Part 51

Leaves obovate, acuminate, long-pointed or sometimes rounded at apex, very unequal at base, the lower side rounded or subcordate, the upper usually cuneate and smaller, irregularly and coarsely crenately lobed above the middle, entire or dentate below, when they unfold coated, especially on the lower surface of the midrib and veins and on the petioles and stipules with stellate ferrugineous pubescence, at maturity membranaceous, dull dark green and glabrous or pilose above, lighter colored and lustrous below, and pubescent or puberulous on the stout midrib and 6 or 7 pairs of primary veins, 4′—6′ long, 2′—2½′ wide; turning delicate yellow in the autumn; petioles slender, pubescent early in the season, becoming glabrous ⅓′—1′ in length; stipules lanceolate, acute, coriaceous, ⅓′—½′ long. Flowers opening from the middle of September to the middle of November; calyx orange-brown on the inner surface; petals bright yellow; ½′—⅔′ long. Fruit ripening when the flowers of the season are expanding, ½′ long, pubescent, dull orange-brown and surrounded for half its length by the large persistent calyx; seed ¼′ long.

A tree, occasionally 20°—25° high, with a short trunk 12′—14′ in diameter, spreading branches forming a broad open head, and slender flexible branchlets coated at first with scurfy rusty stellate hairs, gradually disappearing during the summer, and in their first winter glabrous or slightly puberulous, light orange-brown and marked by small white dots, becoming in their second year dark or reddish brown; usually a stout shrub sending up from the ground numerous rigid diverging stems 5°—20° tall. Winter-buds acute, slightly falcate, light orange-brown, covered with short fine pubescence, ¼′—½′ long. Bark ⅛′ thick, light brown, generally smooth but broken into minute thin appressed scales disclosing in falling the dark reddish purple inner bark. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thick nearly white sapwood of 30—40 layers of annual growth. The bark and leaves are slightly astringent and although not known to possess essential properties are largely used in the form of fluid extracts and decoctions and in homœopathic practice, Pond’s Extract being made by distilling the bark in diluted alcohol.

Distribution. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the valley of the St. Lawrence River to southern Ontario, southern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa, and southward to central Georgia and southern Arkansas, growing usually on the borders of the forest in low rich soil or on the rocky banks of streams; of its largest size and probably only arborescent on the slopes of the high Alleghany Mountains in North and South Carolina and Tennessee.

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the northern states, and in western and northern Europe.

2. Hamamelis macrophylla Pursh.

Leaves short-obovate or occasionally broad-elliptic, rounded, acute or rarely acuminate at apex, cuneate, rounded or cordate at the narrow slightly unsymmetrical base, crenate-lobulate above the middle with small rounded lobes, covered with short stellate hairs more abundant on the upper than on the lower surface, and at maturity dark green above, paler below, and roughened by the persistent tubercle-like bases of the stellate hairs, 3′—5′ long, 2′—3′ wide, with a slender midrib and five or six pairs of primary veins; petioles slender, pubescent, ½′—¾′ in length; stipules lanceolate, acuminate, scarious, hoary-pubescent, ⅕′—⅙′ long. Flowers opening in December, January and February; calyx yellow on the inner surface; petals light yellow, ½′ long and less than 1/24′ wide. Fruit ripening in the autumn, about ½′ in length; seed dark chestnut-brown or nearly black.

A tree, often 30°—45° high, producing stoloniferous shoots round the tall trunk often 1° in diameter, erect and spreading branches, and branchlets rusty or hoary-tomentose during their first year, becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous and grayish brown in their second season; often a shrub. Winter-buds rusty-tomentose, about ⅓′ in length.

Distribution. Rich soil, by streams or along the borders of the forest; valley of the lower Savannah River, near Savannah, Chatham County, and along the Wittlocoochee River, Lowndes County, Georgia, to central and western Florida; through Alabama; in southern and central Mississippi, and through Louisiana to eastern Texas (Beaumont, Jefferson County, and Fletcher, Harding County), and southern Arkansas; generally distributed and most abundant in Louisiana; probably of its largest size on the bluffs of the Alabama River in Dallas County, Alabama.

XXI. PLATANACEÆ.

Trees, with watery juice, thick deeply furrowed scaly bark exfoliating from the branches and young trunks in large thin plates, terete zigzag pithy branchlets prolonged by an upper axillary bud, and fibrous roots. Winter-buds axillary, conic, large, smooth, and lustrous, nearly surrounded at base by the narrow leaf-scars displaying a row of conspicuous dark fibro-vascular bundle-scars, covered by 3 deciduous scales, the 2 inner accrescent, strap-shaped, rounded at apex at maturity, marking in falling the base of the branchlet with narrow ring-like scars, the outer scale surrounding the bud and splitting longitudinally with its expansion, the second light green, covered by a gummy fragrant secretion and usually inclosing a bud in its axil, the third coated with long rufous hairs. Leaves longitudinally plicate in vernation, alternate, broadly ovate, cordate, truncate, or cuneate and decurrent on the petiole at base, more or less acutely 3—7-lobed, and occasionally furnished with a more or less enlarged basal lobe, the lobes entire, dentate with minute remote callous teeth, or coarsely sinuate-toothed, penniveined, the veins arcuate and united near the margins and connected by inconspicuous reticulate veinlets, clothed while young like the petioles, stipules, and young branchlets with caducous stellate sharp-pointed branching hairs, pale on the lower and rufous on the upper surface, long-petiolate; turning brown and withering in the autumn before falling; petioles abruptly enlarged at base and inclosing the buds; stipules membranaceous, laterally united below into a short tube surrounding the branchlet above the insertion of their leaf, acute, more or less free above, dentate or entire, thin and scarious on flowering shoots, broad and leaf-like on vigorous sterile branchlets, caducous, marking the branchlet in falling with narrow ring-like scars. Flowers minute, appearing with the unfolding of the leaves in dense unisexual pedunculate solitary or spicate heads, the staminate and pistillate heads on separate peduncles or rarely united on the same peduncle; staminate heads dark red on axillary peduncles; pistillate heads light green tinged with red, on long terminal peduncles, the lateral heads in the spicate clusters sessile and embracing at maturity the peduncle, usually persistent on the branches during the winter; calyx of the staminate flower divided into 3—6 minute scale-like sepals slightly united at base, about half as long as the 3—6 cuneiform sulcate scarious pointed petals; stamens as many as the divisions of the calyx, opposite them, with short nearly obsolete filaments, and elongated clavate 2-celled anthers, their cells opening longitudinally and crowned by a capitate pilose truncate connective; calyx of the pistillate flower divided into 3—6, usually 4, rounded sepals much shorter than the acute petals; stamens scale-like, elongated-obovoid, pilose at apex; ovaries as many as the divisions of the calyx, superior, oblong, sessile, surrounded at base by long ridged jointed pale hairs persistent round the fruit, gradually narrowed into long simple bright red styles papillose-stigmatic to below the middle along the ventral suture; ovules 1 or rarely 2, suspended laterally, orthotropous. Head of fruit composed of elongated obovoid akenes rounded and obtuse or acute at apex, surmounted by the persistent styles, 1-seeded, light yellow-brown; pericarp thin, coriaceous. Seed elongated-oblong, suspended; testa thin and firm, light chestnut-brown; embryo erect in thin fleshy albumen; cotyledons oblong, about as long as the elongated cylindric erect radicle turned toward the minute apical hilum. Wood hard and heavy not strong, light brown tinged with red, with numerous broad conspicuous medullary rays and bands of smaller ducts marking the layers of annual growth. A family of a single genus.

1. PLATANUS L. Plane-tree.

Characters of the family.

A genus of four or five species of eastern and western North America, Mexico, Central America, and of southwestern Asia, all resembling each other except in the form of the lobes of the leaves and the amount of pubescence on their lower surface, in the pointed or obtuse apex of the akene, and in the number of heads of pistillate flowers on their peduncle.

Of the exotic species, the Old World _Platanus acerifolia_ Willd., of doubtful origin, and often considered a hybrid between _P. orientalis_ L. and the Plane-tree of the eastern United States, is now a common street tree in the cities of all the countries of temperate Europe, and is largely used as a street and shade tree in the eastern states and in California.

_Platanus_ is the classical name of the Plane-tree.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.

Heads of fruit usually solitary; leaves broadly ovate, slightly 3—5-lobed, the lobes broad, mostly serrulate, or entire, truncate or rarely cuneate at base. 1. P. occidentalis (A, C). Heads of fruit racemose. Leaves 3—5-lobed to below the middle, the lobes entire, remotely and obscurely dentate, or rarely sinuate-toothed, truncate or slightly cordate or cuneate at base. 2. P. racemosa (G). Leaves deeply 5—7-lobed, the lobes elongated, slender, entire, or rarely remotely dentate, deeply cordate or rarely cuneate or truncate at base. 3. P. Wrightii (H).

1. Platanus occidentalis L. Sycamore. Buttonwood.

Leaves broadly ovate, more or less 3—5-lobed by broad shallow sinuses rounded at the bottom, the lobes broad, acuminate, sinuate-toothed with long straight or curved remote acuminate teeth, or entire with undulate margins, truncate or slightly cordate, or long-cuneate and decurrent on the petiole at base (var. _attenuata_ Sarg.), thin and firm, bright green on the upper surface, paler on the lower, glabrous at maturity with the exception of a slight pubescence on the under side of the thin midrib and stout yellow veins, 4′—7′ long and broad, or twice as large on vigorous shoots and then frequently furnished with dentate basal lobes; petioles stout, terete or slightly angled, becoming puberulous 3′—5′ in length; stipules 1′—1½′ long, entire or sinuate-toothed. Flowers: peduncles coated with pale tomentum, bearing 1 and sometimes 2 heads of flowers. Fruit: heads 1′ in diameter, on slender glabrous stems 3′—6′ in length; akene about ⅔′ long and truncate or obtusely rounded at apex.

A tree, occasionally 140°—170° high, with a trunk sometimes 10°—11° in diameter above its abruptly enlarged base, often divided near the ground into several large secondary trunks, or rising 70°—80°, with a straight column-like shaft free of branches and with little diminution of diameter, massive spreading limbs forming a broad open irregular head sometimes 100° in diameter, their extremities usually erect or more or less pendulous, and slender branchlets coated at first like the leaves, petioles, and stipules with thick pale deciduous tomentum, during their first summer dark green and glabrous, marked by minute oblong pale lenticels, becoming dark orange-brown and rather lustrous during their first winter and light gray in their second year. Winter-buds ¼′—⅜′ long. Bark of young trunks and large branches rarely more than ½′ thick, dark reddish brown, broken into small oblong thick appressed plate-like scales, smooth, light gray, and separating higher on the tree into large thin scales, in falling exposing large irregular surfaces of the pale yellow, whitish, or greenish inner bark, becoming at the base of large trunks 2′—3′ thick, dark brown, and divided by deep furrows into broad rounded ridges covered by small thin appressed scales. Wood the favorite material for tobacco boxes, ox-yokes, and butcher’s blocks, and now largely used for furniture and the interior finish of houses.

Distribution. Borders of streams and lakes on rich bottom-lands; southeastern Maine to northern Vermont and through southern Ontario and Michigan to central and southern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, and eastern Oklahoma to the valley of the Arkansas River (Clay County), and southward to western Florida (Gladsden County) central Alabama and Mississippi, and the valley of the Rio Grande (Zavalla County) western Texas; common but most abundant and of its largest size on the bottom lands of streams in the basin of the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers; less abundant and of smaller size in the coast region of the Carolinas and in western Texas; ascending the Appalachian Mountains up to altitudes of 2500°. The most massive if not the tallest deciduous-leaved tree of eastern North America.

Sometimes planted as a street tree, especially in the cities of eastern Texas; passing into

1. Platanus occidentalis var. glabrata Sarg.

_Platanus glabrata Fern._

Leaves usually broader than long, truncate, broad-cuneate or rarely cordate at base, 3-lobed by sinuses acute or rounded in the bottom, the lobes long-acuminate, entire, the lateral lobes often furnished near the base with one or rarely with two small acuminate incurved secondary lobes occasionally found also on the terminal lobe, tomentose below and pubescent above when the flowers open the end of March in Texas, later becoming glabrous except on the under side of the midrib and veins, usually about 2¾′—5½′ long and 3′—3½′ wide; petioles pubescent, becoming glabrous. Peduncles bearing one or rarely two heads. Flowers and Fruit like those of the species.

Distribution. Western Texas, common; valley of the Colorado River, near Austin, Travis County, to that of the Devil’s River, Valverde County; in Coahuila and Nuovo Leon; rarely northward with widely scattered individuals; the prevailing form on the Edwards Plateau and in the counties adjacent to the Rio Grande.

2. Platanus racemosa Nutt. Sycamore.

Leaves 3—5-lobed to below the middle by broad sinuses acute or rounded in the bottom, the lobes acute or acuminate, entire, dentate with remote callous tipped teeth, or occasionally coarsely sinuate-toothed, usually cordate or sometimes truncate, or cuneate and decurrent on the petiole at base, thick and firm, light green above, paler and more or less thickly coated below with pale pubescence most abundant along the midrib and primary veins, 6′—10′ long and broad; petioles stout, pubescent, 1′—3′ in length; stipules 1′—1½′ long, entire or dentate, often persistent until spring. Flowers: peduncles hoary-pubescent, bearing usually 4 or 5 heads of staminate flowers and 2—7 heads of pistillate flowers, a head of the staminate flowers occasionally appearing on the pistillate peduncle above the heads of fertile flowers. Fruit: heads ¾′ in diameter, on slender zigzag glabrous or pubescent stems 6′—9′ in length; akene acute or rounded at apex, ⅓′ long, tomentose while young, becoming glabrous.

A tree, 40°—90° high, with a trunk sometimes 9° in diameter above the broad tapering base, erect and free of branches for half its height, more often divided near the ground into secondary stems erect, inclining, or prostrate for 20°—30° at their base, thick heavy more or less contorted spreading branches forming an open irregular round-topped head, and branchlets coated at first with thick pale deciduous tomentum, light reddish brown, and marked by numerous small lenticels in their first winter, becoming gradually darker in their second and third years; usually smaller, with a trunk 2°—4° in diameter. Winter-buds nearly ½′ long. Bark at the base of old trunks 3′—4′ thick, dark brown, deeply furrowed, with broad rounded ridges separating on the surface into thin scales; thinner, smooth, and pale, or almost white higher on the trunk and on the branches.

Distribution. Banks of the streams of western California; valley of the upper Sacramento River (Tehama County) southward through the interior valleys, along the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada and on the southern coast ranges; and on Mount San Pedro Màrtir in Lower California; exceedingly common in all the valleys of the California coast ranges from Monterey to the southern borders of the state, and ascending the southern slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains to altitudes of 3000°—4000°.

3. Platanus Wrightii S. Wats. Sycamore.

Leaves divided by narrow sinuses to below the middle and sometimes nearly to the center into 3—7 but usually into 3—5 elongated acute lobes entire, or dentate with callous-tipped teeth, or occasionally furnished with 1 or 2 lateral lobes, sometimes deeply cordate by the downward projection of the lower lobes, or often truncate or cuneate at base, thin and firm in texture, light green and glabrous above, covered below with pale pubescence, 6′—8′ long and broad, with a slender midrib, and primary veins connected by conspicuous reticulate veinlets; petioles stout, glabrous or puberulous, 1½′—3′ in length. Flowers: peduncles hoary-tomentose, bearing 1—4 heads of flowers. Fruit: heads on slender glabrous stems 6′—8′ long, about ¾′ in diameter; akenes glabrous, ¼′ long, truncate at apex.

A tree, often 60°—80° high, with a straight trunk 4°—5° in diameter, gradually tapering and free of branches for 20°—30°, or with a trunk divided at the ground into 2 or 3 large stems usually more or less reclining and often nearly prostrate for 15°—20°, thick contorted branches, the lowest growing almost at right angles to the trunk and 50°—60° long, the upper usually erect at first, finally spreading into a broad open handsome head, and slender branchlets coated when they first appear with thick pale tomentum, becoming glabrous or slightly puberulous during their first winter, marked by minute scattered lenticels, and light brown tinged with red or ashy gray, and gradually darker in their second or third year. Winter-buds hardly more than ⅛′ long. Bark at the base of the trunk dark, 3′—4′ thick, deeply and irregularly divided into broad ridges, and covered on the surface with small appressed scales, thinner and separating into large scales 10°—15° above the ground, and gradually passing into the smooth much thinner creamy white bark faintly tinged with green of the upper branches.

Distribution. Banks of streams in the mountain cañons of southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona; in northern Arizona in Oak Creek Cañon near Flagstaff (_P. Lowell_); and in Sonora; the largest and one of the most abundant of the deciduous-leaved trees on all the mountain ranges of southern Arizona, extending from the mouth of cañons up to altitudes of 5000°—6000° above the sea.

XXII. ROSACEÆ.

Trees, shrubs and herbs, with watery juices, terete branchlets, scaly buds, and alternate leaves (_opposite in Lyonothamnus_), with stipules. Flowers perfect; calyx 5-lobed; petals 5 (_0 in Cercocarpus_), imbricated in the bud, inserted with the numerous distinct stamens on the edge of a disk lining the calyx-tube; anthers introrse (_extrorse in Vauquelinia_), 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary superior in Lyonothamnus and Heteromeles, often partly superior in Amelanchier; ovules 2 in each cell (_1 in Cowania and Cercocarpus, 4 in Lyonothamnus_), anatropous. Seeds without albumen (_albuminous in Lyonothamnus and Cowania_). A family of about ninety genera chiefly confined to the temperate parts of the world and producing many of the most valuable fruits, including the apple, pear, quince, strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry. The six tribes into which the genera of the family are grouped, have arborescent representatives in North America.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT GENERA.

Tribe 1. Spiræoideæ. Fruit a woody capsule. Flowers in terminal cymose corymbs; calyx-lobes persistent; ovary 5-celled; ovules ascending; mature carpels adherent below and opening down the back; albumen 0; leaves simple. 1. Vauquelinia. Flowers in terminal corymbs; calyx-lobes deciduous; ovary 2-celled; ovules 4 in each cell, pendulous; mature carpels opening on the ventral and partly on the dorsal suture; albumen thin; leaves opposite, simple or pinnately divided. 2. Lyonothamnus. Tribe 2. Pomoideæ. Fruit a pome composed of the thickened and succulent calyx-tube inclosing the papery or bony carpels; stipules free from the petioles. Mature carpels papery. Carpels as many as the styles. Flowers in few-flowered terminal racemes on short spur-like lateral branchlets; ovary 3—5-celled; styles more or less united below; leaves simple; winter-buds small. 3. Malus. Flowers in broad compound terminal cymes; ovary 2—4, usually 3-celled; styles distinct; fruit subglobose; leaves unequally pinnate; winter-buds large. 4. Sorbus. Flowers in large terminal corymbose panicles; ovary nearly superior, 2-celled; styles distinct; fruit obovoid. 5. Heteromeles. Carpels becoming at maturity twice as many as the styles; flowers in erect or nodding racemes; ovary inferior or partly superior; styles 2—5, more or less united below; fruit subglobose or pyriform; leaves simple, deciduous. 6. Amelanchier. Mature carpels bony; flowers in terminal cymose corymbs; ovary 1—5-celled; styles distinct; fruit globose to pyriform; leaves simple, deciduous. 7. Cratægus. Tribe 3. Dryadæ. Calyx-tube turbinate, campanulate or hemispheric; petals 5; ovary composed of 1 or several carpels; fruit an akene tipped with the elongated plumose style. Flowers terminal on short branchlets, solitary; calyx-tube turbinate; carpels 5—12; leaves alternate, toothed or pinnatifid. 8. Cowania. Tribe 4. Cercocarpæ. Calyx-tube salver-shaped; petals 0; ovary composed of a single carpel; fruit an akene, tipped with the elongated plumose style. Leaves alternate, simple, entire or serrate. 9. Cercocarpus. Tribe 5. Prunoideæ. Fruit a 1-seeded drupe; ovary 1-celled; style terminal; ovules pendulous. Flowers in fascicled umbels, or racemes; leaves simple, deciduous or persistent. 10. Prunus. Tribe 6. Chrysobalanoideæ. Fruit a 1-seeded drupe; ovary 1-celled; style lateral, ovules ascending. Flowers in axillary or terminal cymose panicles; leaves simple, persistent. 11. Chrysobalanus.

1. VAUQUELINIA Corr.