Leaves 8′-12′ in length, with leaflets 3′—4′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, the terminal leaflet rather shorter than the others and 3′—3½′ wide; turning bright clear yellow rather late in the autumn some time before falling. Flowers appearing about the middle of June, slightly fragrant, in panicles 12′—14′ long and 5′—6′ wide. Fruit fully grown by the middle of August, ripening in September and soon falling.
A tree, sometimes 50°-60° high, with a trunk 1½°—2° or exceptionally 4° in diameter, usually divided 6°—7° from the ground into 2 or 3 stems, slender wide-spreading more or less pendulous brittle branches forming a wide graceful head, and zigzag branchlets clothed with pubescence when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, during their first season light brown tinged more or less with green, very smooth and lustrous, and covered by numerous darker colored lenticels, bright red-brown in their first winter and marked by large elevated leaf-scars surrounding the buds, and dark dull brown the following year. Bark of the trunk ⅛′—¼′ thick, with a silvery gray or light brown surface and rather darker colored than that of the branches. Wood heavy, very hard, strong and close-grained, with a smooth satiny surface, bright clear yellow changing to light brown on exposure, with thin nearly white sapwood; used for fuel, occasionally for gun-stocks, and yielding a clear yellow dye.
Distribution. Limestone cliffs and ridges generally in rich soil, and often overhanging the banks of mountain streams; Cherokee County, North Carolina, and the western slopes of the high mountains of eastern Tennessee; central Tennessee and Kentucky; near Florence, Lauderdale County, and cliffs of the Warrior River, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama; Forsythe, Taney County, and Eagle Rock, Barry County, Missouri; rare and local; most abundant in the neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, and in Missouri.
Often planted in the eastern United States as an ornamental tree, and hardy as far north as New England; and rarely in western and southern Europe; usually only flowering in alternate years.
13. EYSENHARDTIA H. B. K.
Small glandular-punctate trees or shrubs, with slender terete branchlets. Leaves alternate, equally pinnate, petiolate; leaflets oblong, mucronate or emarginate at apex, short-petiolulate, numerous, stipellate; stipules subulate, caducous. Flowers short-pedicellate, in long spicate racemes, terminal or axillary, with subulate caducous bracts; calyx-tube campanulate, conspicuously glandular-punctate, 5-toothed, the acute teeth nearly equal, persistent; disk cupuliform, adnate to the base of the calyx-tube; corolla subpapilionaceous; petals erect, free, nearly equal, oblong-spatulate, rounded at apex, unguiculate, creamy white; standard concave, slightly broader than the wing and keel-petals; stamens 10, inserted with the petals, the superior stamen free, shorter than the others united to above the middle into a tube; anthers uniform, oblong; ovary subsessile, contracted into a long slender uncinate style geniculate and conspicuously glandular below the apex; stigma introrse, oblique; ovules 2 or 3, rarely 4, attached to the inner angle of the ovary, superposed. Legume small, oblong or linear-falcate, compressed, tipped with the remnants of the style, indehiscent, pendent. Seeds usually solitary, rarely 2, oblong-reniform, without albumen; seed-coat coriaceous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons flat, fleshy; radicle superior, short and erect.
Eysenhardtia is confined to the warmer parts of the New World, and is distributed from western Texas and southern New Mexico and Arizona to southern Mexico, Lower California, and Guatemala. Four species are distinguished; of these three species occur within the territory of the United States, and in northern Mexico, and one species is found only in Guatemala. Lignum nephriticum formerly celebrated in Europe for its reputed medical properties and for the fluorescence of its infusion in spring water is the wood of the shrubby Eysenhardtia polystachya Sarg. of western Texas and Mexico.
Of the North American species one is a small tree.
The generic name is in honor of Karl Wilhelm Eysenhardt (1794—1825), Professor of Botany in the University of Königsberg.
1. Eysenhardtia orthocarpa S. Wats.
Leaves 4′—5′ long, with a pubescent rachis grooved on the upper side, 10—23 pairs of leaflets, and small scarious deciduous stipules; leaflets oval, rounded or slightly emarginate at apex, with a stout petiolule and minute scarious deciduous stipels, pale gray-green, glabrous or slightly puberulous on the upper surface, conspicuously glandular, with chestnut-brown glands, and pubescent especially on the prominent midrib on the lower surface, reticulate-veined, ½′—⅔′ long, ⅛′—¼′ wide, with thickened slightly revolute margins. Flowers opening in May, nearly ½′ long, on slender pubescent pedicels, in axillary pubescent spikes 3′—4′ long; calyx many-ribbed, pubescent, conspicuously glandular, half as long as the white petals ciliate on the margins, and of nearly equal size and shape. Fruit ½′ long, pendent, nearly straight or slightly falcate, thickened on the edges, with usually a single seed near the apex; seed compressed, light reddish brown, ¼′ long.
A tree, occasionally 18°—20° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, separating 3° or 4° above the ground into a number of slender branches, and branchlets coated when they first appear with ashy gray pubescence disappearing during the second year, and then reddish brown and roughened by numerous glandular excrescences; or more often a low rigid shrub. Bark of the trunk about 1/16′ thick, light gray, and broken into large plate-like scales, exfoliating on the surface into thin layers. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, light reddish brown, with thin clear yellow sapwood of 7 or 8 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Dry gravelly soil, on arid slopes and dry ridges; valley of the upper Guadalupe River, western Texas, to the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita Mountains, southern Arizona, and southward into northern Mexico; arborescent in the United States only near the summit of the Santa Catalina Mountains.
14. DALEA L.
Glandular-punctate herbs, small shrubs, or rarely trees. Leaves alternate, unequally pinnate, or simple in the arborescent species; stipules generally minute, subulate, deciduous. Flowers in racemes, their bracts membranaceous or setaceous, broad, concave above, glandular-dentate; calyx 5-toothed or lobed, persistent, the divisions nearly equal; corolla papilionaceous; petals unguiculate; standard cordate, free, inserted in the bottom of the tubular disk connate to the calyx-tube, rather shorter than the wing- and keel-petals, the claws adnate to and jointed upon the staminal tube; stamens 10, sometimes 9 through the suppression of the superior stamen, united into a tube cleft above and cup-shaped toward the base; anthers uniform, often surmounted by a gland; ovary sessile or short-stalked, contracted into a slender subulate style, with a minute terminal stigma; ovules 4—6 attached to the inner angle of the ovary, superposed. Legume ovoid, sometimes conspicuously ribbed, more or less inclosed in the calyx, membranaceous, indehiscent, 1-seeded; seed reniform, without albumen; testa coriaceous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons broad and flat; radicle superior, accumbently reflexed.
Dalea is confined to the New World, where it is distributed from the central, western, and southwestern regions of the United States through Mexico and Central America to Peru, Chile, and the Galapagos Islands; usually herbs or low undershrubs, one species of the United States occasionally assumes the habit and attains the size of a small tree.
The generic name is in honor of Samuel Dale (1659—1739), an English botanist and writer on the materia medica.
1. Dalea spinosa A. Gray. Smoke Tree.
Leaves few, simple, irregularly scattered near the base of the spinose branchlets, cuneate or linear-oblong, sessile or nearly sessile, marked by few large glands, especially on the entire wavy margins, hoary-pubescent, ¾′—1′ long, ⅛′—½′ wide, with a broad midrib and three pairs of lateral ribs, on vigorous young shoots or seedling plants remotely and coarsely serrate; remaining only for a few weeks on the branches; stipules minute, ovate, acute, pubescent. Flowers ½′ long, appearing in June on short pedicels from the axils of minute bracts, in racemes 1′—1½′ long, their rachis slender, spinescent, hoary-pubescent; calyx-tube 10-ribbed, with usually 5 glands between the dorsal ribs, the lobes short, ovate, rounded or more or less ciliate on the margins, reflexed at maturity; petals dark violet blue, standard cordate, reflexed, furnished at base of the blade with two conspicuous glands, wing- and keel-petals attached to the staminal tube by their base only and nearly equal in size, rounded at apex, more or less irregularly lobed at base; ovary pubescent, glandular punctate. Fruit ovoid, pubescent, glandular, twice as long as the calyx, tipped with the remnants of the recurved style; seed ⅛′ long, pale brown irregularly marked with dark spots.
A tree, 18°—20° high, with a short stout contorted trunk sometimes 20′ in diameter and divided near the ground into several upright branches, and branchlets reduced to slender sharp spines coated with fine pubescence, bearing minute nearly triangular scarious caducous bracts, marked by occasional glandular fistules, and developed from stouter branches hoary-pubescent when young, becoming glabrous in their third year and covered with pale brown bark roughened with lenticels and as it exfoliates showing the pale green inner bark; more often a low rigid intricately branched shrub. Bark of the trunk dark gray-brown, nearly ¼′ thick, deeply furrowed, and roughened on the surface by small persistent scales. Wood light, soft, rather close-grained, walnut-brown in color, with nearly white sapwood of 12—15 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Valley of the lower Gila River, Arizona, through the Colorado Desert to San Felipe and Palm Springs, Riverside County, California, and southward into Sonora and Lower California.
15. ROBINIA L. Locust.
Trees or shrubs, with slender terete or slightly many-angled zigzag branchlets, without a terminal bud, minute naked subpetiolar depressed-globose axillary buds 3 or 4 together, superposed, protected collectively in a depression by a scale-like covering lined on the inner surface with a thick coat of tomentum and opening in early spring, its divisions persistent during the season on the base of the branchlet developed usually from the upper bud. Leaves unequally pinnate, petiolate, deciduous; leaflets entire, penniveined, stipellate, reticulate-venulose, petiolulate; stipules setaceous, becoming spinescent at maturity, persistent. Flowers on long pedicels, in short pendulous racemes from the axils of leaves of the year, with small acuminate caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx campanulate, 5-toothed or cut, the upper lobes shorter than the others, cohering for part of their length; corolla papilionaceous, petals shortly unguiculate, inserted on a tubular disk glandular on the inner surface and connate with the base of the calyx-tube; standard large, reflexed, barely longer than the wing- and keel-petals, naked on the inner surface, obcordate, reflexed; wings oblong-falcate, free; keel-petals incurved, obtuse, united below; stamens 10, inserted with the petals, the 9 inferior united into a tube often enlarged at base and cleft on the upper side, the superior stamen free at the base and connate in the middle with the staminal tube, or finally free; anthers ovoid; ovary inserted at the base of the calyx, linear-oblong, stipitate; style subulate, inflexed, bearded along the inner side near the apex, with a small terminal stigma; ovules numerous, suspended from the inner angle of the ovary, in two ranks, superposed. Legumes in drooping many-fruited racemes, many-seeded, linear, compressed, almost sessile, 2-valved, the seed-bearing suture narrow-winged; valves thin and membranaceous. Seed oblong-oblique, transverse, attached by a stout persistent incurved funicle enlarged at the point of attachment to the placenta; seed-coat thin, crustaceous; albumen thin, membranaceous; cotyledons oval, fleshy; radicle short, much reflexed, accumbent.
Robinia with seven or eight species is confined to the United States and Mexico; of the species found in the United States three are arborescent.
The generic name commemorates the botanical labors of Jean and Vespasien Robin, arborists and herbalists of the kings of France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
- Legume without glandular hairs; flowers white.
- 1. R. Pseudoacacia (A, C).
- Legume glandular-hispid (in the arborescent form of No. 2); flowers rose color.
- Glands not viscid.
- 2. R. neo-Mexicana (F, H).
- Glands exuding a clammy sticky substance.
- 3. R. viscosa (A).
1. Robinia Pseudoacacia L. Locust. Acacia. Yellow Locust.
Leaves 8′—14′ long, with a slender puberulous petiole, and 7—19 leaflets; turning pale clear yellow late in the autumn just before falling; stipules ½′ long, linear, subulate, membranaceous, at first pubescent and tipped with small tufts of caducous brown hairs, becoming straight or slightly recurved spines persistent for many years and ultimately often more than 1′ in length; leaflets oval, rounded or slightly truncate and minutely apiculate at apex, when they unfold covered with caducous silvery pubescence, at maturity very thin, dull dark blue-green above, pale below, glabrous with the exception of the slight pubescence on the under side of the slender midrib, 1½′—2′ long and ½′—¾′ wide; petiolules stout, ⅛′—¼′ in length; stipules minute, linear, membranaceous, early deciduous. Flowers opening in May or early in June, filled with nectar, very fragrant, on slender pedicels ½′ long and dark red or red tinged with green, in loose puberulous racemes 4′—5′ long; calyx conspicuously gibbous on the upper side, ciliate on the margins, dark green blotched with red, especially on the upper side, the lower lobe acuminate and much longer than the nearly triangular lateral and upper lobes; petals pure white, with a large pale yellow blotch marking the inner surface of the standard. Fruit ripening late in the autumn, 3′—4′ long and ½′ wide, with bright red-brown valves, usually 4—8-seeded, mostly persistent until the end of winter or early spring; seeds 3/16′ long, dark orange-brown, with irregular darker markings.
A tree, 70°—80° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, small brittle usually erect branches forming a narrow oblong head, and slender terete or sometimes slightly many-angled branchlets marked by small pale scattered lenticels, coated at first with short appressed silvery white deciduous pubescence, pale green and puberulous during their first summer, becoming light reddish brown and glabrous or nearly glabrous toward autumn. Bark of the trunk 1′—1½′ thick, deeply furrowed, dark brown tinged with red, and covered by small square persistent scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard and strong, close-grained, very durable in contact with the ground, brown or rarely light green, with pale yellow sapwood of 2 or 3 layers of annual growth; formerly extensively used in shipbuilding, for all sorts of posts, in construction and turnery; preferred for treenails, and valued as fuel.
Distribution. Slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, central and southern Pennsylvania, to northern Georgia; in southern Illinois; now widely naturalized in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and perhaps indigenous as a low shrub in northeastern and western Arkansas and in Oklahoma; nowhere common; in the Appalachian forest growing singly or in small groups up to altitudes of 3500°; most abundant and of its largest size on the western slopes of the Alleghanies of West Virginia; often spreading by underground stems into broad thickets of small and often stunted trees.
Formerly much planted as an ornamental and timber tree in the eastern states; very frequently used in Europe, with numerous seminal varieties of peculiar foliage or habit, for the decoration of parks and gardens, and to shade the streets of cities.
2. Robinia neo-mexicana A. Gray. Locust.
In its typical form a shrub only a few feet high. The hairs on the fruit not glandular-hispid.
Distribution. Mountain cañons and plains, Grant County, New Mexico. Passing into
Robinia neo-mexicana var. luxurians Dieck.
Leaves 6′—12′ long, with a stout pubescent petiole, and 15—21 leaflets; stipules chartaceous, covered with long silky brown hairs, becoming at maturity stout slightly recurved flat brown or bright red spines sometimes 1′ or more long; leaflets elliptic-oblong, rounded or sometimes slightly emarginate at the mucronate apex, cuneate or sometimes rounded at base, 1½′ long, and 1′ broad, coated at first on the lower surface and on the margins with soft brown hairs, and silvery-pubescent on the upper surface, and at maturity thin, pale blue-green, conspicuously reticulate-veined, and glabrous with the exception of the slightly puberulous lower side of the slender midrib and stout petiolule; stipels membranaceous, ¼′ long, often recurved, sometimes persistent through the season. Flowers appearing in May, 1′ long, on slender pedicels ½′ in length and covered with stout glandular hairs, in short compact many-flowered glandular-hispid long-stemmed racemes; corolla pale rose color or sometimes almost white (f. albiflora Kusche), with a broad standard and wing-petals. Fruit 3′—4′ long, about ⅓′ wide, glandular-hispid, with a narrow wing; seeds dark brown, slightly mottled, 1/16′ long.
A tree, sometimes 20°—25° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, and branchlets at first pale and coated with rusty brown glandular hairs increasing in length during the summer, and slightly puberulous, bright reddish brown, often covered with a glaucous bloom, and marked by a few small scattered pale lenticels during their first winter. Bark of the trunk thin, slightly furrowed, light brown, the surface separating into small plate-like scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, close-grained, yellow streaked with brown, with light yellow sapwood of 4 or 5 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Banks of mountain streams; valley of the Purgatory River, Colorado, through northern New Mexico and Arizona to southern Utah; on the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita Mountains, southern Arizona up to altitudes of 7000°; probably of its largest size near Trinidad, Las Animas County, Colorado.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states, and in western Europe.
× Robinia Holdtii Beiss, a hybrid of Robinia neo-mexicana var. luxurians and R. Pseudoacacia, has appeared in a Colorado nursery and is occasionally cultivated.
3. Robinia viscosa Vent. Clammy Locust.
Leaves 7′—12′ long, with a stout nearly terete dark glandular-hispid clammy petiole, and 13—21 leaflets; stipules subulate, chartaceous, often deciduous or developing into short slender spines; leaflets ovate, sometimes acuminate, mucronate, rounded or pointed at apex, and cuneate at base, when they unfold covered below with soft white pubescence, and slightly puberulous above, and at maturity dark green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale and pubescent on the lower surface, especially on the slender yellow midrib and primary veins and on the stout glandular-hispid petiolule, 1½′—2′ long and ⅔′ wide; stipels slender, deciduous. Flowers ⅔′ long, almost inodorous, appearing in June, on slender hairy pedicels from the axils of large lanceolate acuminate dark-red bracts contracted at apex into a long setaceous point exserted beyond the flower-buds and mostly deciduous before the flowers open, in short crowded glandular-hispid racemes; calyx dark red, coated on the outer surface and on the margins of the subulate lobes with long pale hairs; corolla pale rose or flesh color, with a narrow standard marked on the inner face by a pale yellow blotch, and broad wing-petals. Fruit narrow-winged, glandular-hispid, 2′—3½′ long; seeds ⅛′ long, dark reddish brown and mottled.
A tree, 30°—40° high, with a trunk 10′—12′ in diameter, slender spreading branches, and dark reddish brown branchlets covered with conspicuous dark glandular hairs exuding, like those on the petioles and legumes, a clammy, sticky substance, during the first winter bright red-brown, covered with small black lenticels and very sticky, becoming in their second year light brown and dry; or a shrub, often only 5°—6° tall. Bark of the trunk ⅛′ thick, smooth, dark brown tinged with red. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, brown, with light yellow sapwood of 2 or 3 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Mountains of North and South Carolina up to altitudes of 3000°, and now naturalized in many parts of the United States east of the Mississippi River and as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
Often planted as an ornament of parks and gardens in all countries with a temperate climate.
16. OLNEYA A. Gray.
A tree, with thin scaly bark, and stout terete hoary-canescent slightly angled branchlets armed with stout infrastipular spines. Leaves equally or unequally pinnate, hoary-canescent, persistent, 10—15-foliolulate, destitute of stipules and stipels, short-petiolate, often fascicled in earlier axils; leaflets oblong or obovate, entire, obtuse, often mucronate at apex, cuneate at base, rigid, short-petiolulate, reticulate-veined, with a broad conspicuous midrib. Flowers on stout pedicels rather longer than the calyx, in short axillary few-flowered hoary-canescent racemes, with acute minute bracts and bractlets deciduous before the expansion of the flowers; calyx hoary-canescent, the lobes ovate, obtuse, almost equal, the two upper lobes connate nearly throughout; disk cupuliform, adnate to the tube of the calyx; corolla papilionaceous; petals unguiculate, purple or violet, inserted on the disk; standard orbicular, deeply emarginate, reflexed, furnished at base of the blade with two infolded ear-shaped appendages covering 2 prominent callosites; wing-petals oblique, oblong, slightly auriculate at base of blade on the upper side, free, as long as the broad obtuse incurved keel-petals; stamens 10, the superior stamen free, filling the slit in the tube formed by the union of the others; filaments filiform; anthers of the same length, oblong, uniform; ovary sessile or slightly stipitate, pilose; style inflexed, bearded above the middle; stigma thick and fleshy, depressed-capitate; ovules numerous, suspended from the inner angle of the ovary, superposed. Legume oblique, compressed, glandular-hairy, light brown, 2-valved, often tipped with the remnants of the long persistent style, 1—5-seeded, the valves thick and coriaceous, becoming unequally and interruptedly convex at maturity. Seeds broad-ovoid, slightly angled on the ventral side, suspended by a short thick funicle, without albumen; seed-coat thin, membranaceous, bright chestnut-brown and lustrous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons thick and fleshy, accumbent on the short incurved radicle.
The genus is represented by a single species of southern Arizona, California, and northwestern Mexico.
Olneya is in memory of Stephen T. Olney (1812—1878), author of a catalogue of the plants of Rhode Island.
1. Olneya tesota A. Gray. Ironwood.
Leaves 1′—2½′ long, with leaflets ½′—¾′ in length, appearing in June and persistent until the following spring. Flowers unfolding with the leaves, nearly ½′ long. Fruit light brown, very glandular, fully grown at midsummer, ripening before the end of August, 2′—2½′ long.
A tree, sometimes 25°—30° high, with a short trunk occasionally 18′ in diameter and usually divided 4°—6° above the ground into a number of stout upright branches, and slender branchlets thickly coated at first with hoary-canescent pubescence disappearing early in their second year, and then pale green and more or less spotted and streaked with red, becoming pale brown in their third season, their spines straight or slightly curved, very sharp and rigid, ⅛′—¼′ long, and persistent at least during two years. Bark of the trunk thin, exfoliating in long longitudinal dark red-brown scales. Wood very heavy, hard and strong, although brittle, rich dark brown striped with red, with thin clear yellow sapwood; valued as fuel and sometimes manufactured into canes and other small objects.
Distribution. Sides of low depressions and arroyos in the desert; valley of the Colorado River south of the Mohave Mountains, California, to southwestern Arizona, and to Sonora and Lower California; most abundant and of its largest size in Sonora.
17. ERYTHRINA L.
Trees or shrubs with erect terete stems and branches, often armed with recurved prickles, or rarely herbaceous. Leaves alternate, pinnately 3-foliolate; stipules small, the stipels gland-like. Flowers papilionaceous, showy, in pairs or fascicled on the rachis of axillary leafless racemes, or in terminal racemes furnished at base with leaf-like bracts; calyx oblique, truncate or 5-toothed; corolla usually scarlet; petals free; standard broad or elongated, erect or spreading, nearly sessile or raised on a long stalk; wing-petals small or wanting, longer or shorter than the keel-petals; stamens 10, united into a tube split on the upper side, the tenth and upper stamen separate or all 10 united; anthers uniform; ovary stipitate, 1-celled; styles subulate, incurved, naked; stigmas small, terminal; ovules numerous, amphitropous, the micropyle superior. Fruit a stipitate linear-falcate pod narrowed at ends, compressed or subterete, constricted or undulate between the seeds, 2-valved; seeds reniform, attached by an oblong basal hilum, exalbuminous.
From twenty-five to thirty species are recognized, all inhabitants of tropical and semitropical regions. In the gardens of warm countries several of the species are cultivated for the beauty of their large and brilliant flowers.
The name is from ἐρυθρός, in allusion to the color of the flowers.
1. Erythrina herbacea var. arborea Chapm.
Leaves persistent, usually 6′—8′ long, with a slender petiole and rachis occasionally armed with small recurved prickles; leaflets thin, deltoid to hastate, concave-cuneate at the broad base, the lateral lobes broad and rounded and much shorter than the elongated terminal lobe gradually narrowed and rounded at apex, thin, yellow-green, smooth and glabrous, 2¼′—3½′ long and 1½′—2¼′ wide; petiolules slender, about ¼′ in length, with minute gland-like stipels. Flowers 2′—2¼′ long on short slender pedicels, in narrow leafless racemes 8′—13′ long, the lower flowers fading before those at the apex of the raceme open; calyx dark red, truncate and ciliate at the mouth, ¼′ in length; corolla scarlet; the standard narrow, oblanceolate, gradually narrowed into the long base, about ¼′ long, closely infolded and then more or less falcate; wing-petals slightly longer than the calyx and longer than the keel-petals; stamens diadelphous. Fruit compressed, constricted between the seeds, apiculate at apex, from 4′—6′ long, gradually narrowed into a stout stipitate base often ¾′ in length; seeds compressed, bright scarlet, lustrous, 5/12′ long and about ⅙′ wide, with a dark hilum.
A tree, rarely 25°—30° high, with a tall trunk occasionally a foot in diameter, small erect and spreading branches, and slender yellow-green branchlets armed with short broad recurved spines; more often shrubby and, except in size and habit, not distinguishable from Erythrina herbacea L., an herb with slender spreading stems occasionally 3° long, and common in sandy soil from the coast region of North Carolina to Florida, western Mississippi and Louisiana, and in the valley of the lower Rio Grande, Texas. Bark thin red-brown marked by longitudinal rows of large circular elevated lenticle-like excrescences.
Distribution. Florida, coast region from Miami, Dade County, to the southern shores of Tampa Bay, and on the southern keys.
18. ICHTHYOMETHIA P. Brown.
Trees or shrubs with thin scaly bark and stout terete branchlets without a terminal bud. Leaves unequally pinnate, long-petiolate; leaflets opposite. Flowers papilionaceous, on slender pedicels enlarged at the end, bibracteolate, in lateral panicles, appearing before the leaves; bracts and bractlets minute, scarious; calyx campanulate, 2-lipped, the upper lip emarginate, the lower 3-lobed, persistent, the lobes imbricated in the bud, short and broad; petals inserted on an annular glandular disk adnate to the interior of the calyx-tube, unguiculate, white tinged with red, rarely yellowish white; stamens 10, the filament of the upper stamen free at base only, united above with the others into a long tube; anthers oblong, uniform, versatile; ovary sessile, contracted into a filiform incurved style, with a capitate stigma; ovules numerous, suspended from the inner angle of the ovary, 2-ranked. Legume linear, compressed, raised on a stalk longer than the calyx, slightly contracted between the numerous seeds, tomentose-canescent or glabrate, thin-walled, indehiscent, longitudinally 4-winged, the wings developed from the dorsal and ventral sutures, broad or narrow, continuous or interrupted by the abortion of some of the ovules, membranaceous, their margins undulate or irregularly cut; seeds oval, compressed, without albumen, laterally attached by a short thick funicle; seed-coat thin, crustaceous, red-brown, not lustrous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons plano-convex, oval, fleshy; radicle short, inflexed.
Seven or eight species are now recognized, inhabitants of tropical America where they are distributed from southern Florida, through the West Indies to southern Mexico and Guatemala. Piscidia from the bark of the roots of Ichthyomethia is sometimes used medicinally.
The generic name, from ἰχθύς and μέθυ, indicates the Carib use of one of the species.
1. Ichthyomethia piscipula A. S. Hitch. Jamaica Dogwood.
Leaves 4′—9′ long, 5—11-foliolate, with stout petioles; leaflets oval, obovate or broad-oblong, obtuse or short-acuminate at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, with thick pubescent petiolules, when they first appear coated like the petioles with rufous hairs, at maturity coriaceous, glabrous and dark green above, pale and more or less clothed below with rufous or canescent pubescence along the elevated conspicuous midrib, and numerous thin veins arching and united at the entire undulate thickened margins, or covered with soft pubescence below; deciduous in spring. Flowers opening in May, ¾′ long, on slender pedicels sometimes 1½′ in length, in canescent ovoid densely flowered or elongated thyrsoid panicles, with short 3—12-flowered branches, from the axils of the fallen leaves of the previous year; calyx canescent, 5-lobed; petals white tinged with red, the standard hoary-canescent on the outer surface, marked with a green blotch on the inner surface, its claw as long as the calyx; ovary sericeous. Fruit ripening in July and August, broad-winged, light brown, 3′—4′ long and 1′—1½′ across the wings.
A tree, 40°—50° high, with a trunk often 2°—3° in diameter, stout erect sometimes contorted branches forming an irregular head, and branches coated when they first appear with thick rufous pubescence disappearing during their first summer, becoming glabrous or glabrate, bright reddish brown, conspicuously marked by oblong longitudinal lenticels, and large elevated horizontal slightly obcordate leaf-scars marked by the ends of numerous small scattered fibro-vascular bundles. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, ⅛′—¼′ long, with thin hoary-pubescent scales. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, gray more or less blotched with olive and covered with small square scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, clear yellow-brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood, very durable in contact with the ground; largely used in Florida in boat-building, and for firewood and charcoal. In the West Indies the bark of the roots, young branches and powdered leaves were used by the Caribs to stupefy fish and facilitate their capture.
Distribution. One of the commonest of the tropical trees of Florida from the shores of Bay Biscayne to the southern keys, and on the west coast from the neighborhood of Peace Creek to Cape Sable; on many of the Antilles and in southern Mexico. Sterile branches collected by C. T. Simpson in the neighborhood of Cape Sable indicate that a second species occurs in Florida.
XXIV. ZYGOPHYLLACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with hard resinous wood, and opposite pinnate leaves, with stipules. Flowers perfect, regular; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals as many as the calyx-lobes, imbricated in the bud, hypogynous; stamens twice as many as the petals, hypogynous; filaments distinct; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 5-celled; styles united, terminating in a minute 5-lobed or entire stigma; ovules numerous, suspended, anatropous; raphe ventral. Fruit capsular, angled or winged, separating at maturity into 5 indehiscent carpels. Seeds solitary or in pairs in each cell; seed-coat thick and fleshy; embryo straight or nearly so; cotyledons oval, foliaceous; radicle short, superior.
Of the fourteen genera of this family, mostly confined to the warmer parts of the northern hemisphere, one only, Guaiacum, has an arborescent representative in the United States.
1. GUAIACUM L. Lignum-vitæ.
Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, and stout terete alternate branchlets often with swollen nodes. Leaves petiolate, abruptly pinnate, with 2—14 entire reticulate-veined leaflets, and minute mostly deciduous stipules. Flowers terminal, solitary or umbellate-fascicled, pedicellate, from the axils of minute deciduous bracts; calyx-lobes slightly united at base, unequal, deciduous; petals broad-obovate, more or less unguiculate; stamens inserted on the inconspicuous elevated disk opposite to and alternate with the petals; filaments filiform, naked or bearing at base on the inner surface a minute membranaceous scale; anthers oblong; ovary raised on a short thick stalk, obovoid or clavate, 5-lobed, contracted into a slender subulate acute style; ovules 8—10 in each cell, suspended in pairs from the inner angle. Fruit fleshy, 5-celled, smooth, coriaceous, narrowed at base into a short stem, with 5 wing-like angles, ventrally and sometimes dorsally dehiscent. Seeds suspended, ovoid; seed-coat easily separable from the hard bony nucleus closely invested with a thin indistinct tegumen.
Guaiacum is confined to the New World, and is distributed from southern Florida through the Antilles, Mexico, and Central America to the Andes of Peru. Seven or eight species are distinguished.
Guaiacum produces heavy close-grained wood, the cells of the heartwood filled with dark-colored resin. The lignum-vitæ of commerce, largely used for the sheaths of ship-blocks, mallets, skittle-balls, ten-pin balls, etc., is produced principally by Guaiacum officinale L., of the Antilles and South America, and by Guaiacum sanctum L. Guaiacum resin is a stimulating diaphoretic sometimes used in the treatment of gout and rheumatism.
The generic name is from the Carib Guaiaco or Guayacon, the aboriginal name of the Lignum-vitæ.
1. Guaiacum sanctum L.
Leaves 3′ or 4′ long, with 3 or 4 pairs of obliquely oblong or obovate mucronate subsessile leaflets, membranaceous, light green and puberulous below when they first appear, becoming subcoriaceous, glabrous, dark green and lustrous on both surfaces, 1′ long and nearly ½′ wide, persistent until the appearance of the new growth in March or early April of the following year; stipules acuminate, tipped with a short mucro, pubescent, ⅛′ long, usually caducous, but sometimes persistent during the season. Flowers ⅔′ in diameter, opening almost immediately after the appearance of the new growth, and continuing to open during several weeks, solitary on a slender pubescent pedicel shorter than the leaves and usually produced 3 or 4 together at the end of the branches from the axils of the upper leaves, their bracts acuminate, minute, the 2 lateral rather smaller than the others; calyx-lobes obovate, slightly pubescent, especially on the outer surface near the base, and smaller than the blue petals twisted below from left to right, and thus appearing to be obliquely inserted; filaments naked; ovary obovoid, prominently 5-angled, glabrous, contracted at base into a short stout stalk. Fruit broad-obovoid, ¾′ long, ½′ wide, bright orange color, opening at maturity by the splitting of the thick rather fleshy valves; seeds black, with a thick fleshy scarlet aril-like outer coat.
A gnarled round-headed tree, sometimes 25°—30° high, with a short stout trunk occasionally 2½°—3° in diameter, slender pendulous branches, and branchlets conspicuously enlarged at the nodes, slightly angled, pubescent when they first appear, becoming in their second year glabrous, nearly white, and roughened by numerous small excrescences. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ⅛′ thick, separating on the surface into thin white scales. Wood dark green or yellow-brown, with thin clear yellow sapwood.
Distribution. Keys of southern Florida from Key West eastward; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.
XXV. MALPIGIACEÆ.
Trees, shrubs or vines with opposite simple entire often stipulate persistent leaves; stipules deciduous or 0. Flowers usually perfect or dimorphous, on pedicels articulate near their base from the axils of a bract and furnished below the articulation with two bractlets, in terminal racemes, corymbs or umbels; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes generally imbricated in the bud, usually glandular; petals 5, convolute in the bud, unguiculate; disk inconspicuous; stamens usually 10; filaments generally united at base; anthers short, 2-celled, introrse; ovary of 3 rarely of 2 carpels more or less united into a 3-celled ovary; styles usually 3, distinct, rarely united; stigma terminal or sublateral, inconspicuous; ovule solitary, between orthotropous and anatropous, often uncinate, ascending on the pendulous funicle; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous or samaroid; seeds without albumen, suspended from below the apex of the cell; testa thin; embryo curved or coiled, rarely straight; cotyledons often unequal; radicle short, superior.
This family of nearly sixty genera is confined to tropical and subtropical America, with one arborescent species in the United States.
1. BYRSONIMA Rich.
Trees, or shrubs often scandent, with astringent bark and leaves; stipules usually connate, rarely partly connate or free. Flowers in terminal racemes; lobes of the calyx furnished on the back with two glands; petals unguiculate, their slender claws reflexed in anthesis, the limb concave, penniveined; stamens 10, filaments short, united and bearded at base; ovary 3-celled; styles 3, distinct, oblong or subulate, gradually narrowed into the acute stigma. Fruit a 3-celled drupe; endocarp bony or woody, angled; seeds ovoid to subglobose; embryo circinate, with slender coiled cotyledons; radicle oblong.
Byrsonima with nearly one hundred species is widely distributed in tropical America from southern Florida, where one species occurs, and the Bahama Islands through the West Indies, Mexico, Brazil and Bolivia.
The generic name is from βύρς, a hide, in allusion to the use of the bark in tanning.
1. Byrsonima lucida DC.
Leaves oblong-obovate, rounded or occasionally abruptly short-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, coriaceous, glabrous, dark green and lustrous above, paler, dull and reticulate-venulose beneath, 1′—1½′ long and ¼′—½′ wide, with thickened revolute margins, a slender midrib and obscure primary veins; petioles stout, ⅛′—¼′ in length; stipules free, minute, acute, deciduous. Flowers ¼′ in diameter, appearing throughout the year on slender puberulous pedicels ¼′ to nearly ½′ long from the axils of acuminate caducous bracts a third longer than their acuminate bractlets, in terminal 5—12-flowered erect racemes ¾′—1½′ in length; calyx cup-shaped, persistent under the fruit, with short nearly triangular lobes much shorter than the white petals turning yellow, pink or rose color; styles elongated and persistent on the fruit. Fruit subglobose, greenish, about ¼′ in diameter, the flesh thin and dry; stone woody, rugose, thick-walled, lustrous on the inner surface; seed ovoid, acute, filling the cavity of the stone, pale yellow.
A small tree, rarely 20° high with a trunk 10′ in diameter, covered with pale bark, spreading branches forming a flat-topped head and slender terete pale gray branchlets; more often a many-stemmed shrub.
Distribution. Florida, in sandy soil on the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on several of the southern keys; on the Bahamas and many of the Antilles; in Florida arborescent on Long Key in the Everglades, and on Big Pine Key.
XXVI. RUTACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, abounding in a pungent or bitter aromatic volatile oil, with simple or compound usually glandular-punctate leaves, without stipules or rarely with stipular spines. Flowers regular, perfect or unisexual, in paniculate or corymbose cymes; calyx 3—5-lobed, the lobes more or less united at base, imbricated in the bud; petals 3—5, imbricated in the bud; stamens as many or twice as many as the petals; filaments distinct or united below; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistils 1—4, separate or united into a compound ovary sessile or stipitate on a glandular disk; styles mostly united; ovules usually 2 in each cell of the ovary, pendulous, anatropous or amphitropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit of 2-valved carpels, a samara, drupe or capsule. Seeds solitary or several; seed-coat bony or crustaceous, furrowed or punctate; embryo axile in fleshy albumen; radicle short, superior.
Of this large family, widely distributed over the warm and temperate parts of the earth’s surface, four genera only have arborescent representatives in the United States. Citrus Aurantium L., the Bitter-sweet Orange, a native of Asia, has long been naturalized in the peninsula of Florida, where other species of this genus have escaped from cultivation and are now growing spontaneously.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
- Fruit of 1—5, 2-valved 1-seeded carpels; flowers diœcious or polygamous.
- 1. Xanthoxylum.
- Fruit of 3 or 4-winged indehiscent 1-seeded carpels; flowers perfect.
- 2. Helietta.
- Fruit a winged samara; flowers polygamous.
- 3. Ptelea.
- Fruit a 1-seeded drupe; flowers perfect or polygamous.
- 4. Amyris.
1. XANTHOXYLUM L.
Trees or shrubs, with acrid aromatic bark, pellucid aromatic-punctate fruit and foliage, scaly buds, and usually stipular spines. Leaves alternate, unequally or rarely equally pinnate; leaflets generally opposite, often oblique at the base, entire or crenulate. Flowers small, diœcious or polygamous, in axillary or terminal broad or contracted pedunculate cymes; calyx and petals hypogynous; disk small or obscure; stamens as many as the petals and alternate with them, hypogynous, effete, rudimentary or wanting in the female flower; filaments filiform or subulate; pistils 1—5, oblique, raised on the summit of a fleshy gynophore, connivent, sometimes slightly united below, rudimentary, simple or 2—5-parted in the sterile flower; ovaries 1-celled; styles short and slender, more or less united toward the summit; stigmas capitate; ovules collateral, pendulous from the inner angle of the cell. Fruit of 1—5 coriaceous or fleshy 1-seeded carpels, broad-obovoid, sessile or stipitate, ventrally dehiscent. Seed solitary oblong or globose, suspended on a slender funicle, often hanging from the carpel at maturity; seed-coat black, shining, conspicuously marked by the broad hilum; cotyledons oval or orbicular, foliaceous.
Xanthoxylum is widely distributed through tropical and extratropical regions and is most abundant in tropical America. It is represented in North America by one shrub and by four arborescent species of the southern states. The resin contained in the bark, especially in that of the roots, is a powerful stimulant and tonic occasionally used in medicine.
The generic name is from ξανθός and ξύλον.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
- Flowers in axillary contracted cymes; branches armed with stipular spines.
- 1. X. Fagara (D, E).
- Flowers in terminal cymes.
- Calyx-lobes and petals 5; leaves unequally pinnate.
- Leaves deciduous; branches armed with stout spines.
- 2. X. clava-Herculis (C).
- Leaves persistent; branches without spines.
- 3. X. flavum (D).
- Calyx-lobes and petals 3; leaves equally pinnate, persistent.
- 4. X. coriaceum (D).
1. Xanthoxylum Fagara Sarg. Wild Lime.
Fagara Fagara Small.