Part 111

A tree, frequently 70°—80° high, with a long trunk occasionally 4° in diameter, stout branches forming a narrow upright head or a broad shapely crown, and thick terete branchlets more or less densely coated with pale or rarely rufous silky pilose tomentum persistent during their second year or occasionally deciduous during their first summer, becoming light red-brown or orange color, glabrous or puberulous, often covered with a slight glaucous bloom, marked by small remote pale lenticels, and during their first and second winters by the large elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying a short row of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars, rarely always glabrous (var. _glabra_ Rehd.). Winter-buds: terminal acute, ⅛′—¼′ long, with 4 pairs of scales covered with pale hairs or with rusty pubescence, those of the inner rows often foliaceous at maturity. Bark of the trunk 1′—1½′ thick, dark gray, or brown slightly tinged with red, and deeply divided by interrupted fissures into broad flat ridges separating on the surface into thin scales. Wood light, hard, brittle, coarse-grained, brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood; largely used in the manufacture of furniture, for the frames of carriages and wagons, in cooperage, the interior finish of houses, and for fuel.

Distribution. Usually in rich moist soil in the neighborhood of streams; coast region of southern British Columbia, southward through western Washington and Oregon and the California coast region to the Bay of San Francisco and the Santa Cruz Mountains, and along the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada to those of the mountains of San Bernardino and San Diego Counties, California; the var. _glabra_ in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties, and east of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo County (Ash Creek, near Owens Lake), and occasionally northward in California; most abundant and of its largest size on the bottom-lands of the rivers of southwestern Oregon; one of the most valuable of the deciduous-leaved timber-trees of Pacific North America.

Occasionally cultivated; hardy in the Arnold Arboretum.

16. Fraxinus quadrangulata Michx. Blue Ash.

Leaves 8′—12′ long, with a slender petiole glabrous, or puberulous toward the base, and 5—11 oblong-ovate to lanceolate long-pointed coarsely serrate leaflets unequally rounded or cuneate at base, and coated when they unfold on the lower surface with thick brown tomentum, and at maturity thick and firm, yellow-green and glabrous above, pale and glabrous or sometimes furnished with tufts of pale hairs along the base of the conspicuous midrib below, 3′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with short stout petiolules and 8—12 pairs of veins arcuate near the margins; turning pale yellow in the autumn before falling. Flowers perfect, appearing as the terminal buds begin to expand, in loose-branched panicles from small obtuse buds with scales keeled on the back, apiculate at apex, and covered with thick brown tomentum; calyx reduced to an obscure ring; corolla 0; stamens 2, with nearly sessile broad connectives and dark purple oblong obtuse anther-cells; ovary oblong-ovoid, gradually narrowed into a short style divided at apex into 2 light purple stigmatic lobes generally maturing and withering before the anthers open. Fruit oblong to oblong-cuneate, 1′—2′ long and ⅓′—½′ wide, the wing rounded and often emarginate or acute at apex, surrounding the flat body faintly many-rayed on both surfaces.

A tree, usually 60°—70° or occasionally 120° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, small spreading branches forming a slender head, and stout 4-angled branchlets more or less 4-winged between the nodes, dark orange color and covered with short rufous pubescence when they first appear, becoming gray tinged with red in their second year and marked by scattered pale lenticels and by the large elevated obcordate leaf-scars displaying a lunate row of fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and in their third year light brown or ashy gray and then gradually becoming terete. Winter-buds: terminal about ¼′ long, with 3 pairs of scales, those of the outer row thick, rounded on the back, usually obscurely pinnate toward the apex, dark reddish brown, slightly puberulous or often hoary-tomentose, partly covering the bud, those of the inner rows strap-shaped, coated with light brown tomentum, often pinnate, becoming 1′—1½′ long. Bark of the trunk ½′—⅔′ thick, irregularly divided into large plate-like scales, the light gray surface slightly tinged with red separating into thin minute scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, rather brittle, light yellow streaked with brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 80—90 layers of annual growth; largely used for flooring and in carriage-building, and not often distinguished commercially from that of other species of the northern and middle states. A blue dye is obtained by macerating the inner bark in water.

Distribution. Rich limestone hills, occasionally descending into the bottom-lands of fertile valleys; southwestern Ontario through southern Michigan to southwestern Iowa and southward through western Ohio and southeastern Indiana to eastern and central Kentucky (near Clarksville, Montgomery County), eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama (near Huntsville, Madison County), and through Missouri to southeastern Kansas, southwestern Arkansas and northeastern Oklahoma (near Pawhuska, Osage County); nowhere very abundant; of its largest size in the basin of the lower Wabash River, Illinois, and on the western slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains, Tennessee.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in the eastern United States.

17. Fraxinus nigra Marsh. Black Ash. Brown Ash.

Leaves 12′—16′ long, with a stout pale petiole, and 7—11 oblong or oblong-lanceolate long-pointed leaflets, unequally cuneate or sometimes rounded at base, serrate with small incurved apiculate teeth, the lateral sessile, the terminal on a petiolule up to 1′ in length, covered especially below when they unfold with rufous hairs, and at maturity thin and firm, dark green above, paler below, glabrous with the exception of occasional tufts of rufous hairs along the under side of the broad pale midrib, 4′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with many conspicuous primary veins arcuate near the margins and obscurely reticulate veinlets; turning rusty brown and falling early in the autumn. Flowers polygamous, without a perianth, appearing before the leaves in a compact or ultimately elongated panicle 4′—5′ long, and covered in the bud by broad-ovate dark brown or nearly black scales rounded at apex; staminate flowers on separate trees or mixed with perfect flowers, and consisting of 2 large deeply pitted oblong dark purple apiculate anthers attached on the back to short broad filaments; pistillate flower consisting of a long slender style deeply divided into 2 broad purple stigmas and often accompanied by 1 or 2 perfect or globose rudimentary pink anthers sessile or borne on long or short filaments. Fruit in open panicles 8′—10′ in length, oblong to slightly oblong-obovate, 1′—1½′ long and ⅓′ wide, with a thin wing, surrounding the short flat faintly nerved body, rounded and emarginate at apex and narrowed and rounded or cuneate at base.

A tree, occasionally 80°—90° high, with a tall trunk rarely exceeding 20′ in diameter, slender mostly upright branches forming a narrow head, and stout terete branchlets dark green and slightly puberulous when they first appear, soon becoming ashy gray or orange color and marked by large pale lenticels, growing darker during their first winter and then roughened by the large suborbicular leaf-scars displaying a semicircular row of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars; usually much smaller. Winter-buds: terminal broad-ovate, acute, rather less than ¼′ long, with 3 pairs of scales, those of the outer pair thick and rounded on the back at base, gradually narrowed and acute at apex, dark brown, slightly puberulous, falling as the bud begins to enlarge in the spring, and shorter than the scales of the inner rows coated on the outer surface with rufous pubescence, those of the second pair becoming strap-shaped, 1′ long, ⅓′ wide, and about half as long as the pinnate usually foliaceous inner scales. Bark of the trunk gray slightly tinged with red, ⅓′—½′ thick, and divided into large irregular plates separating into thin papery scales. Wood heavy, rather soft, not strong, tough, coarse-grained, durable, easily separable into thin layers, dark brown, with thin light brown often nearly white sapwood; largely used for the interior finish of houses and in cabinet-making, and for fences, barrel hoops, and in the manufacture of baskets.

Distribution. Deep cold swamps and the low banks of streams and lakes; southern Newfoundland and the northern shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Lake Winnipeg, and southward to New Castle County, Delaware, the mountains of West Virginia, southwestern Indiana (Knox County; now probably exterminated by drainage), central Iowa, central Missouri, and northwestern Arkansas.

2. FORESTIERA Poir. Swamp Privet.

_Adelia_ Michx.

Trees or shrubs, with thin close bark, slender branchlets, and small scaly buds. Leaves simple, entire or serrulate, petiolate, deciduous or persistent. Flowers diœcious or polygamous, minute, on slender ebracteolate pedicels, in fascicles or panicles, their bracts caducous, from buds in the axils of leaves of the previous year and covered with numerous scales; calyx reduced to a narrow ring or cup-shaped, 5 or 6-lobed; corolla 0; stamens hypogynous; filaments 2—4; anthers ovoid, opening by lateral slits; ovary 2-celled, gradually narrowed into a slender style terminating in an abruptly enlarged 2-lobed stigma; ovules 2 in each cell, suspended from its apex; raphe dorsal. Fruit 1 or very rarely 2-celled, drupaceous, oblong or subglobose, with thin flesh and a thin-walled stone; seed 1 in each cell, pendulous, testa membranaceous; albumen fleshy; cotyledons plane, nearly filling the cavity of the stone.

Forestiera with 14 species is distributed from the southern United States and Mexico through Central America to Paraguay, and through the West Indies to Brazil.

The generic name is in memory of the French physician and botanist Charles Leforestière.

1. Forestiera acuminata Poir.

Leaves elliptic, acuminate and long-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, serrate above the middle with small remote incurved teeth, glabrous with the exception of occasional hairs on the upper side of the slender midrib, yellow-green on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, 2½′—4½′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with usually 5 or 6 pairs of slender primary veins and slightly thickened and incurved margins, deciduous; petioles slender, often slightly winged above the middle, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers appearing in April and May before the leaves from ovoid pointed buds ⅛′ long, with thickened pale chestnut-brown scales; calyx reduced to a narrow slightly lobed ring; corolla 0; staminate in many-flowered fascicles, on short pedicels from the axils of broad-obovate thin yellow apiculate conspicuous bracts; stamens 4, on long slender filaments; anthers bright yellow; ovary reduced to a minute ovoid body; pistillate flowers on slender pedicels ⅛′ long, in glabrous pedunculate several-flowered panicles ¾′—1¼′ long, their bracts caducous; stamens with shorter filaments and abortive or rarely fertile anthers, or usually 0; ovary oblong-ovoid, slightly unsymmetric, gradually narrowed into the long slender style enlarged into the thickened imperfectly 2-lobed terminal stigma. Fruit falling as soon as ripe in June and July, oblong-ovoid, gradually narrowed, acute and tipped with the remnants of the style at apex, gradually narrowed and rounded at base, slightly compressed and unsymmetric, dark blue-purple, 1′—1¼′ long, about ¼′ thick, with thin dry flesh, and a striate stone rounded at base, straight on one side and rounded on the other, its wall covered with thin vertical scales spongy in appearance, and conspicuously longitudinally ridged on the inner surface the ridges terminating in long slender tips forming the acuminate apex of the stone; seeds ellipsoid, slightly compressed, striate, light brown, about ⅓′ in length.

A tree, rarely 50° high, with a short trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, small spreading branches, and slender light brown branchlets becoming darker in their second year, and marked by numerous lenticels and by the small elevated nearly orbicular leaf-scars. Winter-buds: terminal ovoid, pointed, about 1/16′ long, with numerous scales increasing in size from the outer to the inner ranks; usually much smaller, and generally a shrub 10°—15° high and broad. Bark close, slightly ridged, dark brown.

Distribution. Borders of streams and swamps in low moist soil; valley of the lower Wabash River, southwestern Indiana, southern Illinois northward along the Mississippi River to Pike County, and to central Tennessee, and from southern Missouri through Arkansas to eastern Oklahoma (near Muskogee, Muskogee County) and eastern Texas to the valley of the lower Colorado River inland to Colorado County (shores of Eagle Lake), and through Louisiana, central and southern Mississippi and Alabama to western Florida (Branford, Suwanee County) and on the Savannah River, near Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia; most abundant in Missouri, Arkansas and Texas; comparatively rare east of the Mississippi River, but probably of its largest size in eastern Louisiana.

Occasionally cultivated; hardy in the Arnold Arboretum.

3. CHIONANTHUS L.

Trees or shrubs, with stout terete or slightly angled branchlets, thick pith, and buds with numerous opposite scales. Leaves simple, conduplicate in the bud, deciduous. Flowers diœcious or rarely polygamous, on elongated ebracteolate pedicels, in 3-flowered clusters terminal on the slender opposite branches, of ample loose panicles, with foliaceous persistent bracts, from separate buds in the axils of the upper leaves of the previous year; calyx minute, deeply 4-parted, the divisions imbricated in the bud, persistent under the fruit; corolla white, deeply divided into 4 or rarely 5 or 6 elongated linear lobes conduplicate-valvate in the bud, united at base into a short tube, or rarely separate; stamens 2, inserted on the base of the corolla opposite the axis of the flower, or rarely 4 in the staminate flower, included; filaments terete, short; anthers ovoid, attached on the back below the middle, apiculate by the elongation of the connective, 2-celled, the cells opening by longitudinal lateral or subextrorse slits; ovary ovoid, abruptly contracted into a short columnar style; stigma thick and fleshy, slightly 2-lobed; in the staminate flower of the Asiatic species reduced to a minute subglobose body; ovules laterally attached near the apex of the cell; raphe ventral. Fruit an ovoid or oblong, usually 1 or rarely 2 or 3-seeded thick-skinned drupe tipped with the remnants of the style; flesh thin and dry, stone thick-walled, crustaceous. Seed filling the cavity of the stone, ovoid; seed-coat chestnut-brown.

Chionanthus inhabits the middle and southern United States with one species, and northern and central China with another.

The specific name, from χιών and ἄνθος, is in allusion to the light and graceful clusters of snow-white flowers.

1. Chionanthus virginica L. Fringe-tree. Old Man’s Beard.

Leaves ovate or oblong, acuminate, short-pointed or sometimes rounded at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate below, entire, with undulate margins, and coarsely reticulate-venulose, yellow-green and lustrous above, pubescent below, and ciliate on the margins when they unfold, and at maturity 4′—8′ long, ½′—4′ wide, thick and firm, dark green on the upper surface, pale and glabrous on the lower surface except on the stout midrib and conspicuous arcuate primary veins more or less covered with short white hairs; turning bright clear yellow before falling early in the autumn; petioles stout, puberulous, ½′—1′ in length. Flowers slightly and agreeably fragrant, appearing when the leaves are about one third grown, in loose pubescent drooping panicles 4′—6′ in length, the bracts at the base of the lower branches of the inflorescence oblong, glabrous on the upper surface, pubescent on the lower surface, and sometimes 1′ long, those at the base of the upper branches oval, successively smaller, and gradually passing into the minute laciniate bracts subtending the lateral pedicels of the 3-flowered clusters terminating the last divisions of the panicle; some individuals bearing occasional perfect flowers among others functionally diœcious, some with sterile or rarely perfect anthers and a well-developed stigma, and others with an imperfectly developed stigma and fertile anthers; calyx light green, glabrous, with acute entire or laciniately cut lobes; corolla 1′ long, marked on the inner surface near the base by a row of bright purple spots; anthers light yellow, with a green connective. Fruit ripening in September, in loose few-fruited clusters, their bracts leaf-like and sometimes 2′ in length, oval or short-oblong, 1′ long, dark blue or nearly black, and often covered with a glaucous bloom; seeds ⅓′ long, ovoid, narrowed at apex and covered with a thin light chestnut-brown coat marked by reticulate veins radiating from the hilum.

A tree, 20°—30° high, with a short trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, stout ashy gray or light brown branches forming an oblong rather narrow head, and stout branchlets light green and covered with pale pubescence or sometimes glabrous when they first appear, terete or slightly angled in their first winter, often much thickened below the nodes, light brown or orange color, and marked by large scattered darker colored lenticels and by the elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying a semicircular row of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars; often a shrub, with several stout thick spreading stems. Winter-buds broad-ovoid, acute, ⅛′ long, with about 5 pairs of scales increasing in length from the outer to the inner pair, ovate, acute, keeled on the back, light brown and slightly pilose on the outer surface, bright green and lustrous on the inner surface, and ciliate on the margins with scattered white hairs, those of the inner pair at maturity obovate, gradually narrowed below, foliaceous, and 1′—1½′ long. Bark of the trunk ¼′—½′ thick, and irregularly divided into small thin appressed brown scales tinged with red. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, and light brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood. The bark is tonic and is sometimes used in decoctions and in the treatment of intermittent fevers, or as an aperient and diuretic, and in homœopathic practice.

Distribution. Banks of streams in rich moist soil; southeastern Pennsylvania to the Manitee River region, western Florida, and through the Gulf states to northern Arkansas (Baxter and Cleburne Counties), southwestern Oklahoma (near Page, Leflore County) and the valley of the Brazos River, Texas; ascending on the southern Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of 4000°.

Often cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern United States, and in western and central Europe.

4. OSMANTHUS Lour.

Trees or shrubs, with terete or slightly angled branches, and fibrous roots. Leaves simple, persistent. Flowers fragrant, polygamo-diœcious or perfect, on ebracteolate pedicels subtended by scale-like bracts, in short axillary racemes or in short axillary or rarely terminal fascicles; calyx minute, 4-toothed or divided, the divisions imbricated in the bud, persistent under the fruit; corolla tubular, 4-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, ovate, obtuse, spreading after anthesis; stamens 2, inserted on the tube of the corolla opposite the lateral lobes of the calyx, or rarely 4; filaments terete, short; anthers ovoid or linear-oblong, blunt, or apiculate by the prolongation of the connective, attached on the back below the middle, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally by marginal slits, sometimes rudimentary or 0 in the pistillate flower; ovary subglobose; style columnar, short or elongated, crowned with an entire capitate stigma; ovules laterally attached near the apex of the cell; raphe ventral. Fruit a fleshy 1-seeded ovoid or globose drupe tipped with the remnants of the style; flesh thin and succulent; stone hard and bony. Seed filling the cavity of the stone; cotyledons flat, much longer than the short superior radicle turned toward the hilum.

Osmanthus with ten species inhabits eastern North America, the Hawaiian Islands, Polynesia, Japan, China, and the Himalayas. _Osmanthus fragrans_ Lour., a native of China and the temperate Himalayas, is cultivated in China for its fragrant minute cream-colored or yellow flowers used by the Chinese to perfume tea, and is everywhere a favorite garden plant.

The generic name, from ὀσµή and ἄνθος, relates to the fragrance of the flowers.

1. Osmanthus americanus B. & H. Devil Wood.

Leaves oblong-lanceolate or obovate, acute or rarely rounded and occasionally emarginate at apex, and gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, with thickened revolute margins, when they unfold coated beneath with pale tomentum, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, glabrous, bright green, lustrous above, obscurely reticulate-venulose, 4′—5′ long and ½′—2½′ wide, with a broad pale midrib and remote forked primary veins arcuate near the margins; persistent until their second year; petioles stout, ½′—¾′ in length. Flowers opening in March from pilose inflorescence-buds formed the previous autumn in the axils of the leaves of the year, the staminate, pistillate, and perfect flowers on different individuals in 3-flowered clusters, sessile or short-pedicellate, in pedunculate cymes or short racemes, with scale-like nearly triangular acute persistent bracts; calyx puberulous, with acute rigid lobes, and much shorter than the creamy white corolla ⅛′ long when expanded, with an elongated tube and short spreading ovate rounded lobes; stamens inserted on the middle of the tube of the corolla, included or slightly exserted, small and often rudimentary in the pistillate flower; ovary abruptly contracted into a stout columnar style crowned with a large exserted capitate stigma, reduced in the staminate flower to a minute point. Fruit ripening early in the autumn, oblong or obovoid, 1′ long, dark blue, with thin flesh and a thick or sometimes thin-walled brittle ovoid pointed stone; seed ovoid, covered with a chestnut-brown coat marked by broad conspicuous pale veins radiating from the short broad ventral hilum and encircling the seed.

A tree, occasionally 60°—70° high, with a trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, and slender slightly angled ultimately terete branchlets light or red-brown and marked by minute pale lenticels, becoming ashy gray in their second year and roughened by the small elevated orbicular leaf-scars displaying a ring of minute fibro-vascular bundle-scars; usually much smaller and often shrubby. Winter-buds narrow-lanceolate, ½′ long, with 2 thick lanceolate reddish brown puberulous scales. Bark of the trunk thin, dark gray or gray tinged with red, and roughened by small thin appressed scales displaying in falling the dark cinnamon red inner bark. Wood heavy, very hard and strong, close-grained, difficult to work, dark brown, with thick light brown or yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Usually in moist soil near the borders of streams and Pine-barren ponds and swamps, and occasionally on dry sandy uplands; coast region of the south Atlantic and Gulf states, from the valley of the lower Cape Fear River, North Carolina, to the valley of the Kissimmee River, the interior of the peninsular (Lake and Orange Counties) and the shores of Tampa Bay, Florida, and westward to eastern Louisiana.

LXI. BORRAGINACEÆ.