CLAMMY LOCUST 
CLAMMY LOCUST 
Robinia viscosa. 
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 Buds.—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. 
Corolla.—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-celled; 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 
