Part 50

Aromatic trees, with thick deeply furrowed dark red-brown bark, scaly buds, slender light green lustrous brittle branchlets containing a thick white mucilaginous pith and marked by small semiorbicular elevated leaf-scars displaying a single horizontal row of minute fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and stout spongy stoloniferous roots covered by thick yellow bark. Flower-bearing buds terminal, ovoid, acute, with 9 or 10 imbricated scales increasing in size from without inward, the 3 outer scales ovate, rounded, often apiculate at apex, keeled and thickened on the back, pale yellow-green below, dull yellow-brown above the middle, loosely imbricated, slightly or not at all accrescent, deciduous at the opening of the bud, much smaller than the thin accrescent light yellow-green scales of the next rows turning dull red before falling, and obovate, rounded at apex, cuneate below, concave, coated on the outer surface with soft silky pubescence, glabrous or lustrous on the inner surface, reflexed, ¾′ long, nearly ½′ broad, tardily deciduous, the 2 inner scales foliaceous, lanceolate, acute, light green, coated on the outer surface with delicate pale hairs, glabrous on the inner surface, infolding the leaves; sterile and axillary buds much smaller. Leaves involute in the bud, ovate or obovate, entire or often 1—3-lobed at apex, the lobes broadly ovate, acute, divided by deep broad sinuses, gradually narrowed at base into elongated slender petioles, feather-veined, with alternate veins arcuate and united or running to the points of the lobes, the lowest parallel with the margins, conspicuously reticulate-venulose, mucilaginous, deciduous. Flowers opening in early spring with the first unfolding of the leaves, the males and females usually on different individuals, in lax drooping few-flowered racemes in the axils of large obovate bud-scales, their pedicels slender, rarely forked and 2-flowered, without bracts, pilose, from the axils of linear acute scarious hairy deciduous bracts, or that of the terminal flower often without a bract; calyx pale yellow-green, divided nearly to the base into narrow obovate concave lobes spreading or reflexed after anthesis, glabrous or pubescent on the inner surface, those of the inner row a little larger than the others; stamens in the American species 9, in the Asiatic 12 with those of the inner series reduced to staminodes, inserted on the somewhat thickened margin of the shallow concave calyx-tube, those of the outer series opposite its outer lobes; filaments flattened, elongated, light yellow, those of the inner series furnished at base with 2 conspicuous orange-colored stipitate glands rounded on the back, obscurely lobed on the inner face, in the Asiatic species alternating with 3 staminodes; anthers introrse, oblong, flattened, truncate or emarginate at apex, 4-celled, 2-celled in the Formosan species, orange-colored, in the female flower reduced to flattened ovate pointed or slightly 2-lobed dark orange-colored stipitate staminodes, 6 in 2 rows in the American species and 12 similar to the stamens and staminodes of the staminate flower in the Asiatic species; or occasionally fertile and similar to or a little smaller than those of the staminate flower; ovary ovoid, light green, glabrous, nearly sessile in the short tube of the calyx, narrowed into an elongated simple style gradually enlarged above into a capitate oblique obscurely lobed stigma; in the staminate flower 0 in the American species, present, usually abortive, rarely fertile in the Asiatic species. Fruit an oblong dark blue or black lustrous berry surrounded at base by the enlarged and thickened obscurely 6-lobed or truncate scarlet or orange-red limb of the calyx, raised on a much elongated scarlet stalk thickened above the middle; pericarp thin and fleshy. Seed oblong, pointed, light brown; testa thin, membranaceous, barely separable into 2 coats, the inner coat much thinner than the outer, dark chestnut-brown, and lustrous.

Sassafras is confined to temperate eastern North America, central China and to Formosa where _Sassafras tzumu_ Hemsl. and _S. randaiense_ Rehd. occur.

_Sassafras_ was first used as a popular name for this tree by the French in Florida.

1. Sassafras officinale Nees & Ebermaier.

_Sassafras Sassafras_ Karst.

Leaves 4′—6′ long, 2′—4′ wide, densely pubescent when they first appear, pubescent or puberulous below at maturity especially on the midrib and veins; turning in the autumn delicate shades of yellow or orange more or less tinged with red; petioles ¾′—1½′ in length. Flowers ⅓′ long when fully expanded glabrous on the inner surface of the perianth, in racemes about 2′ in length, stamens 9. Fruit ripening in September and October, blue, ⅓′ long, on stalks 1½′—2′ in length, separating when ripe from the thick scarlet calyx-lobes persistent with the stalks of the fruit on the branches until the beginning of winter.

A tree, occasionally 80°—90° high, with a trunk nearly 6° in diameter, short stout more or less contorted branches spreading almost at right angles and forming a narrow usually flat-topped head, and slender branchlets light yellow-green and coated when they first appear with pale pubescence, becoming glabrous, bright green and lustrous, gradually turning reddish brown at the end of two or three years; frequently not more than 40°—50° tall; at the north and in Florida generally smaller and often shrubby. Winter-buds ¼′—⅜′ long. Bark of young stems and branches thin, reddish brown divided by shallow fissures, becoming on old trunks sometimes 1½′ thick, dark red-brown, and deeply and irregularly divided into broad flat ridges separating on the surface into thick appressed scales. Wood soft, weak, brittle, coarse-grained, very durable in the soil, aromatic, dull orange-brown, with thin light yellow sapwood of 7 or 8 layers of annual growth; largely used for fence-posts and rails, in the construction of light boats, ox-yokes, and in cooperage. The roots and especially their bark are a mild aromatic stimulant, and oil of sassafras, used to perfume soap and other articles, is distilled from them. Gumbo filet, a powder prepared from the leaves by the Choctaw Indians of Louisiana, gives flavor and consistency to gumbo soup. Passing into the var. _albidum_ Blake, with glabrous or nearly glabrous young leaves, glabrous often glaucous young branchlets, and lighter colored less valuable wood; uplands of western New England to the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.

Distribution. Usually in rich sandy well-drained soil, southern Maine and eastern Massachusetts, through southern Vermont to southern Ontario, central Michigan, and southeastern Iowa to eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, and southward to central Florida (Orange County) and the valley of the Brazos River, Texas; ascending on the southern Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of 4000°; in the south Atlantic and Gulf states often taking possession of abandoned fields.

Occasionally cultivated in the eastern states as an ornamental tree.

5. MISANTECA Cham. & Schl.

Trees with terete branchlets. Leaves coriaceous, persistent. Flowers perfect, minute, on slender pedicels, in terminal or axillary cymose panicles; peduncles and pedicels from the axils of acuminate caducous bracts and bractlets; perianth fleshy, ovoid or obovoid, 6-toothed; stamens 9, inserted near the middle of the perianth, those of the outer rank united into a fleshy column, furnished at base with three pairs of glands, inclosing the pistil and slightly longer than the perianth, those of the inner ranks, sterile, short or obsolete; anthers extrorse, 2-celled, the cells united; ovary gradually narrowed into a thick style as long as the staminal tube; stigma capitate. Fruit baccate, olive-shaped, surrounded at base by the enlarged ligneous capsular perianth of the flower much thickened on the margin; pericarp thin and fleshy; endocarp thin, crustaceous; seed filling the cavity of the fruit; testa thin, crustaceous; hilum minute, apical; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy; radicle superior, minute.

Of the three species of the genus now known one occurs in southern Florida and Cuba, and the others in tropical Mexico.

The name of the genus is derived from the name of the tree, Palo Misanteca at Misantha, near the coast of the state of Vera Cruz where the type species was discovered.

1. Misanteca triandra Mez.

Leaves elliptic-lanceolate, ovate or broad-elliptic, entire, abruptly long-pointed and acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed and acuminate at base, deeply tinged with red and villose on the under side of the midrib when they unfold, soon glabrous, and at maturity dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 3′—4′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, with slightly undulate margins, a prominent midrib, slender primary veins, and reticulate veinlets conspicuous on the lower surface; petioles stout, narrow wing-margined at apex, pubescent when they first appear, soon glabrous, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers glabrous or puberulous, purplish, about 1/12′ long, in 3—5-flowered cymes on slender peduncles, in pubescent panicles shorter than the leaves; tube of the perianth funnel-form, the lobes equal, triangular, acute; column of stamens pilose; ovary glabrous. Fruit in few-fruited clusters on much elongated and thickened peduncles, ellipsoidal or slightly ovoid, acute, dark blue, ⅘′ long and ⅗′ thick; cupule light red, thickened and verrucose, acute at base, the margin reflexed, thin and entire on the inner edge, thick and crenulate on the outer edge; seed ellipsoidal, pointed at apex, rounded at base, light brown, slightly ridged when dry.

A tree in Florida 40°—50° high, with a tall trunk 15′—20′ in diameter, small spreading and pendent branches forming a broad round-topped head, and slender red branchlets pubescent when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, and marked by numerous large pale lenticels.

Rich hummocks between Miami and Homestead, Dade County, Florida; in Cuba and Jamaica.

XIX. CAPPARIDACEÆ.

Annual or perennial herbs, trees, or shrubs, with acrid often pungent juices, alternate or rarely opposite leaves, regular or irregular usually perfect flowers in terminal cymes or racemes or solitary, numerous ovules inserted in two rows on each of the two placentas, capsular or baccate 1-celled fruit, and seeds without albumen. A family of thirty-four genera, mostly confined to the warmer parts of the world and widely distributed in the two hemispheres. Of the seven genera which occur in North America only one has an arborescent representative.

1. CAPPARIS L.

Trees, with naked buds. Leaves conduplicate in the bud, entire, feather-veined, coriaceous, persistent, without stipules. Flowers regular, in terminal cymes; sepals 4, valvate in the bud, glandular on the inner surface; petals 4, inserted on the base of the short receptacle; stamens numerous, inserted on the receptacle, their filaments free, elongated, much longer than the introrse 2-celled anthers opening longitudinally; ovary long-stalked, 2-celled, with 2 parietal placentas; stigmas sessile, orbicular; ovules campylotropous. Fruit baccate, siliquiform (in the North American species) separating into 3 or 4 valves. Seeds reniform, numerous, surrounded by pulp; seed-coat coriaceous; embryo convolute; cotyledons foliaceous, fleshy.

Capparis, with more than one hundred species, mostly tropical, is found in the two hemispheres, the largest number of species occurring in Central and South America. Two of the West Indian species reach the shores of southern Florida, the most northern station of the genus in America; of these one is arborescent.

_Capparis_, from κάππαρις, the classical name of _Capparis spinosa_ L., is derived from the Persian _kabor_, capers, the dried flower-buds of that species.

1. Capparis jamaicensis Jacq.

Leaves oblong-lanceolate, rounded and emarginate at apex, slightly revolute, coriaceous, light yellow-green, smooth and lustrous on the upper surface, covered on the lower by minute ferrugineous scales, 2′—3′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, with a prominent midrib and inconspicuous primary veins; petioles stout covered at first with ferrugineous scales often becoming nearly glabrous, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers 1¼′ in diameter, opening in Florida in April and May from obtuse or acute, 4-angled buds; sepals ovate, acute, lepidote on the outer surface, furnished on the inner with a small ovate gland, recurved when the flower is fully expanded, and about half the size of the round white petals turning purple in fading; stamens 20—30, with purple filaments villose toward the base, 1½′—2′ long; anthers yellow; ovary raised on a slender stipe about 1½′ in length. Fruit 9′—12′ long, terete, sometimes slightly torulose, pubescent-lepidote, the long stalk appearing jointed by the enlargement of the pedicel and torus below the insertion of the stipe; seed light brown, 1¼′ long.

A small slender shrubby tree, 18°—20° high, with a trunk sometimes 5′—6′ in diameter, and thin angled branchlets dark gray, smooth or slightly rugose, and covered with minute ferrugineous scales. Bark rarely more than ⅛′ thick, slightly fissured, the dark red-brown surface broken into small irregularly shaped divisions. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, yellow faintly tinged with red, with lighter colored sapwood of about 15 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Coast of Florida; Cape Canaveral and Cape Sable to the southern keys; generally distributed, but nowhere abundant; common on several of the Antilles.

XX. HAMAMELIDACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, slender terete branchlets, naked or scaly buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves alternate, petiolate, stipulate, deciduous. Flowers perfect or unisexual; calyx 4-parted or 0; petals 4 or 0; stamens 4—8; anthers attached at the base, introrse, 2-celled; ovary inserted in the bottom of the receptacle, 2-celled; ovules 1 or many, anatropous, suspended from an axile placenta; micropyle superior; raphe ventral. Fruit a woody capsule opening at the summit. Seed usually 1; embryo surrounded by fleshy albumen; cotyledons oblong, flat, longer than the terete radicle turned toward the hilum. The Witch Hazel family with twenty genera is confined to eastern North America, southwestern, southern, and eastern Asia, the Malay Archipelago, Madagascar, and South Africa. Of the three North American genera two are arborescent.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT GENERA.

Flowers usually unisexual, capitate, without petals, limb of the calyx short or nearly obsolete; capsules consolidated by their base into a globose head; seed with a terminal wing; leaves palmately lobed. 1. Liquidambar. Flowers usually perfect, with calyx and corolla; capsules not consolidated into a head; seed without a wing. 2. Hamamelis.

1. LIQUIDAMBAR L.

Trees, with balsamic juices, scaly bark, terete often winged branchlets, scaly buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves plicate in the bud, alternate, palmately lobed, glandular-serrate, long-petiolate; stipules lanceolate, acute, caducous. Flowers monœcious or rarely perfect in capitate heads surrounded by an involucre of 4 deciduous bracts, the staminate in terminal racemes, the pistillate in solitary long-stalked heads from the axils of upper leaves; staminate flowers without a calyx and corolla; stamens indefinite, interspersed with minute scales; filaments filiform, shorter than the oblong obcordate anthers opening longitudinally; pistillate flowers surrounded by long-awned scales, the whole confluent into a globular head; calyx obconic, its limb short or nearly obsolete; stamens usually 4, inserted on the summit of the calyx; anthers minute, usually rudimentary or abortive, rarely fertile; ovary partly inferior, of 2 united carpels terminating in elongated subulate recurved persistent styles stigmatic on the inner face; ovules numerous. Capsules armed with the hardened incurved elongated styles free above, septicidally dehiscent, consolidated by their base into a globose head; pericarp thick and woody; endocarp thin, corneous, lustrous on the inner surface. Seeds usually solitary or 2 by the abortion of many ovules, compressed, angulate; seed-coat opaque, crustaceous, produced into a short membranaceous obovate terminal wing rounded at the oblique apex.

Liquidambar with about four species is confined to the eastern United States, southern and central Mexico, Central America, southwestern Asia, middle and southeastern China, and Formosa. Liquid storax, an opaque grayish brown resin, is derived from _Liquidambar orientalis_ Mill., a native of Asia Minor.

Liquidambar from _liquidus_ and _ambar_ in allusion to the fragrant juices.

1. Liquidambar Styraciflua L. Sweet Gum. Bilsted.

Leaves generally round in outline, truncate or slightly heart-shaped at base, deeply 5—7-lobed, with acutely pointed divisions finely serrate with rounded appressed teeth, when they unfold pilose on the lower surface, soon becoming glabrous with the exception of large tufts of pale rufous hairs in the axils of the principal veins, at maturity thin, bright green, smooth and lustrous, 6′—7′ across, with broad primary veins and finely reticulate veinlets; exhaling when bruised a pleasant resinous fragrance; in the autumn turning deep crimson; petioles slender, covered at first near the base with rufous caducous hairs, and 5′—6′ in length; stipules entire, glabrous, ⅓′—½′ long. Flowers: staminate in terminal racemes 2′—3′ long covered with rufous hairs, in heads stalked toward the base of the raceme and nearly sessile above, ¼′ in diameter, and surrounded by ovate acute deciduous hairy bracts much larger than the lanceolate acute bracts of the female inflorescence ½′ across and conspicuous from the broad stigmatic surfaces of the recurved and contorted styles. Fruit 1′—1½′ in diameter, persistent during the winter, the carpels opening in the autumn; seed ½′ long and rather longer than its wing, with a light brown coat conspicuously marked by oblong resin-ducts.

A tree, 80°—140° high, with a straight trunk 4°—5° in diameter, slender branches forming while the tree is young a pyramidal head, and in old age a comparatively small oblong crown, and slender branchlets containing a large pith, slightly many-angled, covered when they first appear with caducous rufous hairs, light orange color to reddish brown in their first winter, marked by occasional minute dark lenticels and by large arcuate leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 conspicuous fibro-vascular bundles, developing in their second season corky wings appearing on the upper side of lateral branches in 3 or 4 parallel ranks and irregularly on all sides of vertical branches, and increasing in width and thickness for many years, sometimes becoming 2′—3′ broad and 1′ thick. Winter-buds acute, ¼′ long, and covered by ovate acute minutely apiculate orange-brown scales rounded on the back, those of the inner rows accrescent, tipped with red, and about 1′ long at maturity. Wood heavy, hard, straight, close-grained, not strong, bright brown tinged with red, with thin almost white sapwood of 60—70 layers of annual growth; used for the outside and inside finish of houses, in cabinet-making, for street pavement, wooden dishes, and fruit boxes.

Distribution. Fairfield County, Connecticut, and in the neighborhood of the coast to southeastern Pennsylvania, southward to Cape Canaveral and the shores of Tampa Bay, Florida, and westward through southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to southeastern Missouri, and through Arkansas to eastern Oklahoma and the valley of the Trinity River, Texas; reappearing on the mountains of central and southern Mexico and on the highlands of Guatemala; in the maritime region of the south Atlantic and Gulf states and in the basin of the lower Mississippi River one of the common trees of the forest, covering rich river bottom-lands usually inundated every year; in the northern and middle states on the borders of swamps and low wet swales; at the north rarely more than 60°—70° tall, with a trunk usually not more than 2° in diameter.

Unsurpassed in the brilliancy of the autumnal colors of the leaves; and often planted as an ornamental tree in the eastern states.

2. HAMAMELIS L. Witch Hazel.

Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, terete zigzag branchlets, naked buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves involute in the bud, more or less unsymmetrical at base, crenately toothed or lobed, the primary veins conspicuous; stipules acute, infolding the bud, deciduous. Flowers perfect, autumnal or hiemal, in 3 or rarely 4-flowered terminal clusters, from buds appearing in summer, on short recurved peduncles from the axils of leaves of the year, furnished near the middle with 2 acute deciduous bractlets, covered like their acute bracts and bractlets with dark ferrugineous pubescence, each flower surrounded by 2 or 3 ovate acute bracts, the outer slightly united at base into a 3-lobed involucre; calyx 4-parted pale pubescent on the outer surface, orange-brown, yellow or red on the inner surface, persistent on the base of the ovary, the lobes reflexed; petals bright yellow, inserted on the margin of the cup-shaped receptacle, alternate with the sepals, strap-shaped, falling with the stamens when the ovules are fertilized; stamens 8, inserted in 2 rows on the margin of the receptacle, the 4 opposite the lobes of the calyx fertile, the others reduced to minute strap-shaped scales; filaments free, shorter than the calyx, prolonged into a thickened pointed connective; anthers ellipsoid, opening laterally from without by persistent valves; ovary of 2 carpels, free at apex, inserted in the bottom of the receptacle, partly superior, remaining during the winter without enlarging and surrounded and protected by the calyx; styles subulate, spreading, stigmatic at apex, persistent; ovule solitary. Fruit ripening in the autumn, usually 2 from each flower-cluster, capsular, 2-beaked at apex, surrounded for one-third or one-half its length by the enlarged persistent calyx bearing at the base the blackened remnants of the floral bracts, the thick and woody outer layer splitting from above loculicidally before the opening of the thin crustaceous inner layer. Seed oblong, acute, suspended; testa crustaceous, chestnut brown, shining; forcibly discharged when ripe by the contraction of the edges of the valves of the bony endocarp; embryo surrounded by thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons foliaceous; hilum oblong, depressed.

Hamamelis is confined to eastern North America and eastern Asia, with three American and two or three Asiatic species; of the American species two are sometimes small trees, and the third _H. vernalis_ Sarg. is a shrub of southern Missouri, western Arkansas, and eastern Oklahoma.

The name is from άµα, at the same time with, and µηλίς, an Apple-tree, and was applied by the ancients to the Medlar or some similar tree.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.

Leaves smooth, conspicuously unsymmetrical at base; flowers autumnal. 1. H. virginiana (A, C). Leaves roughened by persistent tubercles, slightly unsymmetrical at base; flowers hiemal. 2. H. macrophylla (C).

1. Hamamelis virginiana L.