KENTUCKY COFFEE-TREE 
KENTUCKY COFFEE-TREE. STUMP-TREE 
Gymnéeladus didicus, 
Gymnocladus is of Greek derivation and refers to the stout 
branches destitute of spray. 
Widely distributed, but rare. Not found in New England, but 
ranging from New York to Arkansas and Indian Territory. Prefers 
bottom lands, and a rich moist soil. Varies from seventy-five to 
one hundred feet high with a trunk two or three feet in diameter 
which usually separates ten or fifteen feet from the ground into three 
or four divisions which spread slightly and form a narrow pyramidal 
head; or when crowded by other trees, sending up one tall central 
branchless shaft to the height of fifty or seventy feet. Branches 
stout, pithy, and blunt; roots fibrous. 
Bark.—Dark gray, deeply fissured, surface scaly. Branchlets at 
first coated with short reddish down. 
IVood—Light brown; heavy, strong, coarse-grained, durable in 
contact with the ground, takes a fine polish. Sp. gr.,0.6934; weight 
of cu. ft., 43.21 Ibs. 
IVinter Buds.—Minute, depressed in downy cavities of the stem, 
two in the axil of each leaf, the smaller sterile. Bud scales two, 
ovate, coated with brown tomentum and growing with the shoct, be- 
come orange green, hairy and about one inch long, before they fall. 
Leaves.—Alternate, bi-pinnately compound, ten to fourteen pin- 
nate, lowest pinne reduced to leaflets, the others seven to thirteen 
foliate. One to three feet long, eighteen to twenty-four inches broad, 
by the greater development of the upper pairs of pinnz. Leaf stalks 
and stalks of pinne, are terete, enlarged at base, smooth when ma- 
ture, pale green, often purple on the upper side. Leaflets ovate, 
two to two and one-half inches long, wedge-shaped or irregularly 
rounded at base, with wavy margin, acute apex. They come out of 
the bud bright pink, but soon become bronze green, smooth and 
shining above. When full grown are dark yellow green above, pale 
green beneath. In autumn turn a bright clear yellow. Stipules 
leaf-life, lanceolate, serrate, deciduous. 
Flowers.—June. Dicecious by abortion, terminal, greenish white. 
Staminate flowers in a short raceme-like corymb three to four 
inches long, pistillate flowers in a raceme ten to twelve inches long. 
Calyx.—Tubular, hairy, ten-ribbed, five-lobed ; lobes valvate in 
bud, acute, nearly equal. 
Corolla.—Petals five, oblong, hairy, spreading or reflexed, imbri- 
cate in bud. 
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