Leaves 4′—6′ long, with a slender glabrous petiole thickened at base and 3 or 4 pairs of ovate-lanceolate leaflets rounded at base on the upper side, narrow-cuneate or nearly straight on the lower side, entire, coriaceous, pale yellow-green or slightly rufous on the under surface, 3′—4′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, with a prominent reddish brown midrib, conspicuous reticulate veins, and a stout grooved petiolule ¼′ long. Flowers appearing in July and August on slender puberulous pedicels, bibracteolate near the middle, 1 or 2 together at the end of the branches of slender panicles in the axils of leaves of the year; calyx glabrous, cup-shaped, much shorter than the ovate elliptic petals ⅛′ long and slightly emarginate at apex. Fruit ripening in the autumn or early winter, long-stalked, ovoid, rounded at apex narrowed at base, 4′—5′ long and 2½′ broad, with thick dark brown valves rugose and pitted on the surface, its axis obovoid 3′ or 4′ long, 1′—1½′ thick, dark red-brown, marked near the apex by the dark scars left by the falling seeds; seeds ¾′ long, almost square, thickened at base and nearly one fourth as long as their ovate rugose red-brown wings rounded or truncate at apex and gradually contracted below.
A tree, in Florida rarely more than 40°—50° high or with a trunk exceeding 2° in diameter, and slender glabrous angled branchlets covered during their first season with pale red-brown bark, becoming lighter or gray faintly tinged with red and thickly covered with lenticels during their second year; much larger in the West Indies. Winter-buds about ⅛′ long, with broad-ovate minutely apiculate loosely imbricated light red scales. Bark of the trunk in Florida ½′—⅔′ thick, with a dark red-brown surface broken into short broad rather thick scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard and strong, close-grained, very durable, rich red-brown, becoming darker with age and exposure, with thin yellow sapwood of about 20 layers of annual growth; the most esteemed of all woods for cabinet-making, and also largely used in the interior finish of houses and railroad cars, and formerly in ship and boat-building. The bark is bitter and astringent and has been used as a substitute for quinine in the treatment of intermittent fevers.
Distribution. Florida, hummocks, shores of Bay Biscayne on the Everglade Keys and near Flamingo on White Water Bay, Dade County, on Elliotts Key, Key Largo and Upper Matacombe Key; rare and now nearly exterminated except in the region of Cape Sable; on the Bahama and many of the West Indian islands.
XXX. EUPHORBIACEÆ.
Trees, shrubs, or herbs, with acrid juice, and alternate stipular leaves. Flowers monœcious or diœcious; calyx 3—6-lobed or parted, the divisions imbricated in the bud, or wanting; corolla 0; stamens 2 or 3, or as many or twice as many as the calyx-lobes; anthers 2-celled, opening longitudinally; ovules 1 or 2 in each cell, suspended, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a drupe or capsule. Seeds albuminous; cotyledons flat, much longer than the superior radicle.
The Euphorbia family, widely distributed over tropical and temperate regions, with some one hundred and thirty genera and over three thousand species, is represented in the United States by three arborescent genera, with only five species, and by many shrubby herbaceous and annual plants.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
- Fruit drupaceous.
- Nutlets usually 1-celled and 1-seeded; stamens as many or twice as many as the calyx-lobes, free.
- 1. Drypetes.
- Nutlets 6—8-celled and 6—8-seeded; stamens 2 or 3, united into a column.
- 2. Hippomane.
- Fruit a 3-lobed capsule splitting into three 2-valved 1-seeded carpels.
1. DRYPETES Vahl.
Trees or shrubs, with thick juice, and terete branchlets. Leaves involute in the bud, petiolate, penniveined, coriaceous, persistent; stipules minute, caducous. Flowers axillary, sessile or pedicellate, their pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, ebracteolate, the males in many-flowered clusters, the females solitary or in few-flowered clusters; calyx divided nearly to the base into 4 or 5 lobes rounded or acute at apex, deciduous or persistent under the fruit; stamens inserted under the margin of a flat or concave slightly lobed disk, 0 in the pistillate flower; filaments filiform; anthers ovoid, emarginate, attached on the back near the base, extrorse or introrse, 2-celled, the cells affixed to a broad oblong connective; ovary sessile, ovoid, 1 or rarely 2-celled, with 1 or 2 sessile or subsessile peltate or reniform stigmas, rudimentary or wanting in the staminate flower; ovules collateral, descending, attached to the central angle of the cell, operculate, with a hood-like body developed from the placenta. Fruit drupaceous, ovoid or subglobose, tipped with the withered remnants of the stigmas; flesh thick and corky or thin and crustaceous; stone thick or thin, bony or crustaceous, 1-celled and 1-seeded, or rarely 2-celled and 2-seeded. Seed filling the cavity of the nut; seed-coat crustaceous or membranaceous; embryo erect in thin fleshy albumen.
Drypetes is confined to the tropical regions of the New World, and is distributed from southern Florida through the West Indies to eastern Brazil. Of the eleven species now distinguished, two inhabit the coast-region of southern Florida.
The generic name, from δρύππα, relates to the character of the fruit.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
- Calyx 5-lobed; stamens 8; ovary 1-celled; fruit oblong, ivory-white; outer coat thick and mealy; stone thick-walled.
- 1. D. diversifolia (D).
- Calyx 4-lobed; stamens 4; ovary 2-celled; fruit subglobose, bright red; outer coat thin, crustaceous; stone thin-walled.
- 2. D. lateriflora (D).
1. Drypetes diversifolia Krug & Urb. White Wood.
Drypetes keyensis Krug & Urb.
Leaves appearing in early spring and falling during their second year, entire, oval or oblong, often more or less falcate, acute, acuminate, rounded or rarely emarginate at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, on young plants often spinose-dentate, when they unfold thin and membranaceous, light green or green tinged with red and pilose with scattered pale hairs, and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and lustrous, rather paler on the lower surface than on the upper surface, 3′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with a broad thick pale midrib raised and rounded on the upper side and obscure primary veins arcuate and united near the thick revolute cartilaginous margins and connected by conspicuous coarsely reticulated veinlets; petioles stout, yellow, grooved above, ½′ long; stipules nearly triangular, rather less than 1/16′ long, caducous. Flowers on pedicels rather shorter than the petioles, opening in early spring from the axils of leaves of the previous year, the staminate in many-flowered clusters, the pistillate usually solitary or occasionally in 2—3-flowered clusters; calyx yellow-green, hirsute on the outer surface, 1/16′ long, and divided nearly to the base into 5 ovate acute boat-shaped lobes deciduous from the fruit; stamens about 8, inserted on the borders of the slightly lobed pulvinate concave disk; filaments unequal in length, rather longer than the calyx-lobes and a little longer than the broad-ovoid emarginate pilose extrorse anthers, with broad ovate acute connectives; ovary sessile, hirsute, 1-celled, crowned with a broad sessile slightly stalked oblique pulvinate stigma, wanting in the staminate flower. Fruit ripening in the autumn, deciduous at maturity from its stout erect stalk much enlarged at apex and ⅓′ long, ovoid, 1′ long, ivory-white, with thick dry mealy flesh closely investing the light brown stone narrowed at base into a long point, with bony walls ⅛′ thick and penetrated longitudinally by large fibro-vascular bundle-channels; seed oblong, rounded at the ends, nearly ½′ long, covered with a thin membranaceous light brown coat marked by conspicuous veins radiating from the small hilum.
A tree, occasionally 30°—40° high, with a trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, stout usually erect branches forming an oblong round-topped head, and stout branchlets light green tinged with red and covered with pale scattered caducous hairs when they first appear, becoming ashy gray and roughened by numerous elevated circular pale lenticels and later by the large prominent orbicular leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 conspicuous fibro-vascular bundles. Winter-buds minute, obtuse, partly immersed in the bark and coated with brown resin. Bark of the trunk about ½′ thick, smooth, milky white and often marked by large irregular gray or pale brown patches. Wood heavy, hard, not strong, brittle, close-grained, and brown streaked with bright yellow, with thick yellow-brown sapwood.
Distribution. Florida, Flamingo near Cape Sable (C. T. Simpson), Cocoanut Grove (Miss O. Rodham), Dade County, on Key West, Key Largo, Elliotts, Lower Metacombe and Umbrella Keys. One of the rarest of the tropical trees of Florida; on the Bahamas.
2. Drypetes lateriflora Urb. Guiana Plum.
Leaves appearing in Florida in early spring and falling during their second year, oblong, acute or acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed at base, and entire, when they unfold thin and covered with scattered pale hairs, and at maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous, 3′—4′ long and ½′—1½′ wide, with a conspicuous light-colored midrib, rounded above, and pale obscure primary veins arcuate and united near the slightly thickened revolute margins and connected by slender reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, grooved, ¼′ in length. Flowers on pedicels shorter than the petioles, opening late in the autumn or in early winter on branches one or two years old, in the axils of leaves or from leafless nodes, in many or few-flowered clusters; calyx greenish white, hirsute on the outer surface, divided to the base into 4 ovate rounded lobes, persistent under the fruit; stamens 4, inserted under the margin and between the lobes of the flat tomentose disk; filaments slender, exserted; anthers introrse, emarginate, pilose, wanting in the pistillate flower; ovary ovoid, tomentose, 2-celled, with 2 nearly sessile oblique spreading cushion-like stigmas. Fruit ripening during the spring and early summer, subglobose, ⅓′ in diameter, tipped with the conspicuous blackened remnants of the stigmas, bright red, covered with soft pubescence, solitary or in clusters of 2 or 3, deciduous at maturity from its stout stalk enlarged at apex and ¼′ long; flesh thin and crustaceous, closely investing the thin-walled crustaceous stone; seed usually solitary by abortion, obovoid, gibbous, ⅛′ long, narrowed below, narrowed and marked at apex by the elevated pale hilum and on the inner surface of the seed-coat by the broad conspicuous raphe.
A tree, 20°—30° high, with a short trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, small erect branches, and slender branchlets, light green tinged with red when they first appear, becoming in their first winter ashy gray and marked by scattered pale lenticels, and at the end of their second year by the small elevated oval leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 fibro-vascular bundles. Winter-buds minute, acute or obtuse, chestnut-brown, and covered with pale hairs. Bark of the trunk about 1/16′ thick, light brown tinged with red, the generally smooth surface separating into small irregular scales. Wood heavy, hard, brittle, close-grained, rich dark brown, with thick yellow sapwood.
Distribution. Florida, Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, shores of Bay Biscayne, Dade County, and on many of the southern keys; common on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.
2. HIPPOMANE L.
A glabrous tree, with thick acrid juice, scaly bark, and stout pithy branchlets marked by circular raised lenticels, and oblong or semiorbicular horizontal elevated leaf-scars displaying a row of obscure fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and nearly encircled at the nodes by ring-like scars left by the falling of the stipules. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, covered by many loosely imbricated long-pointed chestnut-brown scales. Leaves alternate, involute in the bud, tardily deciduous, broad-ovate, rounded and abruptly narrowed at apex into a broad point terminating in a slender mucro, rounded or subcordate at base, remotely crenulate-serrate with minute gland-tipped teeth, penniveined, long-petiolate, at first pilose with occasional long pale hairs, soon becoming glabrous, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark yellow-green and lustrous above, paler and dull below, with a stout light yellow midrib raised and rounded on the upper side, and slender primary veins remote, arcuate, and united at some distance from the margins and connected by conspicuous coarsely reticulate veinlets more prominent on the upper than on the lower side; their petioles elongated, slender, rigid, light yellow, rounded below, obscurely grooved above, marked at the apex by large orbicular dark red glands; stipules ovate-lanceolate, abruptly narrowed from a broad base, slightly laciniate near the apex, membranaceous, light chestnut-brown, caducous. Inflorescence terminal, spicate, appearing in early spring usually before the unfolding leaves, the stout fleshy rachis often bearing at the base acute sterile deciduous bracts, or 1 or 2 small leaves, the minute pistillate flowers solitary in their axils or in the axils of ovate acute lanceolate bracts furnished with 2 lateral glandular bractlets; staminate flowers minute, articulate on slender pedicels clustered in 8—15-flowered fascicles in the axils of simple bracts higher on the rachis and extending to its apex; calyx usually 3-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, that of the staminate flower yellow-green, membranaceous, divided below into 3 or sometimes into 2 acute lobes; calyx of the pistillate flower, ovoid, yellow-green, divided nearly to the base into 3 ovate acute concave divisions rounded on the back; stamens 2 or often 3, exserted, more or less connate by their filaments into a stout column, free and spreading at apex; anthers ovoid, light yellow, surmounted by the short prolonged connective, attached on the back below the middle, erect, extrorse; ovary 6—8-celled, narrowed at base, gradually contracted above into a short simple cylindric style separating into 6—8 long radiating flattened abruptly reflexed lobes stigmatic on the inner face; ovule solitary in each cell. Fruit drupaceous, pome-shaped, obscurely 6—8-lobed, raised on a thickened woody stem; skin thin, light yellow-green or yellow and red; flesh thick, lactescent, adherent to the thick-walled rugose deeply winged 6—8-celled, 6—8-seeded subglobose stone flattened at the ends, the cells divided throughout by thin dark radial plates, ultimately separable, penetrated near the summit by oblique canals filled by the funicles of the seeds. Seeds oblong-ovoid, marked by a minute slightly elevated hilum and on the ventral face by an obscure raphe; seed-coat membranaceous, separable into 2 layers, the outer dark, the inner thinner, light brown; embryo surrounded by thick fleshy albumen.
The genus is represented by a single species abounding in exceedingly poisonous caustic sap which produces cutaneous eruptions and when taken internally destroys the mucous membrane; formerly employed by the Caribs to poison arrows.
The generic name is from ἵππος and μανία, and was first used by the Greeks to distinguish some plant with properties excitant to horses.
1. Hippomane Mancinella L. Manchineel.
Leaves 3′—4′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, unfolding in early spring and persistent in Florida until the spring of the following year; petioles 2½′—4′ in length. Flowers opening in March before the leaves of the year; rachis of the inflorescence 4′—6′ long, dark purple, more or less covered with a glaucous bloom. Fruit ripening in the autumn or early winter and often persistent on the branches until after the appearance of the flowers of the following year, 1′—1½′ in diameter, light yellow-green, with a bright red cheek; seeds about ¼′ long.
A tree, in Florida rarely more than 12°—15° high, with a short trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, long spreading pendulous branches forming a handsome round-topped head; in the West Indies often 50°—60° tall, with a trunk occasionally 3° in diameter. Bark of the trunk ¼′—½′ thick, dark brown and broken on the surface into small thick appressed irregularly shaped scales; in the West Indies sometimes smooth, light gray or nearly white. Wood light and soft, close-grained, dark brown, with thick light brown or yellow sapwood.
Distribution. Florida, sandy beaches and dry knolls in the immediate neighborhood of the ocean, shores of White Water Bay and on many of the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands, through the Antilles to the northern countries of South America, and to southern Mexico and the eastern and western coasts of Central America.
3. GYMNANTHES Sw.
Glabrous trees or shrubs, with milky juice and slender terete branchlets. Leaves conduplicate in the bud, petiolate, entire or crenulate-serrate, coriaceous, penniveined, persistent; stipules membranaceous, minute, caducous. Flowers monœcious or rarely diœcious; inflorescence buds covered with closely imbricated chestnut-brown scales, lengthening in anthesis, bearing in the upper axils numerous 3-branched clusters of staminate flowers, their branches furnished with minute ovate bracts, and in the lower axils 2 or 3 long-stalked pistillate flowers; calyx of the staminate flower minute or 0; stamens 2 or rarely 3; filaments filiform, inserted on the slightly enlarged torus, free or slightly connate at base; anthers attached on the back below the middle, erect, ovoid, 2-celled, the cells parallel; calyx of the pistillate flower reduced to 3 bract-like scales; ovary ovoid, 3-celled, narrowed into 3 recurved styles free or slightly united at base, stigmatic on their inner face; ovule solitary in each cell. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule separating from the persistent axis into three 2-valved 1-seeded carpels dehiscent on the dorsal suture and partly dehiscent on the ventral suture. Seed ovoid or subglobose, strophiolate; seed-coat crustaceous; embryo erect in fleshy albumen.
Gymnanthes with about ten species is confined to the tropics of the New World and is distributed from southern Florida, where one species occurs, through the West Indies to Mexico and Brazil.
The generic name, from γυμνός and ἄνθος, relates to the structure of the naked flowers.
1. Gymnanthes lucida Sw. Crab Wood.
Leaves oblong-ovate or ovate-lanceolate, obscurely and remotely crenulate-serrate or often entire, when they unfold thin and membranaceous, deeply tinged with red, and glandular on the teeth with minute caducous dark glands, and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface and pale and dull on the lower surface, 2′—3′ long, ⅔′—1½′ wide, with a broad pale midrib raised and rounded on the upper side, obscure primary veins arcuate and united near the margins and connected by prominent coarsely reticulate veinlets; appearing in Florida in early spring and remaining on the branches through their second summer; petioles broad, slightly grooved, about ¼′ in length; stipules ovate, acute, light brown, clothed on the margins with long pale hairs, about 1/16′ long. Flowers: inflorescence buds appearing in Florida late in the autumn in the axils of leaves of the year and beginning to lengthen in spring, the inflorescence becoming 1½′—2′ long, with a slender glabrous angled rachis, the scales broad-ovate, pointed, concave, rounded and thickened at apex, puberulous and ciliate on the margins, those inclosing the male flowers connate with the flowers and persistent under the calyx, those subtending the female flowers at the base of the inflorescence and not raised on their peduncle. Fruit produced in Florida sparingly, ripening in the autumn, slightly obovoid, dark reddish brown or nearly black, ⅓′ in diameter, covered with thin dry flesh, and pendent on a slender stem 1′ or more in length; seeds ovoid.
A tree, occasionally 20°—30° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter and often irregularly ridged, the rounded ridges spreading near the surface of the ground into broad buttresses, slender erect branches forming a narrow open oblong head, and slender upright branchlets light green more or less deeply shaded with red when they first appear, becoming in their first winter light gray-brown faintly tinged with red and roughened by numerous oblong pale lenticels, ultimately ashy gray and marked at the end of their second year by the semiorbicular elevated leaf-scars displaying the ends of 4 fibro-vascular bundle-scars superposed in pairs. Winter-buds ovoid, obtuse, covered with chestnut-brown scales, about 1/16′ long. Bark of the trunk dark red-brown, about 1/16′ thick, separating into large thin scales, in falling displaying the light brown inner bark. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, rich dark brown streaked with yellow, with thick bright yellow sapwood; in Florida occasionally manufactured into canes, and used as fuel.
Distribution. Florida, common in low woods from the shores of Bay Biscayne to the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on many of the southern keys to those of the Marquesas group; on the Bahama Islands, and on many of the Antilles.
XXXI. ANACARDIACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with terete pithy branchlets, resinous juice, and alternate simple or pinnate leaves, without stipules, and scaly or naked buds. Flowers regular, minute, diœcious, polygamo-diœcious, or polygamo-monœcious; calyx-lobes and petals 5, imbricated in the bud or 0; stamens as many as the petals and alternate and inserted with them on the margin or under an hypogynous annular fleshy slightly 5-lobed disk; filaments filiform; anthers oblong, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 1-celled; styles 1—3; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of a slender funicle rising from the base of the cell, anatropous; micropyle superior; styles 3, united or spreading; stigmas terminal. Fruit drupaceous. Seed without albumen; seed-coat thin and membranaceous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons flat, accumbent on the short radicle.
The Sumach family with some sixty genera is mostly confined to the warmer parts of the earth’s surface and contains the Mango, Pistacia, and other important trees. In the flora of the United States four genera have arborescent representatives.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
- Flowers without petals, and in the species of the United States, without a calyx.
- 1. Pistacia.
- Flowers with a calyx and petals.
- Flowers usually diœcious by abortion; styles lateral, spreading; pedicels of the abortive flowers becoming long and plumose at maturity; fruit compressed, very oblique; leaves simple, deciduous.
- 2. Cotinus.
- Flowers mostly diœcious; styles terminal, short, united; stigma 3-lobed; fruit ovoid, glabrous; leaves unequally pinnate, persistent.
- 3. Metopium.
- Flowers polygamo-diœcious or polygamo-monœcious; styles terminal, spreading; fruit usually globose, naked or clothed with acrid hairs; leaves unequally pinnate, trifoliolate or rarely simple, deciduous or rarely persistent.
- 4. Rhus.
1. PISTACIA L.
Balsamic trees or shrubs. Leaves 3-foliolate or equally or unequally pinnate, petiolate, deciduous or persistent. Flowers small, diœcious, subtended by a bract and 2 branchlets, short pedicellate in panicles or racemes; calyx 1 or 2-lobed or in the pistillate flower 3—5-lobed, or 0; petals 0, stamens 3—5, 0 in the pistillate flower; filaments short, their base connate with the disk; anthers large; ovary subglobose or short-ovoid, rudimentary or 0 in the staminate flower; style 3-lobed, shorter than the 3 obovate-oblong or oblong stigmas. Drupe ovoid, oblique, compressed; exocarpa thin; the stone bony, 1-seeded; seed compressed; cotyledons thick plano-convex.
Pistacia with eight or nine species is confined to the valley of the lower Rio Grande, southern Mexico; the Canary Islands, the countries adjacent to the Mediterranean, and northern and central China, with one species growing on the northern banks of the Rio Grande in Texas.
The Pistacio-nuts of commerce, the green or yellow seeds of P. vera L. are largely used in confectionery, and some of the species are valued for the decoration of parks and gardens.
Pistacia from πιστ and ἄκεομαι, in reference to the healing properties of its resinous exudations.
1. Pistacia texana Swing.
Leaves persistent or tardily deciduous, 9—19-foliolate, with a slightly winged rachis pubescent above and a flattened narrow-winged petiole ½′—¾′ in length; leaflets spatulate, rounded and often mucronate at apex, gradually narrowed below into a deltoid or subcuneiform base, entire, more or less curved and unequilateral, wine-red when they unfold, and at maturity thin, dark green and sparingly pubescent along the midrib above, pale and glabrous below, nearly sessile or the terminal leaflet raised on a short petiolule, 5/12′—¾′ long and about ¼′ wide, with a slender midrib often near one side of the leaflet and reticulate veinlets. Flowers small, without a calyx, appearing just before or with the new leaves, in simple nearly glabrous panicles, their bracts and bractlets ciliate on the margins and wine-red at apex; staminate flowers more crowded than the pistillate, in compact panicles ¾′—1½′ long; anthers reddish yellow or wine color; pistillate flowers in loose panicles 1½′—2½′ in length; ovary ovoid or subglobose, two of the three styles with 2-lobed stigmas, the third with a 3-lobed stigma. Fruit oval, dark reddish brown and slightly glaucescent, about ¼′ long and ⅙′ broad, usually striate.
A small tree, occasionally 30° high with a short trunk 15′—18′ in diameter, with stout erect and spreading branches forming a head sometimes 30°—35° across, and slender slightly pubescent reddish branchlets becoming grayish brown by the end of their first year; more often a large shrub with numerous stout stems.
Distribution. Texas, limestone cliffs and the rocky bottoms of cañons periodically swept by floods, and in deep narrow ravines, along the lower Pecos River and in the neighborhood of its mouth, Valverde County; and in northeastern Mexico.
2. COTINUS L.
Small trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, small acute winter-buds, with numerous imbricated scales, fleshy roots, and strong-smelling juice. Leaves simple, petiolate, oval, obovate-oblong or nearly orbicular, glabrous or more or less pilose-pubescent, deciduous. Flowers regular, diœcious by abortion or rarely polygamo-diœcious, greenish yellow, on slender pedicels accrescent after the flowering period, mostly abortive and then becoming conspicuously tomentose-villose at maturity, in ample loose terminal or lateral pyramidal or thyrsoidal panicles, the branches from the axils of linear acute or spatulate deciduous bracts; calyx-lobes ovate-lanceolate, obtuse, persistent; disk coherent with the base of the calyx and surrounding the base of the ovary; petals oblong, acute, twice as long as the calyx, inserted under the free margin of the disk opposite its lobes, deciduous; stamens shorter than the petals, usually rudimentary or wanting in the pistillate flower; ovary sessile, obovoid, compressed, rudimentary in the staminate flower; styles 3, short and spreading from the lateral apex of the ovary; stigmas large, obtuse. Fruit oblong-oblique, compressed, glabrous, conspicuously reticulate-veined, light red-brown, bearing on the side near the middle the remnants of the persistent styles, the outer coat thin and dry; stone thick and bony.
Cotinus is widely distributed through southern Europe and the Himalayas to central China with a single species, and is represented in the southern United States by one species.
The Old World Cotinus coggygria Scop., the Smoke-tree of gardens, is often cultivated in the United States.
The generic name is from Κότινος, the classical name of a tree with red wood.
1. Cotinus americanus Nutt. Chittam Wood.
Leaves oval or obovate, rounded or sometimes slightly emarginate at apex, gradually contracted at base, and entire, with slightly wavy revolute margins, when they unfold light purple and covered below with fine silky white hairs, and at maturity dark green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, and puberulous along the under side of the broad midrib and primary veins, 4′—6′ long and 2′—3′ wide; turning in the autumn brilliant shades of orange and scarlet; petioles stout, ½′—¾′ in length. Flowers appearing late in April or early in May on pedicels ½′—¾′ long, and usually collected 3 or 4 together in loose umbels near the end of the principal branches of puberulous terminal slender long-branched few-flowered panicles 5′—6′ long and 2½′—3′ broad, the staminate and pistillate flowers on different individuals. Fruit produced very sparingly, about ⅛′ long, on stems 2′—3′ in length; the sterile pedicels becoming 1½′—2′ long at maturity and covered with short not very abundant rather inconspicuous pale purple or brown hairs; seed kidney-shaped, pale brown, about 1/16′ long.
A tree, 25°—35° high, with a straight trunk occasionally 12′—14′ in diameter, usually dividing 12°—14° from the ground into several erect stems separating into wide-spreading often slightly pendulous branches, and slender branchlets purple when they first appear, soon becoming green, bright red-brown and covered with small white lenticels and marked by large prominent leaf-scars during their first winter, and dark orange-colored in their second year. Winter-buds ⅛′ long, and covered with thin dark red-brown scales. Bark of the trunk ⅛′ thick, light gray, furrowed, and broken on the surface into thin oblong scales. Wood light, soft, rather coarse-grained, bright clear rich orange color, with thin nearly white sapwood; largely used locally for fence-posts and very durable in contact with the soil; yielding a clear orange-colored dye.
Distribution. Banks of the Ohio River, Owensboro, Daviess County, Kentucky (E. J. Palmer); on the Cheat Mountains, eastern Tennessee; near Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama; valley of White River in Stone and Taney Counties, southern Missouri; near Cotter, Baxter County, and Van Buren, Crawford County, Arkansas, and eastern Oklahoma; valleys of the upper Guadalupe and Medina Rivers, western Texas; usually only in small isolated groves or thickets scattered along the sides of rocky ravines or dry slopes; very abundant as a small shrub and spreading over many thousand acres of the mountain cañons, and high hillsides in the neighborhood of Spanish Pass, Kendall County, Texas.
Occasionally cultivated in the eastern United States and rarely in Europe; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
3. METOPIUM P. Br.
Trees or shrubs, with naked buds, fleshy roots, and milky exceedingly caustic juice. Leaves unequally pinnate, persistent; leaflets coriaceous, lustrous, long-petiolulate. Flowers diœcious, yellow-green, on short stout pedicels, in narrow erect axillary clusters at the ends of the branches, with minute acute deciduous bracts and bractlets, the males and females on different trees; calyx-lobes semiorbicular, about half as long as the ovate obtuse petals; stamens 5, inserted under the margin of the disk; filaments shorter than the anthers, minute and rudimentary in the pistillate flower; ovary ovoid, sessile, minute in the staminate flower; style terminal, short, undivided; stigma 3-lobed. Fruit ovoid, compressed, smooth and glabrous, crowned with the remnants of the style; outer coat thick and resinous; stone crustaceous. Seed nearly quadrangular, compressed; seed-coat smooth, dark brown and opaque, the broad funicle covering its margin.
Metopium with two species is confined to southern Florida and the West Indies.
The generic name, from ὄπος, was the classical name of an African tree now unknown.
1. Metopium toxiferum Kr. & Urb. Poison Wood. Hog Gum.
Metopium Metopium Small.
Leaves clustered near the end of the branches, 9′—10′ long, with stout petioles swollen and enlarged at base, and 5—7 leaflets, or often 3-foliolate; unfolding in March and persistent until the following spring; leaflets ovate, rounded or usually contracted toward the acute or sometimes slightly emarginate apex, rounded or sometimes cordate or cuneate at base, 3′—4′ long, 2′—3′ broad, with thickened slightly revolute margins, a prominent midrib, primary veins spreading at right angles, and numerous reticulate veinlets; petiolules stout, ½′—1′ long, that of the terminal leaflet often twice as long as the others. Flowers about ⅛′ in diameter, in clusters as long or rather longer than the leaves; petals yellow-green, marked on the inner surface by dark longitudinal lines; stamens rather shorter than the petals. Fruit ripening in November and December, pendent in long graceful clusters, orange-colored, rather lustrous, ¾′ in length; seed about ¼′ long.
A tree, frequently 35°—40° high, with a short trunk sometimes 2° in diameter, stout spreading often pendulous branches forming a low broad head, and reddish brown branchlets marked by prominent leaf-scars and numerous orange-colored lenticels. Winter-buds ⅓′—½′ in length, with acuminate scales ciliate on the margin with rufous hairs. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, light reddish brown tinged with orange, often marked by dark spots caused by the exuding of the resinous gum, and separating into large thin plate-like scales displaying the bright orange color of the inner bark. Wood heavy, hard, not strong, rich dark brown streaked with red, with thick light brown or yellow sapwood of 25—30 layers of annual growth. The resinous gum obtained from incisions made in the bark is emetic, purgative, and diuretic.
Distribution. Florida, shores of Bay Biscayne, on the Everglade Keys, and on Coot Bay in the rear of Cape Sable, Dade County, and on the southern keys; very abundant; in the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, and Honduras.
4. RHUS L.
Trees or shrubs, with pithy branchlets, fleshy roots, and milky sometimes caustic or watery juice. Leaves unequally pinnate, or rarely simple. Flowers mostly diœcious, rarely polygamous, white or greenish white, in more or less compound axillary or terminal panicles, the staminate and pistillate usually produced on separate plants; calyx-lobes united at base only, generally persistent; disk surrounding the base of the free ovary, coherent with the base of the calyx; petals longer than the calyx-lobes, inserted under the margin of the disk, opposite its lobes, deciduous; stamens 5, inserted on the margin of the disk alternate with the petals; filaments longer than the anthers; ovary ovoid or subglobose, sessile; styles 3, terminal, free or slightly connate at base, rising from the centre of the ovary. Fruit usually globose, smooth or covered with hairs; outer coat thin and dry, more or less resinous; stone crustaceous or bony. Seed ovoid or reniform, commonly transverse; cotyledons foliaceous, generally transverse; radicle long, uncinate, laterally accumbent.
Rhus is widely distributed, with more than one hundred species, in the extra-tropical regions of the northern and southern hemispheres. In North America the genus is widely and generally distributed from Canada to southern Mexico and from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific Ocean, with sixteen or seventeen species within the territory of the United States. Of these, four obtain the habit of small trees. The acrid poisonous juice of Rhus vernicifera DC., of China, furnishes the black varnish used in China and Japan in the manufacture of lacquer, and other species are valued for the tannin contained in their leaves or for the wax obtained from their fruit.
The name of the genus is from Ῥοῦς, the classical name of the European Sumach.
CONSPECTUS OF NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.
- Flowers in terminal thyrsoid panicles; fruit globular, clothed with acrid hairs; leaves unequally pinnate, deciduous; Sumachs.
- Branches and leaf-stalks densely velvety hairy; leaflets 11—31, pale on the lower surface; fruit covered with long hairs; buds inclosed in the enlarged base of the petioles; juice milky.
- 1. R. typhina (A, C).
- Branches and leaf-stalks pubescent; rachis winged; leaflets 9—21, green on the lower surface; fruit pilose; buds not inclosed by the petioles; juice watery.
- 2. R. copallina (A, C).
- Flowers in axillary slender panicles; fruit glabrous, white; leaves unequally pinnate, deciduous; leaflets 7—13.
- 3. R. vernix (A, C).
- Flowers in short compact terminal panicled racemes; fruit pubescent; leaves ovate, entire or serrate, simple or rarely trifoliolate, persistent.
- 4. R. integrifolia (G).
1. Rhus typhina L. Staghorn Sumach.
Rhus hirta Sudw.
Leaves 16′—24′ long, with a stout petiole usually red on the upper side and covered with soft pale hairs, enlarged at base and surrounding and inclosing the bud developed in its axil, and 11—31 oblong often falcate rather remotely and sharply serrate or rarely laciniate long-pointed nearly sessile or short-stalked leaflets rounded or slightly heart-shaped at base, covered above like the petiole and young shoots when they first appear with red caducous hairs, bright yellow-green until half grown, and at maturity dark green and rather opaque on the upper surface, pale or often nearly white on the lower surface, glabrous with the exception of the short fine hairs on the under side of the stout midrib, and primary veins forked near the margins, opposite, or the lower leaflets slightly alternate, those of the 3 or 4 middle pairs considerably longer than those at the ends of the leaf, 2′—5′ long, and 1′—1½′ wide; turning in the autumn before falling bright scarlet with shades of crimson, purple, and orange. Flowers opening gradually and in succession in early summer, the pistillate a week or ten days later than the staminate, on slender pedicels from the axils of small acute pubescent bracts, in dense panicles, with a pubescent stem and branchlets, and acuminate bracts ½′ to nearly 2′ long and deciduous with the opening of the flowers; panicle of the staminate flowers 8′—12′ long and 5′—6′ broad, with wide-spreading branches and nearly one third larger than the more compact panicle of the pistillate plant; calyx-lobes acute, covered on the outer surface with long slender hairs, much shorter than the petals in the staminate flower, and almost as long in the pistillate flower; petals of the staminate flower yellow-green sometimes tinged with red, strap-shaped, rounded at apex, becoming reflexed above the middle at maturity; petals of the pistillate flower green, narrow and acuminate, with a thickened and slightly hooded apex, remaining erect; disk bright red and conspicuous; stamens slightly exserted, with slender filaments and large bright orange-colored anthers; ovary ovoid, pubescent, the 3 short styles slightly connate at base, with large capitate stigmas, in the staminate flower glabrous, much smaller, unusually rudimentary. Fruit fully grown and colored in August and ripening late in the autumn in dense panicles 6′—8′ long and 2′—3′ wide, depressed-globose, with a thin outer covering clothed with long acrid crimson hairs and a small pale brown bony stone; seed slightly reniform, orange-brown.
A tree, occasionally 35°—40° high, with copious white viscid juice turning black on exposure, a slender often slightly inclining trunk occasionally 12′—14′ in diameter, stout upright often contorted branches forming a low flat open head, and thick branchlets covered with long soft brown hairs gathered also in tufts in the axils of the leaflets, becoming glabrous after their third or fourth year, and in their second season marked by large narrow leaf-scars and by small orange-colored lenticels enlarging vertically and persistent for several years; more frequently a tall shrub, spreading by underground shoots into broad thickets. Winter-buds conic, thickly coated with long silky pale brown hairs, about ¼′ long. Bark of the trunk thin, dark brown, generally smooth, and occasionally separating into small square scales. Wood light, brittle, soft, coarse-grained, orange-colored, streaked with green, with thick nearly white sapwood. From the young shoots pipes are made for drawing the sap of the Sugar Maple. The bark, especially that of the roots, and the leaves are rich in tannin. A form with narrow deeply divided leaflets (f. dissecta Rehdr.) occasionally occurs.
Distribution. Usually on uplands in good soil, or less commonly on sterile gravelly banks and on the borders of streams and swamps, New Brunswick and through the valley of the St. Lawrence River to southern Ontario and westward to eastern North Dakota and eastern and northeastern Iowa, and southward through the northern states and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia and Mississippi; more abundant on the Atlantic seaboard than in the region west of the Appalachian Mountains.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the United States, and very commonly in central and northern Europe.
× Rhus hybrida Rehdr. a hybrid of R. typhina and R. glabra L. has been found in Massachusetts.