TREES AND SHRUBS. 



iESCULUS ARGUTA, Buckl. 



^Esculus arguta, Buckley, Proc. Acad. Sci. Pkila. 1860, 443 (not Pavia arguta Rafi- 

 nesque). — Young, Fl. Texas, 209. — Coulter, Contrib. U. S. Nat Mas. ii. 65 (FI. W. Texas). 



^Esculus glabra, var. arguta, Robinson, Gray, Syn. Fl. N. Am. i. pt. i. 447 (in part) (1897). 



Leaves seven- to nine-, usually nine-foliate, coated when they unfold like the flower-buds with hoary 

 tomentum, their petioles stout, puberulous, from 1 to 1.8 decimetres in length ; leaflets lanceolate 

 to occasionally obovate-lanceolate, gradually or abruptly narrowed and acuminate and long-pointed 

 at the apex, gradually narrowed, cuneate and entire at the base, sharply and often doubly serrate 

 with straight teeth, light yellow-green, smooth or scabrate on the upper surface, pale and more or 

 less pubescent on the lower surface, from 1 to 1.4 decimetres long, from 2 to 6, usually about 

 2.5, centimetres wide, their petiolules slender, puberulous early in the season, becoming glabrous, 

 from 5 to 10 millimetres in length. Flowers about 1.5 centimetres long, on slender pedicels, in 

 narrow many-flowered pubescent panicles from 1.2 to 2 decimetres long; calyx campanulate, 

 pubescent, light yellow-green, about 6 millimetres in length, five-lobed, the lobes rounded, ciliate 

 on the margins; petals nearly equal, oblong-obovate, gradually narrowed below into slender claws, 

 pubescent on the outer surface, villose on the margins, pale yellow ; stamens usually seven ; fila- 

 ments villose; ovary coated with long pale hairs, the style villose to the apex. Fruit on stout 

 glabrous pedicels, subglobose, from one- to three-seeded, with thick dark brown echinate valves; 

 seeds dark chestnut-brown, lustrous, about 2.5 centimetres in diameter. 



A shrub, from 3 decimetres to 1.5 metres high, with numerous small stems often prostrate on 

 the ground in the autumn from the weight of the abundant fruit, and slender branchlets light 

 orange-green and puberulous when they first appear, light red-brown, puberulous, covered with 

 a glaucous bloom and marked by pale lenticels during their first winter, and light yellow-brown 

 and glabrous the following year. Winter-buds ovate, acute, from 1 to 2 centimetres in length, 

 their scales acute, apiculate, reddish brown covered with a glaucous bloom. 



Covering an open hillside near Larissa, Cherokee County, Texas, where it was discovered by 

 Mr. S. B. Buckley before 1860. Texas: Larissa, B. F. Bush, April 30, 1909 (No. 5556, with 

 young fruit), O. S. Sargent, March 24, and October, 1909. Rocky cliffs near Dallas, Dallas County, 

 J. Beverchon, April, 1874 (in Herb. Gray), April and June, 1880 (No. 147, with 7 leaflets), 

 B. F. Bush, November 15, 1905 (No. 3851, winter-buds); Oak Cliff, near Dallas, C. S. Sargent, 

 March 23, 1910 (with 7 leaflets); Palestine, Anderson County, E. N. Plank (without date); 

 Marshall's Bluff on Red River, twelve miles northwest of Dennison, Grayson County, T. V. Munson, 

 March 20, 1910 (with 7 leaflets). Oklahoma: on Red River at Colbert's Ferry, northwest of Den- 

 nison, T. V. Munson, April 19, 1911. 



This beautiful shrub, which has been so long misunderstood, seems distinct from all the forms of JEsculus glabra in 

 its more numerous, narrower long-pointed leaflets and dwarf habit. At Larissa, where the plant covers many acres on 

 a hillside, the leaflets are usually nine, although plants with seven leaflets occasionally occur. In the neighborhood of 

 Dallas the leaflets appear to be usually seven, and on the Eed River plants with seven and with nine leaflets grow 



1 iEscuLUS glabra, Willd. The form of this species which inhabits the rich bottom-lands near Courtney, Jackson County, 

 Missouri, differs from the type in its usually seven narrower and more acuminate leaflets coated below like the young h 

 with close fine pale pubescence. This form is reported from Iowa, and it occurs at Manhattan, Riley County, Kansas. 



