Part 84

Leaves rarely 5-foliolate on vigorous shoots; leaflets sessile, ovate or oblong, pointed, the terminal leaflet generally larger and more gradually contracted at base than the others, entire or finely serrate, covered at first with short close pubescence, becoming glabrous and rather coriaceous at maturity, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 4′—6′ long, 2½′—3′ wide, with a prominent midrib and primary veins; turning clear yellow in the autumn before falling; petioles stout, thickened at base, 2½′—3′ in length. Flowers appearing in early spring on slender pubescent pedicels 1′—1½′ long, the pistillate and staminate flowers produced together, the staminate usually less numerous and falling soon after the opening of the anther-cells; calyx and petals pubescent; ovary puberulous. Fruit with a thin almost orbicular sometimes slightly obovate wing, nearly 1′ across, on a long slender reflexed pedicel, in dense drooping clusters remaining on the branches through the winter; seeds ⅓′ long, dark red-brown.

A round-headed tree, rarely 20°—25° high, with a straight slender trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, small spreading or erect branches, and slender branchlets covered at first with short fine pubescence, becoming glabrous, dark brown and lustrous, and marked by wart-like excrescences and by the conspicuous leaf-scars; more often a low spreading shrub. Winter-buds depressed, nearly round, pale or almost white. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, yellow-brown, with thin hardly distinguishable sapwood of 6—8 layers of annual growth. The bitter bark of the roots is sometimes used in the form of tinctures and fluid extracts as a tonic, and the fruit is occasionally employed domestically as a substitute for hops in brewing beer.

Distribution. Generally on rocky slopes near the borders of the forest, often in the shade of other trees; Long Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and westward through southwestern Ontario (Point Pelee) and southern Michigan to southern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, and southward to Georgia, Alabama, eastern Louisiana and through Missouri and Arkansas to southeastern Kansas, eastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas. A form with leaflets soft-pubescent on the lower surface (var. _mollis_ T. & G.) occurs in the south Atlantic states from North Carolina to Florida.

Often planted as an ornament of parks and gardens.

4. AMYRIS L.

Glabrous glandular-punctate trees or shrubs, with balsamic resinous juices. Leaves opposite or rarely opposite and alternate, 3-foliolate, without stipules, persistent; leaflets opposite, petiolulate, entire or crenate. Flowers white, minute, on slender bibracteolate pedicels, usually in 3-flowered corymbs in terminal or axillary branched panicles; calyx 4-toothed, persistent; petals 4, hypogynous, much larger than the calyx-lobes, spreading at maturity; disk of the staminate flower inconspicuous, that of the pistillate and perfect flowers thickened and pulvinate; stamens 8, hypogynous, opposite and alternate with the petals; filaments filiform, exserted; anthers ovoid, attached on the back below the middle; ovary ellipsoid or ovoid, 1-celled, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style short, terminal, or wanting; stigma capitate; ovules collateral, suspended near the apex of the ovary, anatropous. Fruit a globose or ovoid aromatic drupe; stone 1-seeded by abortion, chartaceous. Seed pendulous, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy, glandular-punctate.

Amyris is confined to tropical America and northern Mexico. Of the twelve or fourteen species which have been distinguished two extend into the territory of the United States; one of these is a small West Indian tree common on the shores of southern Florida, and the other, _Amyris parvifolia_ A. Gray, a Mexican shrub, grows in Texas near Corpus Christi, Neuces County, and near the mouth of the Rio Grande. Amyris is fragrant and yields a balsamic aromatic and stimulant resin, and heavy hard close-grained wood valuable as fuel and sometimes used in cabinet-making.

The generic name, from µύῤῥα, relates to the balsamic properties of the plants of this genus.

1. Amyris elemifera L. Torch Wood.

Leaves 3-foliolate, with slender petioles 1′—1½′ long, and broad-ovate or rounded obtuse acute or acuminate leaflets cuneate at base, or sometimes ovate-lanceolate or rhombic-lanceolate, entire or remotely crenulate, coriaceous, lustrous, dark yellow-green, conspicuously reticulate-veined, covered below with minute glandular dots, 1′—2½′ long, with slender petiolules, that of the terminal leaflet often 1′ or more long and twice as long as those of the lateral leaflets. Flowers in terminal pedunculate or nearly sessile panicles appearing in Florida from August to December. Fruit ripening in the spring, ovoid, often nearly ½′ long, black covered with a glaucous bloom, with thin flesh filled with an aromatic oil and of rather agreeable flavor.

A slender tree, 40°—50° high, with a trunk sometimes, although rarely, a foot in diameter, and slender terete branchlets covered with wart-like excrescences, at first light brown, becoming gray during their second season. Bark of the trunk thin, gray-brown, slightly furrowed and broken into short appressed scales. Winter-buds acute, flattened, ⅛′ long, with broad-ovate scales slightly keeled on the back. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, close-grained, very resinous, extremely durable, light orange color, with thin rather lighter colored sapwood of 12—15 layers of annual growth; often used as fuel.

Distribution. Florida, Mosquito Inlet, Volusia County, to the southern keys; common in the immediate neighborhood of the coast to the rich hummocks of the interior, and of its largest size on Umbrella Key; on the Bahama Islands and on many of the Antilles.

XXVII. SIMAROUBACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with bitter juice. Leaves alternate, pinnate, persistent, without stipules. Flowers regular, diœcious; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 5, imbricated in the bud, hypogynous; stamens 10, inserted under the disk; pistil of 5 united carpels; ovary 5-celled; ovule solitary in each cell, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a drupe.

Of the thirty genera of this family, confined chiefly to the tropics and to the warmer parts of the northern hemisphere, three have arborescent representatives in the flora of North America. _Ailanthus altissima_ Swing., the so-called Tree of Heaven, a native of northern China, has been largely planted as an ornament and shade tree in the eastern United States, and is now sparingly naturalized southward.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Fruit a drupe or berry. Ovary deeply 5-lobed; fruit drupaceous. 1. Simarouba. (D). Ovary not lobed; fruit baccate. 2. Picramnia. (D). Fruit a 3-winged samara. 3. Alvaradoa. (D).

1. SIMAROUBA Aubl.

Trees, with resinous juice and tonic properties. Leaves long-petiolate, abruptly pinnate; leaflets usually alternate, long-petiolulate, conduplicate in the bud, entire, coriaceous, glabrous or slightly puberulous below, feather-veined. Flowers in elongated widely branched axillary and terminal panicles; disk cup-shaped, depressed in the sterile flower, pubescent; stamens as long as the petals, in the pistillate flower reduced to minute scales; filaments free, filiform, thickened toward the base, inserted on the back of a minute ciliate scale; anthers oblong, slightly emarginate, introrse, attached on the back below the middle, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary sessile on the disk, deeply lobed, the lobes opposite the petals, rudimentary, lobulate, minute or wanting in the staminate flower; styles united into a short column, with a 3—5-lobed spreading stigma. Fruit composed of 1—5 sessile spreading drupes; flesh thin; stone crustaceous. Seeds inverse, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy, the radicle very short, partly included between the cotyledons, superior.

Simarouba with four species is confined to tropical America, and is distributed from the coast of southern Florida to Brazil and Guatemala. The plants of this genus contain a small amount of resin, a volatile oil, and an exceedingly bitter principle, quasin, with tonic properties.

The generic name is formed from Simarouba, the Carib name of one of the species.

1. Simarouba glauca DC. Paradise-tree.

Leaves 6′—10′ long, glabrous, with a stout petiole 2′—3′ in length, and usually 6 pairs of opposite or alternate oblong-obovate or oval leaflets, rounded or slightly mucronate at apex, usually oblique at base, membranaceous and dark red when they first unfold, soon becoming coriaceous, dark green and very lustrous above, pale and glaucous below, 2′—3′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with revolute margins, a prominent midrib, remote conspicuous primary veins, and stout petiolules ¼′—⅓′ in length. Flowers appearing in early spring, ⅛′—¼′ long, on short stout club-shaped pedicels, in panicles 12′—18′ long, and 18′—24′ broad, with a stout pale glaucous stem and spreading branches from the axils of small acute scarious deciduous bracts; petals fleshy, oval, often acute, pale yellow, and four or five times as long as the glaucous calyx. Fruit nearly fully grown by the end of April and then bright scarlet, about 1′ long, ovoid, sometimes falcate, and slightly angled on the ventral suture, becoming dark purple when fully ripe; seeds papillose, orange-brown, about ¾′ long.

A round-headed tree, growing occasionally in Florida to the height of 50°, with a straight trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, slender spreading branches, and stout glabrous branchlets pale green when they first appear, becoming light brown before the end of the summer, rugose and conspicuously marked during their second season by the large oval leaf-scars. Bark of the trunk ½′—¾′ thick, light red-brown and broken on the surface into broad thick appressed scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown, with thick rather darker colored sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, from Cape Canaveral and the shores of Bay Biscayne to the southern keys; in Cuba, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Brazil.

2. PICRAMNIA Sw.

Trees or shrubs, with bitter principles and slender terete branchlets. Leaves alternate, unequally pinnate, persistent, the leaflets subopposite to alternate, entire. Flowers diœcious, occasionally perfect, small, glomerate on long pendulous spikes or racemes opposite the leaves; calyx 3—5-parted, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 3—5, imbricated in the bud, rarely wanting; stamens 3—5, opposite the petals, inserted under the lobed depressed disk, in the pistillate flower reduced to linear scales or wanting; filaments naked; anthers 2-celled, introrse, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary inserted on the disk, 2 or 3-celled, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style 2 or 3-lobed, the lobes recurved and stigmatic on the inner surface, or crowned by a 2 or 3-lobed sessile stigma; ovules 2 in each cell, collateral, attached at the inner angle of the cell near its apex, anatropous; raphe narrow; micropyle superior. Fruit baccate, oblong to oblong-obovoid, 2 or by abortion 1-celled, the cells 1-seeded. Seeds filling the cavity of the cell, plano-convex, pendulous from the apex of the cell; hilum minute, apical, the raphe conspicuous; testa membranaceous, adherent to the exalbuminous undivided embryo; radicle superior, inconspicuous.

Picramnia, with about twenty species, is confined to the tropical and subtropical regions of the New World, one species extending into southern Florida. The bitter principle in the plants of this genus makes the bark of several of them useful in domestic remedies.

The generic name, from πικρός and θάµνος, is in reference to this bitter principle.

1. Picramnia pentandra Sw.

Leaves 8′—12′ long, 5—9-foliolate, with a slender rachis and petiole; leaflets ovate-oblong, abruptly acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, coriaceous, glabrous, dark green and lustrous above, 1½′—2½′ long and ¾′—1′ wide, with thickened slightly revolute margins, a prominent midrib, slender primary veins and thin reticulate veinlets; petiolules stout, 1/12′—⅙′ long, that of the terminal leaflet often ¾′ in length. Flowers green on short slender pedicels, in slender pubescent racemes 6′—8′ in length; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes oblong-ovate, acuminate, coated on the outer surface with pale hairs; petals 5, acuminate, hirsute, narrower and longer than the calyx-lobes; stamens 5 in the pistillate flower; filaments slender, glabrous, exserted; anthers short-oblong, obtuse; stigma sessile, 2 or 3-lobed. Fruit red becoming nearly black when fully ripe, ⅓′—½′ in length, about ¼′ in diameter; seeds light brown and lustrous.

A slender tree in Florida, occasionally 18°—20° high, with a straight trunk 4′ or 5′ in diameter, and slender light yellow-green or pale brown branchlets slightly pubescent during their first season; more often a shrub. Bark thin, close, yellowish brown.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Bay Biscayne to the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands and several of the Antilles, and in Colombia.

3. ALVARADOA Liebm.

Trees or shrubs, with bitter juices and slender terete pubescent branchlets. Leaves alternate, crowded at the end of the branches, unequally pinnate, long-petiolate, many-foliolulate, persistent; leaflets alternate, entire; stipules and stipels none. Flowers in many-flowered axillary or terminal racemes. Fruit a 2 or 3-winged samara, 3-celled below the middle, 2-celled above, crowned with remnants of the styles. Seed erect, compressed; testa membranaceous; albumen none; embryo oblong-compressed; cotyledons flat; radicle inferior, very short.

An anomalous genus, by several authors doubtfully referred to Sapindaceæ, but chiefly on account of its bitter properties now placed in Simaroubaceæ. It consists of three species; of these the widely distributed _Alvaradoa amorphoides_ Liebmann, the type of the genus, occurs in southern Florida. The other species appear to be confined to the islands of Jamaica and Cuba.

1. Alvaradoa amorphoides Liebm.

Leaves 4′—12′ long, with 21—41 leaflets and slender petioles; leaflets oblong-obovate, obtuse or occasionally minutely mucronate at apex, gradually narrowed below into a short slender pubescent petiolule, slightly thickened and revolute on the margins, dark green above, pale pubescent below, ½′—¾′ long, about ¼′ wide, with a slender midrib and obscure primary veins. Flowers regular, minute, diœcious, on slender accrescent pubescent pedicels from the axils of ovate minute deciduous bracts, in many-flowered hoary-tomentose racemes 3′—4½′ long, the pistillate accrescent, becoming 4′—8′ in length; calyx campanulate, 5-parted, the lobes ovate, acute, hoary-tomentose on the outer surface; disk 5-lobed; staminate flowers appearing sessile in the bud; their pedicels only slightly accrescent; petals filiform; filaments slender, elongated, slightly villose toward the base, inserted between the lobes of the disk and alternate with the calyx-lobes; anthers introrse, 2-celled, united except at apex, opening longitudinally by marginal slits, their connective orbicular, conspicuous; pistillate flowers on short accrescent pedicels; petals 0 or very rarely present; stamens 0; ovary compressed, unequally 3-angled, villose-hirsute on the margins, 3-celled at base, with two small compressed empty cells, the third larger with two anatropous ovules; styles 2, subulate or recurved, often of unequal length, stigmatic above the middle. Fruit lanceolate, acuminate, narrowly 2-winged, ciliate on the margins with long spreading hairs, slightly tinged with red, ¾′ in length and about two-thirds as long as its slender hairy pedicel; seeds acute at ends, pale yellow, ¼′ long.

A slender tree, in Florida occasionally 30° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, and slender branchlets hoary-pubescent during their first year becoming dull red-brown, glabrous and marked by numerous small pale lenticels and by the large obovate obcordate scars of fallen leaves showing the ends of three conspicuous equidistant fibro-vascular bundles; in Florida more often a shrub.

Distribution. Florida, Everglade Keys (Timbo Hummock near Gozman’s Homestead, Caldwell’s Hummock and Long Key), Dade County; in the Bahama Islands, and in Cuba, southern Mexico, Central America and Argentina.

XXVIII. BURSERACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with resinous bark and wood. Leaves alternate, pinnate, without stipules. Flowers perfect or polygamous, in clustered racemes or panicles; calyx 4—5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, persistent; petals 4—5, imbricated in the bud, distinct or slightly united, deciduous; stamens twice as many as the petals, inserted under the annular or cup-shaped disk; filaments distinct, subulate; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistil of 2—5 united carpels; ovary 2—5-celled; styles united; stigma 2—5-lobed; ovules 2 in each cell, pendulous, collateral, anatropous; micropyle superior; raphe ventral. Fruit drupaceous. Seeds without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; embryo straight; cotyledons foliaceous; radicle short, superior.

Of the sixteen genera of this family, which is widely distributed through the tropics of the two hemispheres, one only, Bursera, occurs in the United States, reaching the shores of southern Florida with an arborescent species, and southern California and Arizona with another species.

1. BURSERA Jacq.

Trees, with balsamic resinous juices. Leaves unequally pinnate; leaflets opposite, petiolulate, entire or subserrate, thin, or coriaceous. Flowers polygamous, small, on fascicled or rarely solitary pedicels, in short or elongated lateral simple or branched panicles; calyx minute, membranaceous; petals inserted on the base of an annular crenate disk, reflexed at maturity above the middle; stamens inserted on the base of the disk; anthers oblong, attached on the back above the base, usually effete in the pistillate flower; ovary sessile, ovoid, 3-celled, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style short; stigma capitate, obtuse, 3-lobed; ovules suspended below the apex from the central angle. Fruit with a valvate epicarp, globose or oblong-oblique, indistinctly 3-angled; flesh coriaceo-carnose, 2—3-valved; nutlets 1—3, usually solitary, adnate to a persistent fleshy axis, 1-celled, 1-seeded, covered with a thin membranaceous coat. Seed ovoid, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; hilum ventral, below the apex; embryo straight; cotyledons contortuplicate.

Bursera with about forty species is confined to southern Florida, the Antilles, the southwestern United States and to Mexico, and Central and South America.

The generic name is in honor of Joachim Burser (1593—1649), a German botanist and physician.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Leaves 5—7 rarely 3-foliolate, their rachis and petiole without wings; staminate flowers in elongated many-flowered racemes. 1. B. Simaruba (D). Leaves usually 10—22-foliolate, their rachis and petiole wing-margined; staminate flowers in short, usually 3-flowered clusters. 2. B. microphylla (G, H).

1. Bursera Simaruba Sarg. Gumbo Limbo. West Indian Birch.

Leaves confined to the end of the branchlets, 6′—8′ long, 4′—8′ wide, with a long slender petiole, and usually 5, rarely 3 or 7 leaflets coriaceous at maturity, oblong-ovate, oblique at base, contracted at apex into a long or short point, 2½′—3′ long, 1½′—2′ broad, with stout petiolules often ½′ long; deciduous in early winter or occasionally persistent until the following spring. Flowers about 3/16′ in diameter, appearing before the leaves or as they unfold, on slender pedicels ⅓′—½′ long, in slender raceme-like panicles, those of the staminate plant 4′—5′ long or nearly twice as long as those of the pistillate plant; calyx-lobes and petals 5; petals ovate-lanceolate, acute, revolute on the margins, and nearly four times as long as the slender acute calyx-lobes; stamens of the staminate flower as long as the petals and in the pistillate flower not more than half as long, with smaller often effete anthers. Fruit in short raceme-like clusters, ¼′—⅓′ long, 3-angled, with a thick dark red outer coat, separating readily into 3 broad-ovate valves, and containing 1 or rarely 2 bony triangular nutlets rounded at base, pointed at apex, and covered with a thin membranaceous light pink coat; seeds 1 or 2, triangular, rose color.

A glabrous tree, 50°—60° high, with a trunk 2½°—3° in diameter, massive primary branches spreading nearly at right angles, and stout terete branchlets light gray during their first season, becoming during their second year reddish brown, covered with lenticular spots and conspicuously marked by large elevated obcordate yellow leaf-scars. Winter-buds short, rounded, obtuse, with broad-ovate dark red scales slightly scarious on the margins. Bark of the trunk and large branches 1′ thick, glandular dotted, separating freely into thin papery bright red-brown scales exposing in falling the dark red-brown or gray inner bark. Wood spongy, very light, exceedingly soft and weak, light brown, with thick sapwood, soon becoming discolored by decay. Pieces of the trunk and large branches set in the ground soon produce roots and grow rapidly into large trees. The aromatic resin obtained by incisions cut in the trunk was formerly used in the treatment of gout, and in the West Indies is manufactured into varnish. An infusion of the leaves is sometimes used in Florida as a substitute for tea.

Distribution. Florida, from Cape Canaveral to the southern keys, and on the west coast from Terra Ceia Island, Manatee County, Plagida, De Sota County, and Gasparilla Island southward; one of the largest and most common of the south Florida trees, and the only one which sheds its foliage during the autumn and winter; on most of the West Indian islands, in tropical Mexico, Guatemala, New Granada, and Venezuela.

2. Bursera microphylla A. Gray.

Leaves glabrous, deciduous, 1′—1¼′ long, with a slender narrowly winged rachis and petiole and usually 10—20 oblong or oblong-obovate leaflets rounded at apex, obliquely cuneate at base, sessile, about ¼′ long and 1/12′ wide. Flowers appearing in June before the leaves, ⅙′ long on slender pedicels from the axils of minute acuminate caducous bracts, in mostly 3-flowered clusters ¼′ in length; staminate, calyx-lobes ovate, acute; petals 5, lanceolate, acuminate, revolute on the margins, 3 or 4 times longer than the calyx-lobes, white; stamens shorter than the petals; pistillate flower not seen. Fruit ripening in October, ellipsoid or slightly obovoid, solitary, drooping on the thickened pedicel ⅕′ in length, 3-angled, ¼′ long, red, glabrous, splitting into three valves; nutlets usually ovoid, acute, narrow at base, thin walled, 3-angled, gray with a deep depression at base.

A tree, rarely 10°—12° high, with a short trunk 2½′—3′ in diameter, stout erect and spreading branches, forming a wide round-topped head, and slender glabrous red branchlets, roughened during their first year by the crowded scars of fallen leaves; more often a low shrub. Bark of the trunk pale yellow, separating into membranaceous scales, the outer layer thin and firm, the inner layer corky, reddish brown, ½′ thick. Wood hard, close-grained, pale yellow.