Part 49

1. Anona glabra L. Pond Apple.

_Anona palustris_ Small, not L.

Leaves elliptic or oblong, acute, tapering or rounded at base, bright green on the upper, paler on the lower surface, coriaceous, 3′—5′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, with a prominent midrib; deciduous late in the winter; petioles, stout ½′ in length. Flowers nodding on short stout pedicels thickened at the ends, opening in April from an ovoid 3-angled bud; divisions of the calyx broad-ovate, acute; petals connivent, acute, concave, pale yellow or dirty white, those of the outer row marked on the inner surface near the base by a bright red spot, and broader and somewhat longer than those of the inner row. Fruit ripening in November, broadly ovate, truncate or depressed at base, rounded at apex, 3′—5′ long, 2′—3½′ broad, light green when fully grown, becoming yellow and often marked by numerous dark brown blotches when fully ripe, with a thick elongate fibrous torus and light green slightly aromatic insipid flesh of no comestible value; seeds ½′ long, slightly obovoid, turgid, rounded at the ends, their margins contracted into a narrow wing formed by the thickening of the outer coat.

A tree, 40°—50° high, with a short trunk often 18′ in diameter above the swell of the thickened tapering base sometimes enlarged into spreading buttresses, stout wide-spreading often contorted branches, slender branchlets brown or yellow during their first season, becoming in their second year brown and marked by small scattered wart-like excrescences. Bark ⅛′ thick, dark reddish brown, divided by broad shallow fissures, separating on the surface into numerous small scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, light brown streaked with yellow.

Distribution. Florida: Indian River on the east coast, and the shores of the Manatee River on the west coast to the southern Keys; in shallow fresh water ponds, on swampy hummocks, or on the borders of fresh water streams flowing from the everglades; of its largest size on the shores of Bay Biscayne near the Miami River, growing in the shade of larger trees; forming a pure forest of great extent on the swampy borders of Lake Okechobee; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.

XVIII. LAURACEÆ.

Aromatic trees and shrubs, with slender terete or angled branchlets, naked or scaly buds, and alternate punctate leaves without stipules. Flowers small, perfect or polygamo-diœcious, yellow or greenish; calyx 6-lobed, the lobes in 2 series, imbricated in the bud; corolla 0; stamens 9 or 12, inserted on the base or near the middle of the calyx in 3 or 4 series of 3’s, distinct; anthers 4-celled, superposed in pairs, opening from below upward by persistent lids; ovary 1-celled; stigma discoid or capitate; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell, anatropous. Fruit a 1-seeded berry; seed without albumen; testa thin and membranaceous, of 2 coats; embryo erect; cotyledons thick and fleshy; radicle superior, turned toward the hilum, included between thick and fleshy cotyledons. The Laurel family with about forty genera, confined mostly to the tropics, is represented in North America by seven genera; of these five are arborescent.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT GENERA.

Leaves entire, persistent; stamens 12, those of the inner row reduced to staminodes. Calyx-lobes persistent under the fruit, in our species. 1. Persea. Calyx-lobes deciduous. Flower cymose in axillary or subterminal panicles. 2. Ocotea. Flowers in axillary many-flowered umbels inclosed before anthesis in an involucre of deciduous scales. 3. Umbellularia. Leaves entire or lobed, deciduous; stamens 9 in the American species; flowers in few-flowered drooping racemes. 4. Sassafras. Leaves entire, persistent; stamens 9, those of the outer row fertile and united in a column inclosing the pistil; flowers in terminal or axillary cymose panicles. 5. Misanteca.

1. PERSEA Mill.

Trees, with naked buds. Leaves revolute in the bud, alternate, scattered, penniveined, subcoriaceous, rigid, tomentose or rarely glabrous, persistent. Flowers perfect, vernal, in short axillary or axillary and terminal panicles on slender peduncles from axils of the leaves of the year, pedicellate, their pedicels bibracteolate near the middle, the lateral flowers of the ultimate divisions of the inflorescence in the axils of small deciduous lanceolate acute bracts; calyx campanulate, divided nearly to the base into 6 lobes, those of the outer series shorter than the others, deciduous, or enlarged and persistent under the fruit; stamens about as long as the inner lobes of the calyx; filaments flattened, longer than the anthers, hirsute, those of the third series furnished near the base with 2 nearly sessile orange-colored glands rounded on the back and slightly 2-lobed on the inner face; anthers ovoid, flattened, erect, those of the outer series introrse or subintrorse, those of the third series extrorse or laterally dehiscent, the upper cells rather larger than the lower; staminodes large, sagittate, stipitate, 2-lobed on the inner face, beaded at apex; ovary sessile, subglobose, glabrous, narrowed into a slender simple style gradually enlarged at apex into a discoid obscurely 2-lobed stigma. Fruit ripening in the autumn, oblong-obovoid to subglobose, more or less fleshy. Seed globose, pendulous, without albumen; testa thin and membranaceous, separable into 2 coats, the outer cartilaginous, grayish brown, the inner gray or nearly white, closely adherent to the thick dark red cotyledons.

About one hundred species of Persea are distinguished. They are distributed in the New World, from the coast region of the southeastern United States and Texas to Brazil and Chile, and occur in the Canary Islands and in tropical and subtropical Asia. _Persea americana_ Mill., the Avocado or Alligator Pear, a native of the Antilles and cultivated for its edible fruit in all tropical countries, is now sparingly naturalized in southern Florida. Many species yield hard dark-colored handsome wood valued in cabinet-making.

_Persea_ was the classical name of a tree of the Orient, transferred by Plumier to one of the tropical species of this genus.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.

Calyx persistent under the fruit (_Tamala Raf._ Persea, sec. Eupersea Benth. _Notaphoebe_ sec. _Eriodaphne_ Meisn.) Peduncles short; leaves oblong to oblong-lanceolate, obscurely veined, glabrous; branchlets puberulous. 1. P. Borbonia (C). Peduncles elongated; leaves elliptic to lanceolate, conspicuously veined, tomentose on the lower surface; branchlets tomentose. 2. P. palustris (C).

1. Persea Borbonia Spreng. Red Bay.

Leaves oblong to oblong-lanceolate, entire, often slightly contracted into a long point rounded at apex, gradually narrowed below, when they unfold thin, pilose, and tinged with red, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, bright green and lustrous above, pale and glaucous below, 3′—4′ long, ¾′—1½′ wide, with thickened revolute margins, a narrow orange-colored midrib, remote obscure primary veins arcuate near the margins, and thin closely reticulated veinlets; unfolding early in the spring, gradually turning yellow a year later, and falling during their second spring and summer; petioles stout, rigid, red-brown, ½′—⅔′ in length, flattened and somewhat grooved on the upper side, in falling leaving small circular leaf-scars displaying the end of a single fibro-vascular bundle. Flowers: peduncles glabrous, ½′—1′ in length; calyx pale yellow or creamy white, about ⅛′ long, with thin lobes ciliate on the margins, the outer broadly ovate, rounded and minutely apiculate, puberulous, about half as long as the oblong-lanceolate acute lobes of the inner series covered within by long pale hairs. Fruit ½′ long, dark blue or nearly black, very lustrous; flesh thin and dry, not readily separable from the ovoid slightly pointed seed.

A tree, 60°—70° high, with a trunk 2½°—3° in diameter, stout erect branches forming a dense shapely head, thick fleshy yellow roots, and branchlets many-angled, light brown, glabrous or coated with pale or rufous pubescence when they first appear, becoming in their second year terete and dark green; usually much smaller. Winter-buds coated with thick rufous tomentum, ¼′ long. Bark ½′—¾′ thick, dark red, deeply furrowed and irregularly divided into broad flat ridges separating on the surface into small thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, very strong, rather brittle, close-grained, bright red, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 4 or 5 layers of annual growth; occasionally used for cabinet-making, the interior finish of houses, and formerly in ship and boat-building.

Distribution. Borders of streams and swamps in rich moist soil, or occasionally in dry sandy loam in forests of the Long-leaved Pine; southern Delaware (Cypress swamp near Dogsboro, Sussex County, teste _Nuttall_); coast region from Virginia to the shores of Bay Biscayne and Cape Romano, Florida, along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Brazos River, Texas, and northward through Louisiana to southern Arkansas.

2. Persea palustris Sarg. Swamp Bay.

_Persea pubescens_ Sarg.

Leaves elliptic or lanceolate, entire, often narrowed toward the apex into a long point, gradually narrowed at base, when they unfold dark red, thin and tomentose, at maturity pale green and lustrous above, pale and pubescent and rusty-tomentose on the midrib and primary veins below, 4′—6′ long, ¾′—1½′ wide, with thick conspicuous veins and slightly revolute margins; persistent until after the beginning of their second year and then turning yellow and falling gradually; petioles stout, rusty-tomentose, ½′—¾′ in length. Flowers: peduncles tomentose, 2′—3′ in length; calyx pale yellow or creamy white, often nearly ¼′ long, with thick firm lobes coated on the outer surface with rusty tomentum, those of the outer series broadly ovate, abruptly pointed at apex, pubescent on the inner surface, about half as long as the ovate lanceolate lobes of the inner series slightly thickened at the apex and hairy within. Fruit nearly black, ¾′ long.

A slender tree, occasionally 30°—40° high, with a trunk rarely exceeding a foot in diameter, and stout branchlets terete or slightly angled while young, coated when they first appear with rusty tomentum reduced in their second season to fine pubescence persistent until the end of their second or third year. Bark rarely exceeding ¼′ in thickness, dull brown, irregularly divided by shallow fissures, the surface separating into thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, soft, strong, close-grained, orange color streaked with brown, with thick light brown or gray sapwood of 36—40 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Pine-barren swamps, often almost to the exclusion of other plants, usually in the neighborhood of the coast from southeastern Virginia (Dismal Swamp) to the valley of the Caloosahatchee River and the Everglades Keys, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi; extending inland to the neighborhood of Wilmington, North Carolina, Aiken, South Carolina, western Georgia (Meriwether County), the interior of the Florida peninsula and to Autauga, Chilton and Tuscaloosa Counties, Alabama (_R. H. Harper_).

2. OCOTEA Aubl.

Leaves scattered, alternate or rarely subopposite, penniveined, coriaceous, rigid, glabrous or more or less covered with pubescence. Flowers glabrous or tomentose on slender bibracteolate pedicels from the axils of lanceolate acute minute bracts, in cymose clusters in axillary or subterminal stalked panicles; calyx-tube campanulate, the 6 lobes of the limb nearly equal, deciduous; stamens of the inner series reduced to linear staminodes, with minute abortive anthers; filaments inserted on the tube of the calyx, those of the outer series opposite its exterior lobes, shorter or sometimes rather longer than the anthers, glabrous or hirsute, furnished in the third series near the base with two conspicuous globose stalked yellow glands; anthers oblong, flattened, 4-celled, introrse in the 2 outer series, extrorse, subextrorse, or very rarely introrse in the third series, in the pistillate flower rudimentary and sterile; ovary ovoid, glabrous, more or less immersed in the tube of the calyx, gradually narrowed into a short erect style dilated at apex into a capitate obscurely lobed stigma; in the staminate flower linear-lanceolate, effete or minute, sometimes 0; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit nearly inclosed while young in the thickened tube of the calyx, exserted at maturity, surrounded at base by the cup-like truncate or slightly lobed calyx-tube; pericarp thin and fleshy. Seed ovoid, pendulous; testa thin, membranaceous.

Ocotea with nearly two hundred species is confined principally to the tropical region of the New World from southern Florida to Brazil and Peru, with Old World representatives in the Canary Islands, South Africa, and the Mascarene Islands. One species grows naturally in Florida.

Ocotea produces hard, strong, durable, beautifully colored wood often employed in cabinet-making.

The name is derived from the native name of one of the species of Guiana.

1. Ocotea Catesbyana Sarg.

Leaves oblong-lanceolate, entire, slightly contracted above into a long point rounded at apex, when they unfold thin, membranaceous, light green tinged with red, and sometimes puberulous on the lower surface, at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 3′—6′ long, 1′—2′ wide, with thickened slightly revolute margins, a broad stout midrib, slender remote primary veins arcuate and united near the margins and connected by coarsely reticulate conspicuous veinlets; petioles broad, flat, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers perfect, appearing in early summer in elongated panicles, their peduncles slender, glabrous, light red, solitary or 2 or 3 together from the axils of the leaves of the year or from those of the previous year, and 3′—4′ long; calyx nearly ¼′ across when expanded, puberulous on the outer surface, hoary pubescent on the inner surface and on the margins of the lobes, about twice as long as the stamens; filaments of the 2 outer series slightly hirsute at the base and shorter than their introrse anthers; filaments of the third series as long or longer than their extrorse anthers. Fruit ripening in the autumn, ovoid or subglobose, ⅔′ long, lustrous, dark blue or nearly black, the thickened cup-like tube of the calyx truncate or obscurely lobed and bright red like the thickened pedicels; flesh thin and dry; seed with a thin brittle red-brown coat, the inner layer lustrous on the inner surface and marked by broad light-colored veins radiating from the small hilum; embryo ⅓′ long, light red-brown.

A tree, 20°—30° high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 18′ in diameter, slender spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and thin terete branchlets glabrous and dark reddish brown when they first appear, soon becoming lighter colored, and in their second year light brown or gray tinged with red and often marked by minute pale lenticels, and in their second or third year by small semiorbicular leaf-scars, displaying a single central fibro-vascular bundle-scar. Bark about ⅛′ thick, dark reddish brown, and roughened on the otherwise smooth surface by numerous small excrescences. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, rich dark brown, with thick bright yellow sapwood of 20—30 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Shores and islands of Florida south of Cape Canaveral on the east coast and of Cape Romano on the west coast; comparatively common except on some of the western keys, and most abundant and of its largest size in the rich wooded hummocks adjacent to Bay Biscayne; in the Bahamas.

3. UMBELLULARIA Nutt.

A pungent aromatic tree, with dark brown scaly bark, slender terete branchlets marked in their second and third years by small semicircular or nearly triangular elevated leaf-scars displaying a horizontal row of minute fibro-vascular bundle-scars, naked buds, and thick fleshy brown roots. Leaves alternate, involute in the bud, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, acute or rounded at the narrow apex, cuneate or somewhat rounded at base, entire with thickened slightly revolute margins, petiolate, coated when they appear on the lower surface with pale soft pubescence and puberulous on the upper surface, at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, dull and paler below, with a slender light yellow midrib, and remote, obscure, arcuate veins more or less united near the margins, and connected by conspicuous reticulate veinlets. Flowers perfect in axillary stalked many-flowered umbels, inclosed in the bud by an involucre of 5 or 6 imbricated broadly ovate or obovate pointed concave yellow caducous scales, the latest umbels subsessile at the base of terminal leaf-buds; pedicels slender, puberulous, without bractlets, from the axils of obovate membranaceous puberulous deciduous bracts decreasing in size from the outer to the inner; calyx divided almost to the base into 6 nearly equal broadly obovate rounded pale yellow lobes spreading and reflexed after anthesis; stamens inserted on the short slightly thickened tube of the calyx; filaments flat, glabrous, pale yellow, rather shorter than the anthers, those of the third series furnished near the base with 2 conspicuous stipitate orange-colored orbicular flattened glands; anthers oblong, flattened, light yellow, those of the first and second series introrse, those of the third series extrorse; stamens of the fourth series reduced to minute ovate acute yellow staminodes; ovary sessile, ovoid, often more or less gibbous, glabrous, abruptly contracted into a stout columnar style rather shorter than the lobes of the calyx and crowned by a simple capitate discoid stigma. Fruit ovoid, surrounded at base by the enlarged and thickened truncate or lobed tube of the calyx, yellow-green sometimes more or less tinged with purple; pericarp thin and fleshy. Seed ovoid, light brown; testa separable into 2 coats, the outer thick, hard, and woody, the inner thin and papery, closely investing the embryo, chestnut-brown and lustrous on the inner surface.

Umbellularia consists of a single species.

The generic name, a diminutive of _umbella_, relates to the character of the inflorescence.

1. Umbellularia californica Nutt. California Laurel. Spice-tree.

Leaves 2′—5′ long, ½′—1½′ wide, unfolding in winter or early in the spring and continuing to appear as the branches lengthen until late in the autumn; beginning to fade during the summer, turning to a beautiful yellow or orange color and falling one by one during their second season, or often remaining on the branches until the sixth year; petioles 1/10′—⅕′ in length. Flowers appearing in January before the unfolding of the young leaves, the umbels on peduncles sometimes 1′ in length. Fruit about 1′ long, in clusters of 2 or 3, on elongated thickened pedicels, persistent on the branch after the fruit ripens and falls late in the autumn; seeds germinating soon after they reach the ground, the fruit remaining below the surface of the soil and attached to the young plant until midsummer.

A tree, usually 20°—75°, occasionally 100°—175° high, with a trunk 3°—6° in diameter, sometimes tall and straight but usually divided near the ground into several large diverging stems, stout spreading or rarely pendulous (var. _pendula_ Redh.) branches forming a broad round-topped head, and branchlets light green and coated with soft pale pubescence when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous and yellow-green, and in their second and third years light brown tinged with red; at high altitudes, and in southern California much smaller; often reduced to a large or small shrub, or on bluffs facing the ocean to broad mats of prostrate stems. Bark ¾′—1′ thick, dark brown tinged with red, separating on the surface into thin appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, light rich brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood of 30—40 layers of annual growth; the most valuable wood produced in the forests of Pacific North America for the interior finish of houses and for furniture. The leaves yield by distillation a pungent volatile oil, and from the fruit a fat containing umbellulic acid has been obtained.

Distribution. Valley of Coos River, Oregon, southward through the California coast ranges and along the high western slopes of the Sierra Nevada to the southern slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains up to altitudes of 2500°; usually near the banks of water-courses and sometimes on low hills; common where it can obtain an abundant supply of water; most abundant and of its largest size in the rich valleys of southwestern Oregon, forming with the Broad-leaved Maple a considerable part of the forest growth.

4. SASSAFRAS Nees. Sassafras.

_Pseudosassafras_ H. Lec.