JUGLANDACE^E. (WALNUT FAMILY.) 447 



1 . P L.A T A N U S , L. Plane-tree. Buttonwood. 



Sterile flowers of numerous stamens, with club-shaped little scales intermixed : 

 filaments very short. Fertile flowers in separate catkins, consisting of inversely 

 pyramidal ovaries mixed with little scales. Style rather lateral, awl-shaped or 

 thread-like, simple. Nutlets coriaceous, small, tawny-hairy below, containing 

 a single orthotropous pendulous seed. Embryo in the axis of thin albumen. 

 |The ancient name, from nXarvs^ broad.) 



1. P. OCCidentellis, L. (American Plane or Sycamore.) Leaves 

 mostly truncate at base, angularly sinuate-lobed or toothed, the short lobes 

 aharp-pointed ; fertile heads solitary, hanging on a long peduncle. — Alluvial 

 banks : very common, especially westward. May. — A very large and well- 

 known tree, with a white bark, separating early in thin brittle plates. 



Order 101. JUGLANDACE^l. (Walnut Family.) 



Trees, with alternate pinnate leaves, and no stipules ; flowers monoecious, 

 the sterile in catkins (aments) with an irregular calyx adnate to the bract ; 

 the fertile solitary or in a small cluster or spike, with a regular 3 - b-lobed 

 calyx adherent to the incompletely 2-4-celled but only 1-ovuled ovary. Fruit 

 a kind of dry drupe, with a crustaceous or bony nut-shell, containing a large 

 4-lobed orthotropous seed. Albumen none. Cotyledons fleshy and oily, 

 sinuous or corrugated, 2-lobed : radicle short, superior. Petals sometimes 

 present in the fertile flowers. — A small family of important trees, consist- 

 ing chiefly of the two following genera. 



1. JtJGLANS, L. Walnut. 



Sterile flowers in long and simple lateral catkins from the wood of the precede 

 ing year; the calyx adherent to the entire bracts or scales, unequally 3-6-cleft. 

 Stamens 12-40: filaments free, very short. Fertile flowers solitary or several 

 together on a peduncle at the end of the branches, Avith a 4-toothed calyx, bear- 

 ing 4 small petals at the sinuses. Styles 2, very short : stigmas 2, somewhat 

 club-shaped and fringed. Fruit with a fibrous-fleshy indehiscent epicarp, and a 

 mostly rough irregularly furrowed endocarp or nut-shell. — Trees, with strong- 

 scented or re-dnous-aromatic bark, few-scaled or almost naked buds (3 or 4 su- 

 perposed, and the uppermost far above the axil), odd -pinnate leaves of many 

 serrate leaflets ; and the embryo sweet and edible. Pith in plates. (Name con- 

 tracted from Jovis glans, the nut of Jupiter. ) 



1. J. cinkrea, L. (Butternut.) Leaflets oblong-lanceolate, pointed, 

 rounded at the base, downy, especially underneath, the petioles and branchlets 

 dmvny with clammy hairs ; fruit oblong, clammy, pointed, the nut deeply sculptured 

 and rough with ragged ridges, 2-celled at the base. — Rich woods: common. 

 May : fruit ripe in Sept. — Tree 30° - 50° high, with gray bark and widely 

 spreading branches ; wood lighter brown than in the next. 



2. J. nigra, L. (Black Walnut.) Leaves ovate-lanceolate, taper-pointed, 

 somewhat heart-shaped or unequal at the base, smooth above, the lower surface 



