BUCKWHEAT TREE. 
93 
spreading out at the summit like an apple tree. The ver- 
ticillate branches are regularly covered with a smooth 
grey bark. The wood is compact and whitish. It is 
exceedingly ornamental in flower, which takes place in 
early Spring, in the month of March, when the whole sur- 
face of the tree is covered with the most delicate, elegant, 
and somewhat fragrant flowers. The borders of all the still 
and sluggish streams, and the dark swamps of the South are 
enlivened by the numerous trees of this species with which 
they are interspersed. In the intervals of their shade, in 
West Florida, we frequently saw growing and already in 
flower, the Atamasco Lily, or Amaryllis of the North. 
When the flowers are past, the tree puts on a still more 
curious appearance, being loaded with triangular, winged 
capsules resembling Buckwheat, and hence its common 
name. The leaves resemble those of Privet, are evergreen, 
thick, very smooth, not perceptibly veined, and glaucous 
beneath. 
In the Spring of 1773, the indefatigable Wm. Bartram 
discovered this tree, where I afterwards also saw it grow- 
ing, on the borders of the Savannah River, in Georgia. 
He thus very clearly decribes it, as “ a new shrub of great 
beauty and singularity. It grows erect, 7 or 8 feet high. 
A multitude of stems arise from its root, there divide them- 
selves into ascending branches, which are garnished with 
abundance of narrow lanceolate obtuse pointed leaves, of a 
light green, smooth and shining. These branches with 
their many subdivisions, terminate in simple racemes of 
pale incarnate flowers, which make a fine appearance 
among the leaves. The flowers are succeeded by desic- 
cated triquetrous pericarpi, each containing a single ker- 
nel.” (Bartram’s Travels, page 31.) How so fine a plant 
came to be overlooked for near half a century, is really 
surprising, considering the avidity of collectors and gar- 
deners. In the northern States and in Britain, it is a hardy 
