B IL TMORE BOTA NIC A L 



STUDIES 



45 



or several stems : branches crooked, spreading or ascending, 

 forming a round or flat-topped head, the bark gray, tinged with 

 brown : branchlets zigzag, the growth of the season at first 

 pubescent, becoming glabrous, bright reddish brown, marked by 

 elongated, pale lenticels : spines i-6 cm long, straight or slightly 

 curved, gray or chestnut-brown : winter buds globular, bright 

 reddish-brown^ the scales of the terminal ones spreading, acute 

 or acutish : leaves obovate or occasionally oval or elliptical, 

 long including the pubescent, scarcely if at all glandular 

 petioles, 8 mm -3 cm wide, pale green and pubescent at the time of 

 unfolding, becoming glabrous or glabrate, bright green and lus- 

 trous on the upper surface, below much paler and with some 

 persistent pubescence especially along the midrib and rather 

 inconspicuous ascending veins ; they are mostly rounded but 

 occasionally pointed at the apex, either narrowed or cuneate at 

 the base and prolonged into margined petioles 3-7™™ long, 

 sharply and irregularly serrate above the middle, or frequently 

 obscurely serrate or even entire : stipules linear, not exceeding 

 i cm in length, except on very vigorous shoots, when they are 

 broader and longer, more or less glandular, caducous : flowers, 

 which appear when the leaves are two-thirds or more grown, 

 borne in pilose-pubescent, branched, 7-15-flowered corymbs, and 

 expand in the vicinity of West Nashville, Tennessee (type 

 locality), early in May: pedicels pilose-pubescent, 5mm_ I ^cm 

 long, bearing one or more very narrow, sparingly glandular, 

 caducous bractlets : calyx obconic, pilose, the divisions 3~4 mm 

 long, entire, bearing a number of weak, pale hairs similar to 

 those of the tube and pedicels : petals nearly orbicular, about 

 6 mm in diameter, the claw at the base short and relatively broad : 

 stamens normally 10, 4-5 mm long, the anthers purple : styles one 

 or two, surrounded at the base with pale hairs : fruit oval, 9-1 2 mm 

 long, 6-8 mm wide, reddish, red and green or with yellowish sur- 

 faces where not exposed and brownish red cheeks, flesh thin 

 and greenish, the cavity 2-2. 5 mm across, ripening and falling the 

 last of October and early in November : nutlets 1-2, hard and 

 bony, 7-8 mm long, 4-5 mm thick when solitary and presenting one 

 or more grooves and low ridges, or 3~4 mm measured dorso-ven- 

 trally when in pairs, the ventral faces nearly plane and the back 

 grooved and ridged. 



