TREES AND SHRUBS. 



MALUS GLABRATA, Rbhd. 



MALUS GLABRATA, 11. Sp. 



Malus glaucescens, Rehder, Sargent, Trees and Shrubs, ii. 139 (in part) (1911). 



Leaves triangular-ovate or ovate, acute or acuminate at the apex, cordate or rarely truncate 

 at the base, with two or three pairs of short-acute or short-acuminate irregularly and eoarstlv 

 serrate lobes passing toward the apex into unequal teeth, the lowest pair of lobes from 1 to 2 

 centimetres long; the leaves of the flowering brauchlets smaller than those of the vigorous shoots. 

 distinctly lobed; when they unfold bronze color and sparingly covered with caducous loose hairs, 

 quite glabrous when fully expanded, and at maturity dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper 

 surface, light or pale green but not glaucescent on the lower surface, from 5 to i» centimetres long 

 and from 4 to 8 centimetres broad, with from five to seven pairs of veins slightly impressed above 

 and prominent below, the lowest pair springing from the base of the leaf ; petioles slender, gla- 

 brous, from 2 to 3 centimetres in length. Flowers about 3 centimetres in diameter, on slender 

 glabrous purple pedicels from 1.5 to 3 centimetres long, in from four- to seven-flowered umbel-like 

 racemes; calyx-tube obovoid, glabrous and purple, the lobes lanceolate-oblong, glabrous on the 

 outside, tomentose on the inside, slightly longer than the tube; petals suborbicular or broadly 

 ovate, rarely oval, rounded at the apex and abruptly contracted into a short claw, often wrote 

 denticulate, from 1.2 to 1.4 centimetres long and from 1.1 to 1.3 centimetres broad; stamens about 

 one-tnird shorter than the petals, with dark anthers; styles five, slightly longer than the stamens, 

 villose below the middle and connate for about one-fourth their length at their base. Fruit de- 

 pressed-globose, slightly angled and distinctly ribbed at the deeply impressed apex, with a deep 

 cavity at the base, about 3 centimetres high and 4 centimetres in diameter, the pedicels slender, 

 about 2 centimetres long ; seed obovoid-oblong, chestnut brown, about 8 millimetres in length. 



A tree, from 6 to 8 metres high, with spreading branches, often armed with stout straight 

 spines from 1.5 to 4 centimetres long ; branchlets glabrous, purple, becoming purple-brown and 

 slightly lustrous at the end of the first season, dull red-brown the second year and later dark 

 grayish brown. Winter-buds ovoid or oblong-ovoid, acutish, dark purple-brown, glabrous. 

 Flowers at the end of April or early in May. Fruit ripens the beginning of October. 



North Carolina: near Biltmore, Buncombe County, T. G. Harbison, April 20, 1911 (No. 522, 

 type), October 5, 1910 (No. 192, fruit) ; May 3, 1897 (Biltmore Herbarium, No. 1297 b, in part). 

 Alabama: Valleyhead, De Kalb County, T. G. Harbison, October 7, 1910 (Nos. 196 & 686), 

 October 11, 1911 (No. 696). 



From the allied species Malta glabrata is easily distinguished by the glabrous deeply lobed leaves distinctly cordate at 

 the base and by the lowest pair of lateral veins springing from the very base of the leaf. Its closest relationship seems 

 to be with M. glaucescens Rehder, which differs chiefly in the following characters : the leaves, with the lowest pair of 

 the veins inserted some distance above the usually truncate base, are covered when unfo ding with a villose tomentum 

 which is dense on the lower surface and which gradually disappears ; they are usually dull and pals green while young, 



and not or scarcely ribbed at the less deeply impressed apex. 



