covered with soft hairs. They come out of 

 the bud yellow green covered with soft, silky, white down, when full 

 grown are dark green, smooth above, pale green and downy 

 beneath. In autumn they turn a clear pale yellow. The stipules 

 are long, slender, sometimes fall, sometimes develop into slender 

 spines. Each leaflet has a minute stipel which quickly falls, and a 

 short petiole. 



Flowers. — June. Perfect, pale rose colored, papilionaceous, borne 

 in crowded, oblong, clammy, hairy racemes, slightly fragrant. Pedi- 

 cels developed from the axils of dark red bracts, which extend be- 

 yond the flower buds and fall as the flowers open. 



Calyx. — Campanulate, five-toothed, dark red, hairy, valvate in 

 bud. 



C?ro//(Z.— Papilionaceous, rose or flesh colored, standard narrow 

 with a pale yellow blotch on the inner surface, wings broad. Petals 

 inserted on a tubular disk. 



Stamens. — Ten, diadelphous, nine in one group, one alone. An- 

 thers two-ce;lled; cells opening longitudinally. 



Pistil. — Ovary superior, linear-oblong, stipitate, one-celled ; 

 style recurved ; ovules several, two-ranked. 



Fruit. — Legume, many seeded, about three inches long, narrow, 

 winged, glandular-hispid, tipped with the remnants of the style. 

 Seeds five to nine, dark reddish brown, mottled. Cotyledons oval, 

 fleshy. 



103 



