Handbook of Teees of the jSToetheen States and Canada. STS 



The Sorrel-tree is a handsome and interest- 

 ing tree, occasionally in the fore.-t attainiug t le 

 height of 50 to 70 ft. or more, with long clear 

 trunk IS or 20 in. in diameter. When iso- 

 lated it develops a rather irregular narrow- 

 oblong top, with spreading and drooping 

 branches. 



It occupies mainly well drained slopes and 

 ridges, in company with various Oaks and 

 Hickories, the Sugar Maple, Sweet and Sour 

 Gums, the Silver-bell Tree, Yellow Buckeye, 

 etc., and attains its largest size on the lower 

 slopes of the Alleghany Mountains. Farther 

 east, as I have found it along the borders of 

 the Dismal Swamp in Mrginia, it is a small 

 slender-stemmed tree, often with inclined 

 trunk, and there thriving in moist soil. It i5 

 a distinctly ornamental tree in summer, with 

 handsome foliage and large terminal bunches 

 of tiny cup-shaped white flowers, and in 

 autumn with its bright scarlet foliage. 



It takes its name from a slightly acidulous 

 flavor of its leaves and branchlets, which are 

 tonic, refrigerant and diuretic in properties. 



The wood is fine-grained, rather luird and 

 lieavj', a cubic foot wlien absolutely dry weigh- 

 ing 46.48 lbs., and is useful in turnery, for 

 tool-handles, etc.i 



Leaves alternate, deciduous, rovolute in the 

 bud, oblong to lanceolate, cuneate at base, acntc 

 or acuminate at apex, irregularly serrulate with 

 slender teeth, lustrous dark green above, pale and 

 glaucous beneath. FloKcrx (.Tuly-.Vugust) numer- 

 ous, white, about % in. long, in terminal paniclerl 

 racemes, with pubescent bibracteolatia pedic<'ls : 

 caly.x deeply 5-lobed, persistent : corolla cylindri- 

 cal! ovoid, hypogenous, with Ti minute reflexed 

 lobes : stamens 10. the filaments wider than the 

 anthers ; disk thin ; ovary ."i-celled with columnar 

 style and capitate stigma ; ovules numerous, am- 

 pliitropous. Fruit a .5-ceIled ovoid .pyramidal 

 capsule, with remnants of persistent style and 

 calyx, loculicidally ."i-valved ; seeds numerous, the 

 testa pointed at both ends.= 



n. A. W., XII, 28:!. 



2. For genus see p. 452. 



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