I

It

s

V

THE

NORTH AMERICAN

S Y L Y A;

OR,

A DESCRIPTION OF THE FOREST TREES

OF THE

UNITED STATES, CANADA AND NOVA SCOTIA,

NOT DESCRIBED IN THE WORK

OF

F. ANDREW MICHAUX,

a

AND CONTAINING ALL THE

FOREST TREES DISCOVERED IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, THE TERRI-
TORY OF OREGON, DOWN TO THE SHORES OF THE PACIFIC, AND
INTO THE CONFINES OF CALIFORNIA, AS WELL AS IN
VARIOUS PARTS OF THE UNITED STATES.

ILLUSTRATED BY 122 FINE PLATES.

BY THOMAS NUTTALL, F. L. S.,

Member of the American Philosophical Society, and of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia, &c. &c. &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

BEING THE FIFTH VOLUME OF MICHaUX AND NUTTALL’s NORTH AMERICAN SYLVA.

PHILADELPHIA:

TOWNSEND WARD, 45 SOUTH FOURTH STREET.

ALSO FOR SALE BY SAXTON & MILES, 205 BROADWAY, NEW YORK; R.. BALDWIN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW, LONDON; H. BOSSANGE, NO. 11 GUAI VOLTAIRE, PARIS;
PERTHES, BESSER & MAUKE, NO. 22 JUNGFERNSTIEG, HAMBURG.

1846 .

library

NEW YORK.

. POTAJNICAL
GARDBN '

-tQKf/c

mi

y.5»

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by J. Dobson, in the
Clerk's Ollice of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

■4

'Tf re/ic?/ .del

( * A r rrjrjfto' - tree

p e dune ul ala .

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jFipn?ej~ peace/ c/i l c

FIG-TREES.

Natural Order , Artocarpe,e, (R. Brown.) Linnxan
Classification , Polygamia, Dkecia.

FICUS, t (Tourn. Linn.)

Dioecious. — The common receptacle spherical or pyriform,
resembling a berry, fleshy and closed, including numerous
distinct and minute flowers. Male , calyx 3-parted. Corolla
none. Stamens 1 to 3. Female with the calyx 3 to 5-
parted, and no corolla. Pistillum 1; style 1, subulate; the
stigma simple or bifid and unequal. Seed 1, covered by the
persistent subcarnose calyx.

Lactescent trees or shrubs, chiefly of tropical America, Africa,
and India; leaves alternate, stipulate, stipules terminal, conical,
convolute. Receptacles mostly axillary, solitary, or crowded,
rarely disposed in terminal racemes, often bracteolate at base.

CHERRY FIG-TREE.

FICUS pedunculata, foliis ovato-oblongis integerrimis acu-
minatis obtusis , basi obsolete cordatis , receptaculis globo-
sis subgeminatis calyculatis pedunculatis. Wiled. Sp. pi.
Aiton. Hort. Kewen., vol. 3. p. 450.

Ficus arbor americana , arbuti foliis non serrata , fructu
pisi magnitudine , funiculis e ramis ad terram dimissis
prolifer a. Pluken. Almag. p. 144. tab. 178. fig. 4. ?

This species of Fig-Tree was discovered by Jacquin
in the island of Martinique; it is also indigenous to
some other of the West India islands, as well as to the
neighbouring continent of tropical America. At Key
West, according to Dr. Blodgett, it becomes a large
spreading tree 50 feet in height, and like some other

t A Latin word of uncertain derivation.

VOL. II. 1

YORK

gardbn

2

CHERRY FIG-TREE.

species, particularly the famous Banyan tree, ( F . indica ,)
it sends down roots from its lofty branches resembling
ropes, which, on reaching the soil, at length become so
many independent trunks, in turn producing others; and
spreading themselves on all sides without interruption,
they present an united summit of prodigious extent,
which, reposing on a multitude of trunks of different
dimensions, seems like the airy vault of some vast edi-
fice sustained by innumerable columns.

The bark of the branches appears to be grey and
even, the leaves are very smooth on both sides, but
covered with innumerable minute dots on the upper
surface. They are 3 to 4 inches long, \\ to 2 inches
wide, with a peduncle about 1J inches long. They have
a few distant pennated nerves inosculating towards the
margin of the leaf, with innumerable intermediate slender
reticulations of vessels; they are generally of an ovate
form, rounded or almost cordate at the base, with a
short and blunt acumination; from their axills arise 1 or
2 peduncles about f of an inch long, each terminated
by a bifid involucel, improperly called a calyx. The
figs themselves are nearly globose, but sensibly wider
at the summit, about the magnitude of small cherries,
greenish-yellow and purple at the summit, (as they
appear in a withered state,) with a few purplish pale
spots.

Of this species there appears to be a distinct variety,
if not a species, which I shall for the present call
(3. acuta; the leaf is elliptic, shortly acuminate, acute at
base and faintly nerved beneath. It also becomes a
large tree, producing a fig about the size of a cherry,
which is yellow when ripe.

Plate XLI.

A branch of the natural size, a . The fruit.

1'icus b revdolj

Figmer a milts c& cartes.

3

SHORT LEAVED FIG-TREE.

FICUS brevifolia, foliis cordato-ovatis integerrimis obtu-
sis abbreviatis brevi petiolatis glabris, venis immersis, re-
ceptaculis globosis depressis umbilicatis solitariis brevi
pedunculatis, involucellis bifidis.

This is also a species of arborescent Fig, indigenous
to Key West, in East Florida, but by no means com-
mon, and, according to Dr. Blodgett, its discoverer, it
forms a tree with a slender, almost horizontal stem,
which in its progress throws off funicular roots that
serve as props to prevent the main trunk from becom-
ing entirely prostrate.

The branches are covered with a light grey bark.
The leaves are about 2 inches long by 1? inches wide,
perfectly smooth on both surfaces, on petioles from \ to
f of an inch long. The veins on the under surface are
so far immersed as to be scarcely visible. The figs,
about the size of small cherries, are of a flattened,
spheroidal form, at first, as well as the bifid involucrum,
slenderly villous; they grow out chiefly at the extremi-
ties of the twigs, on thick pedicels, about 2 or 3 lines
long, and when ripe are of a brightish purple red. We
do not find any species with which the present agrees.
From the description and specific name, we should
suppose the present species allied to the F. padifolia of
Humboldt and Bonpland, but it differs too much to be
referred to that species.

Plate XLII.

A branch of the natural size.

4

SMALL FRUITED FIG-TREE.

FICUS AUREA, glabra , foliis integerrimis ellipticis subacu~
minatis acutiusculis basi plerisque angustatis penniner-
viis brevi-petiolatis,fructibus globosis geminatis sessilibus
involucratis , involucris subtrijidis majusculis.
l atifoliAj foliis lato-ovatis sub ellipticis.

This species, according to its discoverer, Dr. Blod-
gett, becomes at Key West, in East Florida, a large
tree, at first parasitical on other trees, but destroying
its supporter, it at length reaches the ground and forms
an independent trunk of large dimensions. It bears,
however, a very insignificant fruit, only about the size
of a pea, and orange-yellow when ripe.

The branches are covered with a whitish bark. The
leaves 3 to 4<i inches long, are from lj to 2J broad;
the peduncles are about an inch in length. The form
of the leaves are almost similar with those of the Orange,
elliptic and narrower below, with a rounded summit,
and a very short, rather acute, projecting point or
acumination, they are dark green above, paler beneath,
with conspicuous feathered nerves which run together
within the margin. The figs are sessile, clustered by
pairs, with a small valvular orifice, and are nearly half
embraced by the sheathing, bifid or trifid, one-sided
involucrum.

This species appears to be very nearly allied to the
F. martinicensis of Willdenow, (the F. laurifolia of La-
marck,) but we can by no means reconcile it to Sloane’s
figure, (Hist. Jam. t. 223,) for in that species the leaves
are lanceolate, and 8 or 9 inches long, by 2 wide, on

1 * 1 15

a

SMALL FRUITED FIG-TREE.

5

petioles 2 inches or more in length; the fruit is also
said to be scarlet, of the size of a hazel-nut, and sweet-
ish and not unpleasant. In our variety (3. the leaves
are wholly oval and not narrowed at the base.

Plate XLIII.

A branch of the natural size.

The milky juice of the Fig-trees is more or less acrid
and foetid, however sweet and wholesome the fruit may
be, and that of the Ficus toxicaria of Sumatra is ac-
counted poisonous. The sap of several of the South
American and Mexican species, inspissated, affords
caoutphouc.

The cultivated Fig, ( Ficus Carica ,) in its wild state,
is a humble and distorted shrub, affecting rocks and
ruins, bearing a fruit of inferior flavour, but with the
parts of fructification very perfect. Such figs as seem
to drop off before maturity, are commonly those in
which the stamens are most numerous or effective.
These are carefully collected in the Levant to fer-
tilize the female blossoms of the cultivated Fig, which
will explain the mystery of caprification. In these coun-
tries the fruit, fresh, or dried in the sun, forms an
important part of the food of the inhabitants.

The Banyan Tree, (Ficus Indica ,) nearly allied to
our F. aurea, becomes in India an immense tree, spread-
ing very wide, and throwing down rope like roots into
the soil. Marsden mentions one of these growing near
Memgee, 20 miles west of Patna, in Bengal, which gave
the enormous diameter of 370 feet; the circumference
of the shadow, at noon, was 1,116 feet, and there were
50 or 60 stems. It is called the priests’ tree, and held
in such veneration by the Gentoos, that if any one cuts
off a branch, he is looked upon as sacrilegious, and held
in the greatest abhorrence.

HAWTHORN.

Natural Order , Rosacea, (sub-order, Pome^e, Jussieu.)
Linnxan Classification , Icosandria, Di — Pentagynia.

CRxlTiEGUS, (Linn., excluding some species.)

Adnate calyx tube urceolate, with a 5-cleft border. Petals 5,
orbicular. Stamens 15 or more. Styles 3 to 5, (rarely 1.)
Pome or apple fleshy, ovate or globose, closed and crowned
with the persisting teeth of the calyx, and containing 2 to 5
hard 1-seeded nuts.

These are spiny shrubs or small trees, almost exclusively in-
digenous to Europe and the United States of America, with
simple, angularly lobed, incised, or toothed leaves, furnished with
stipules of somewhat different forms on the fertile or infertile
branches. Flowers white, in terminal corymbs, sometimes soli-
tary. Bractes subulate, deciduous. The fruit rather small,
sweet, or agreeably acidulous.

RED THORN, or SIBERIAN HAWTHORN.

CRATiEGUS sanguinea, spinosa,foliis septangulis serratis
basi productis petiolis submar ginatis. Pallas, Flora Ros-
sica, vol. 1. p. 25. tab. 11. (very good.)

Crataegus sanguinea, leaves broadly obovate, somewhat cune-
ate at the base, incised and serrate, often slightly 5 to 7 lobed,
a little pubescent when young, on short petioles, at length co-
riaceous and shining; corymbs glabrous or somewhat pubes-
cent; segments of the calyx entire, and, as well as the pedi-
cels, not glandular; styles 3-4; fruit globose. Torre y and
Gray, Flora N. Amer., vol. 1. p. 464.

& Douglasii , spines short and stout (long in cultivation, Lou-
don ); fruit small, dark purple.

■.k

TCTJTSr.

Ji/Htt-j .J '/'i */• //

Mfuiair# jLdh dr..

JUdsTfwr/i

Crataegus sanguineus

dizzier mug/e.

RED THORN, OR SIBERIAN HAWTHORN. 7

Cratjegus punctata , (Z. brevispina. Dougl. in Hook. Flor. Bor.
Am., vol. 1. p. 201.

Crataegus glandulosa , Pursh, vol. 1. p. 337, (as it regards the
plant collected by Capt. Lewis in the Rocky Mountains.)
Crataegus Douglasii , Lindl. Bot. Regist. tab. 1810. Loudon,
Arbor. Brit., vol. 3. p. 823.

This species of Hawthorn, which becomes a tree 18
to 25 feet in height, is first met with to the West, on
the borders of rivulets, in the range of the Rocky Moun-
tains, particularly on their western declivity, from
whence it continues along the banks of the Oregon, and
particularly its tributaries, down to the shores of the
Pacific. We found it also, in great perfection, loaded
with its sweet, nearly black, and pleasant fruit, on the
banks of the Wahlamet. The stem attains to about the
diameter of 3 to 6 inches, with a whitish, compact, close-
grained wood, of which, in common with the Crab
Apple of that country, the natives make their wedges
for splitting trees.

The Siberian plant, according to Pallas, begins to be
found to the south of the Uralian Mountains, and con-
tinues beyond the Obi through all the southern tract of
Siberia, in dry mountainous situations, and in the thick-
ets which border the higher rivulets; exactly the sort
of situations affected by the American plant in the
Alpine region where it commences. It also, like ours,
becomes a tree 12 to 18 feet in height.

Lewis and Clarke speak of finding haws, probably of
this or the following species, on Flat Head River, which
heads against the sources of the Missouri.

Almost entirely deprived of vegetable food, every
accession of fruit, however meagre, was hailed with
delight by our famished party, and the ripe berries of
this fine Hawthorn were collected with avidity. The
bushes, or rather trees were, however, so high that we

8 RED THORN, OR SIBERIAN HAWTHORN.

could only come at the fruit on horseback, or after
ascending the trunk, which often appeared equal to
that of an ordinary apple tree.

The summit of the tree is round and spreading, and
the thorns vary in size, though they are often short, and
in no case numerous. The leaves are broad and some-
Avhat rounded above, cuneate at the base, smooth, on
the upper surface, and always more or less pubescent
beneath, the margin is incise and serrate, and divided
often into 5 to 7 shallow lobes. The flowers are white,
rather large, and numerous, disposed in a corymb, with
the peduncles and base of the calyx more or less pilose
and glandular. The styles 3 or 4, are occasionally as
many as 5. The segments of the calyx are rather long
and acuminated, membranaceous on the margin and
appressed to the flower. The berries are shortly ellip-
tic or oval, and nearly black or dark purple when ripe.
In the Siberian plant, described by Pallas, they are
scarlet; but he remarks, that according to Steller, the
haws of Kamtschatka are both red and black, and that
there they are not only used as agreeable fruits, but are
also collected for the purpose of distillation into spirits.
A good spirit is likewise obtained by the fermentation
and distillation of the fruit of the common Hawthorn,
( C. oxyaccmtha.)

This species is very nearly allied to C. coccinea, with
which indeed Pallas compares it; but in C. coccinea the
leaves have longer petioles, it bears much larger flowers,
with larger segments to the calyx. The fruit is also (in
our plant) smaller, and the plant more decidedly arbo-
rescent.

Plate XLIV.

A branch of the natural size. a. The fruit.

9

RIVER HAWTHORN.

CRATiEGUS rivularis, foliis ovatis vel obovatis , obtusis
acutisve inciso-serratis basi atienuatis brevi-petiolatis ; co-
rymbis multifloris glabris , floribus parvulis, calycis lad -
nils obtusis brevissimis eglandulosis ; fructibus nigris . —
Nutt, in Torrey and Gray, Flor. Amer., vol. 1. p. 364.

/3. cuneata, spinis brevibus, foliis cuneatis obtusis , indsis .

Along the shady borders of the rivulets of the Rocky
Mountains we observed this species blended with the
former, becoming equally a tree and producing the same
kind of pleasant dark fruit. It was also observed by
Douglas in the interior of Oregon, where we likewise
met with it. It is, in all probability, the smoother, sup-
posed variety of C, punctata , mentioned by Hooker in
his Flora.

The branches are reddish-brown, the leaves nearly as
entire as those of the Apple tree, except in (3. where
they are slightly lobed; beneath very smooth, slightly
pubescent above, acute and rather sharply serrate, with
long spines. The peduncles and calyx perfectly smooth,
the segments of the latter m6re broad, obtuse dentures.
The flowers are white and smaller than in the preceding.
The berries are also black, and possess nearly the same
sweet and rather insipid taste of the Common Haw, ( C .
oxyacantha.)

VOL. II.

2

10

LANCE-LEAVED HAWTHORN.

CRATiEGUS arborescens, inermis, foliis lanceolatis inciso-
serratis utrinque acutis rariter sublobatis glabris subtus
ad venis puberulis, corymbis multifloris, calicibus pilosis
laciniis subulatis integris, floribus pentagynis.

Crat-EGUs arborescens. Elliott. Sketch., vol. 1. p. 550. Torr.
and Gray, Flor. N. Amer., vol. 1. p. 466.

According to Elliott this species becomes a tree of
20 to 30 feet in height, with spreading branches. The
fruit is globose, quite small and red. Of the quality of
the wood nothing is yet known; but nearly all the ar-
borescent species are of slow growth, and have whitish
close-grained, very hard, and durable wood; that of the
Common Hawthorn, (C. oxycantha,') is tough, and in
England is used occasionally for axletrees and handles
of tools.

The Lance-leaved Thorn of Mr. Elliott was found on
the borders of the Ogeechee river, in Georgia, near Fort
Argyle, and near New Orleans, and in Texas by Drum-
mond and Berlandier. It is without armature. The
leaves are lanceolate, acute at each end, deeply serrated,
smooth both above and beneath, except some small
tufts of hairs at the divisions of the veins, sometimes
slightly lobed towards the summit, (though not at all
in our specimen.) The flowers are small, the calyx
hairy at the base, with the segments small and subulate.

To show the great age to which the Common Haw-
thorn attains, Withering states of the variety called
the Glastonbury Thorn, existing in his time, in a lane
by the churchyard of the abbey, (1801,) “It appears to
be a very old tree. An old woman of 90 never remem-

■J'Z-.'rLcieX'l T'f. Z Z2v£-

LANCE-LEAVED HAWTHORN.

11

bers it otherwise than as it now appears. It blossoms
twice a year, the winter blossoms, which are almost the
size of a sixpence, appear about Christmas, and sooner,
if the winter be severe. These produce no fruit.” The
summer flowers bore berries containing only a single
seed, which, when sown, produced plants nowise differing
from the common kind.

The Common Hawthorn, though so humble in the
hedge-row, beneath the cropping of the shears, when
suffered to grow up and stand alone, attains the ordinary
size of an Apple-tree; and, occupying the village green
for a long series of years, it becomes connected with our
earliest recollections of the joyful arrival of spring — the
old Hawthorn , again white with its fragrant blossoms,
and their falling on the ground like a shower of snow,
marks a delightful era in the distant reminiscences of
the writer, when yet the simplest boon of nature gave
delight. With these pleasing recollections of the past,
how touching and graphic are those beautiful lines of
Goldsmith descriptive of the deserted village.

— “The Hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade.

For talking age and youthful converse made!

How often have I bless’d the coming day,

When toil remitting lent its turn to play;

And all the village train from labour free,

Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree.”

Plate XLV.

A branch of the natural size. a. The germ and styles.

12

NAKED FLOWERED HAWTHORN, or APPLE

HAW.

CRATiEGUS jsstivalis, subspinosa, floribus prsecocibus,
foliis oblongo-cuneiformibus vel ellipticis brevi-petiolatis
apice subsinuato-dentatis angulatis vel inciso-crenaiis
rarius trilobatis, junioribus tomentosis, demum glabris,
subtus ad venis pubescentibus ; corymbis 3 ad 5-Jloris gla-
bris, eglandulosis; stylis 4—5, fructibus maximis globosis
rubris.

Crat.egus sestivalis. Torrey and Gray, Flor. 1. p. 468.
Crat-egus elliptica. Elliott, Sketch. 1. p. 549.

Crat.egus opaca. Hook and Arnott, Compan. Botan. Magaz.,
vol. 1. p. 25.

Mespilus sestivalis. Walter, Flor. Caroliniana, p. 148.

This is another arborescent species of Hawthorn
confined to the southern states of the Union, growing
along the low wet banks of rivers and ponds, from South
Carolina and Georgia to Florida; it grows also in
Louisiana and Arkansas. In Florida it is already in
flower in the early part of the month of March, and
presents a very unusual appearance, as yet nearly desti-
tute of leaves, or presenting only their unfolding silky
buds. The flowers are nearly as large as apple blos-
soms, and pure white. It becomes at length a tree of
20 or 30 feet in height, branching from the base. The
leaves are elliptical or oblong wedge-shaped, on the
infertile branches often obovate, on short petioles,
towards the summit sinuately toothed, angled, or irregu-
larly crenate, rarely 3-lobed or cleft, quite whitely tomen-
tose when young before expansion, at length glabrous,
but clothed along the veins beneath with a brownish
pubescence. The corymbs are 3 to 5 flowered, and

NAKED FLOWERED HAWTHORN. J3

smooth. The divisions of the calyx are short, triangu-
lar, smooth and without glands; the styles are 4 or 5.
The fruit, which becomes red, is very large and round,
ripening in May or June, and is i an inch or f of an
inch in diameter, juicy, fragrant, of an agreeable sub-
acid taste, and is much esteemed for tarts, jellies, and
other articles of the dessert.

Other species of Hawthorn, indigenous to the United
States, might be adduced as attaining the size of trees
from 10 to 25 feet in height, but as we have little or no
notice of their use and economy, we shall at present
omit them.

CHERRY TREE.

Natural Order Rosacea, ( sub-order Amygdale^, Jussieu.)
Linnxan Classification, Icosandria, Monogynia.

CERASUS, (Jussieu.)

Calyx urceolate-hemispherical; the border 5 cleft, deciduous.
Petals spreading. Stamens 15 to 30. Ovary glabrous, with
2 collateral pendulous ovules. Drupe globose, fleshy, desti-
tute of bloom; the nut hard and bony, mostly globose and
even.

Trees or shrubs chiefly of the temperate parts of Europe and
North America, forming several natural sections. Leaves ser-
rated, deciduous or sempervirent.

§ I. Flowers corymbose or clustered . Leaves deciduous .
True Cherries.

SOFT-LEAVED CHERRY.

CERASUS mollis, foliis oblongis ovatisve plerisque obtusis
serrulatis subtus tomentoso-pubescentibus , corymbis racemo-
sis 5 ad 6 Jioris tomentosis, laciniis calycinis obtusis rejlexis
tubo pubescente brevioribus , drupa ovoidea.

Cerasus mollis . Douglas in Hooker. Flor. Bor. Amer., vol.
1 . p. 169. Torrey and Gray, Flor. N. Amer. 1 . p. 410.

This species of Cherry, growing 12 to 25 feet high,
is confined to the Oregon Territory, and particularly to
the borders of the Oregon River and its tributaries as
far as its sources. We met with it in thickets on hills,

PI. XT, VI

J..T Fre/ic/l-utc/' ■

tioffi-lzaveat' C/i&r/'j

L///t..

Cerasus mollis

u r/,?ic/’ or iiaiUe-f s/roUcf.

t

(

SOFT-LEAVED CHERRY.

15

near the Wahlamet, flowering about the month of May.
The young branches are dark grey and somewhat
downy. The leaves are softly downy beneath, on short
petioles, oblong, or oblong-ovate, mostly obtuse, some-
times acute, minutely serrulate, 2 to 2i inches long, by
about an inch in width; stipules small and deeply ciliate
as well as the bractes. Flowers small and white, the
petals rounded and concave. Segments of the calyx
ovate, short and obtuse. Stigma clavate, petioles and
calyx tomentose. Fruit ovate, astringent and un-
pleasant.

Plate XLVI.

A branch of the natural size with young fruit, a. The flower.

Red or Northern Cherry. ( Cerasus Pennsylvanica.
Tor. and Gray. C. borealis, Mich, and Mich. Sylva, p.
90.) According to Macmin of West Chester, this tree
in the Beech woods of Tioga county, Pennsylvania,
attains the height of 60 feet, with a diameter of 18
inches.

16

§ III. Flowers in racemes, axillary. Leaves sempervirent
or persistent . — Laurocerasus. Tourn. Decand. Laurel

Cherries.

HOLLY LEAVED CHERRY.

CERASUS ilicifolia, foliis lato-ovalibus subcordatis brevi-
petiolatis spinosa-sinuato-dentalis reticulatis coriaceis ni-
tidis, racemis erectis foliis subsequantibus, drupa nigra
ovoidea acuminata.

Cerasus ilicifolia. Nutt, in Torr. and Gray. Flora N. Amer.,
vol. 1. p. 411. Hook and Arnott. Bot. Beechey, Suppl. p.
340. tab. 83.

This is a small tree of Upper California, round Sta.
Barbara attaining the height of 12 to 20 feet, and
chiefly affecting dry and elevated hill sides within the
mountain range. The bark is grey and somewhat
rough; the wood is reddish, tough, and close-grained.
The leaves, which are rigid, shining and evergreen, look
entirely like those of the Holly, they are broadly oval,
pointed, somewhat heart-shaped at the base, very smooth
and shining above and elegantly reticulated, often
undulated, and with sharp pungent serratures. The
racemes of flowers are erect, somewhat crowded; the
flowers white and small, on short pedicels, the petals
rounded and short; the calyx hemispherical, with short
triangular teeth. The stamens seated near to the sum-
mit of the calyx; the stigma simple and obtuse.

This tree, from its remarkable and elegant appear-
ance, is well worth cultivating as an ornament, and in
its qualities ranks with the true Laurels. The fruit is
rather large, dark purple, bitter and astringent.

Plate XLVII.

A branch of the natural size. a. The cherry, b. The flower.

'

V

Vw

Pl.XLWT.

ffol/i * /<>at C/uv v 7

Cerasus ilicifolia

Ce/'Mier a. deuitk dc Jj/oujc

HOLLY LEAVED CHERRY.

17

The Laurel, (JPrunus Lauro-Cercisus ,) now so gene-
rally cultivated in Europe, was brought from Asia
Minor. Lucullus, after conquering the king of Pontus,
with whom the Romans had warred for 40 years, among
his other trophies, brought the Cherry from the fields
of Cerasonte, and, in transplanting it into Italy, secured
a monument of his triumph far more durable than that
which the senate and the people decreed him. The
Laurel, transplanted at first from Trebizond to Con-
stantinople, had not so brilliant a destiny; an envoy
from the Emperor of Germany, David Ungnad, whose
name is now scarcely known, 262 years ago brought a
living plant to Clusius, at Vienna. The name of Lanro -
Cerasus was given to it by Belon, who had seen it in
its native country, from its leaves being like those of
the Bay, and its fruit similar to cherries.

The leaves afford by distillation a liquor which proves
a violent poison to men and animals. According to
Duhamel, a spoonful of this water given to a dog, killed
him instantaneously. Various experiments and acci-
dents tend to confirm the fact of the powerfully poison-
ous nature of Laurel water. Fontana found that a
single drop of the essential oil of this plant, applied to a
wound on a dog, proved equally as fatal as the venom
of the viper, and was attended with the same symptoms.

The emanations from the Laurel, being, in fact, the
diluted but volatile prussic or hydrocyanic acid, are not
without their inconveniences, for, after reposing beneath
its shade on a warm day, a headache and tendency to
vomit is said sometimes to occur. Considerable use
was formerly made of Laurel-water for the sake of the
Bitter Almond flavour which it communicates to vari-
ous articles of the dessert, but from its dangerous effects
it is now but little used.

The effect of this poison is so extremely rapid and

VOL. II. 3

18

ALMOND CHERRY.

violent, attacking the very seat of vitality, the nervous
system, that no remedies have any time to operate. In
the hand of the skilful physician, however, this volatile
poison proves sometimes a powerful remedy.

ALMOND CHERRY, ( Cerasus Caroliniana, Mich.
Flor., vol. 1. p. 285. Wild Orange Tree, Mich. Sylva,
vol. 2. pi. 89.) This elegant tree, nearly allied to
C. Lusitanica , appears to be common along the banks of
the Mississippi from New Orleans to Natchez. It is
also indigenous to South Carolina, Florida, and Ar-
kansa. It forms a fine evergreen tree 40 to 50 feet
high, flowering in March and April. The leaves, ac-
cording to Elliott, are very poisonous, frequently destroy-
ing cattle that are tempted to browse on them early in
the spring. It is known to the French inhabitants of
Louisiana by the same name as the Laurel of Europe,
Laurier-Amand.

The fruit of this species is a small black bitter cherry,
with very little pulp and a shell so thin as to crack
between the fingers. A second, (C. occidentalism and
probably a third species of this section from St.
Domingo, in the collections of Poiteau, has the same
thin, fragile shell. These seem to form a separate genus
from the true Cherries, no less than from the Laurels,
and may be called Leptocarya, in consideration of the
thin and fragile, merely cartilaginous shell of the drupe.
In this respect the drupe affords a much more import-
ant distinction than that which exists between Prunus
and Cerasus.

■

■

■

.

pi.irm,

Jdh-n y!fivnc&(M

TSirtdai'r's JLitkJhUfc

I’rumisAiiierieaiui.

Pn/nur dl^/meru/ut

PLUM TREE

Natural Order , Rosacea, ( suborder Amygdale,®, Juss.)
Linncean Classification , Icosandria, Monogynia.

PRUNUS, (Tournefort.)

Calyx urceolate-hemispherical, the border 5-cleft, deciduous.
Petals spreading. Stamens 15 to 30. Ovary glabrous, with
2 collateral pendulous ovules. Drupe ovate or oval, fleshy,
glabrous, usually covered with a bloom; nut hard and bony,
more or less compressed, acute and even, the margins partly
grooved.

Trees or shrubs of temperate climates in the northern hemi-
sphere with the leaves serrated, convolute in vernation (or
before expansion.) The flowers earlier than the leaves, with the
pedicels in umbellate clusters.

WILD PLUM.

PRUNUS Americana, arbor escens, ramis spines centibus,
foliis ovato-oblongis vet obovatis argute serratis acumina -
tis basi cuneatis , subtus venosis demum glabris , petiolis
sub-biglandulosis , umbellis sessilibus paucifloris (2-5), f rue-
tibus ovalibus.

P. Americana. Marshall . Arbust. p. 111. Darlington. Flora
Cestr. p. 287. and in Annal. Lyceum. N. York, vol. 3. p. 87.
t. 1 . Torrey and Gray. Flor. N. Amer. vol. 1 . p. 407.

P. nigra. Alton . Kew. (ed. 1.,) vol. 2. p. 165. Bot. Mag. t.
1117. Pursh. Flor. Am. vol. 1. p. 331. Willd. Sp. pi. vol.
4. p. 993.

20

WILD PLUM.

P. hiemalis. Elliott, Sic., vol. 1. p. 542.

Cerasus nigra, ( Loisel .) Seringe in Decand. Prodr., vol. 2. p.

538. Hook. Flor. Bor. Amer., vol. 1. p. 167.

Few plants in North America have a more extensive
range than this species of Plum: it is met with from the
Saskatchewan towards Hudson’s Bay, and through all
the intermediate country to Georgia, Louisiana, and
Texas. In the western part of the State of New York
it is very common, and, in some instances, (as it ap-
peared to me in 1810,) it has been cultivated by the
aborigines around their dwellings in the same manner
as the Chickasaw Plum. When truly wild, it seems to
affect the banks of streams and rich bottom lands. In
New Jersey, near Franklin furnace, (Sussex county,) I
have observed trees 20 to 30 feet high, and with trunks
from 6 to 14 inches in diameter. The ordinary height,
however, is from 15 to 20 feet. The wood is hard and
of a reddish colour, like that of the Wild Cherry,
(Prunus serotina .) The fruit, when mature, which is in
the month of August, is from I an inch to an inch in
diameter, in some instances almost wholly yellow, but
commonly vermilion red on one side, wholly red, or a
mixture of both colours, and in all the varieties covered
more or less with a very evident bloom. When ripe it
contains a very sweet thin pulp, with the disadvantage
however of having a thick bitterish acerb skin, but by
cultivation it is considerably improved, and the fruit is
sometimes, as Dr. Darlington remarks, as large as a
common Apricot. In Upper Canada, where it was
formerly cultivated, I have seen as many as twelve dis-
tinct varieties in the same orchard. It is also free from
the attacks of the insects which have proved so fatal
to nearly all the cultivated Plums.

The stem spreads out into a roundish head, with
many rigid and somewhat thorny branches. The leaves

WILD PLUM.

21

are oblong-ovate and sometimes obovate, almost always
narrowed below, with a distinct abrupt point or acumi-
nation, sharply serrated, strongly veined, and more
or less pubescent beneath. The pedicels are smooth,
2 to 5 together, in clusters. Calyx pubescent, the
segments lance-linear, serrulated at the apex; the petals
oval or obovate, and rounded.

Plate XLVIII.

A branch of the natural size in fruit, a. A cluster of flowers.

CRAB APPLE.

Natural Order , Rosacea:, ( sub-order , Romeo:, Juss.) Lin-
ncean Classification , Icosandria, Pentagynia.

PYRUS, (Linn.)

Calyx tube urceolate, adnate to the fleshy ovary, from which it
is inseparable, with the border 5-lobed. Petals 5, roundish,
concave, on short claws. Styles usually 5 or less, distinct or
conjoined at the base. Pome (or apple) fleshy, closed, inter-
nally 5-celled, the cells cartilaginous and 2-seeded. The seeds
with a chartaceous coat.

Trees or shrubs (in the present section) with entire or pal-
mately lobed, serrated leaves. Flowers in terminal flattish clus-
ters or corymbs. Fruit edible when not too acerb or astringent.

RIVER CRAB APPLE.

PYRUS rivularis, foliis ovatis acutis indivisis junioribus
trilobatis incisis argute serratis subtus pubes cent ibus,
stylis (3-4) basi coalitis glabris , fructibus perparvis sub -
globosis vix umbilicatis , l obis calicinis demum deciduis.
Pyrus rivularis . Douglas in Hook. Flor. Bor. Am., vol. 1. p.
303. tab. 68. Torrey and Gray, Flora N. Amer., vol. 1. p.
471.

Pyrus diver sifolia, Bongard. Veget. Sitcha. 1. c. p. 133.

This elegant species of Pyrus is common throughout
all the lower or maritime portion of the Oregon terri-
tory, and it uniformly affects the shade of rich alluvial
forests near the lesser streams and ponds. It becomes

p u, nr

F vi ‘us rivu laris

rt-r-z^lrzt9*e

-

RIVER CRAB APPLE.

23

a tree about the size of the Siberian Crab, to which it
has a close affinity, and grows from 15 to 25 feet in
height, producing a hard wood, capable of receiving a
high polish, and is employed by the natives for making
wedges. The fruit grows in clusters, and is small and
purple, scarcely the size of a cherry, of an agreeable
flavour, like that of some of our Haws; it has nothing of
the acerbity or acidity of the Common Crab, but is
sweetish and subacid when ripe. The natives near the
sea employ it, as they do many more berries of the
country, for food, being all too indolent to cultivate the
earth for any purpose whatever.

It extends, in all probability, from Upper California to
the Russian possessions in the north, as far as the lati-
tude of 57°. Menzies appears to have been its first dis-
coverer, on what was then vaguely termed the North-
West coast.

The leaves, which appear with the flowers, are ovate,
obtuse or acute, entire, and more or less serrated, pubes-
cent beneath, villous in the bud, at length nearly smooth;
the later produced leaves are more or less incisely
lobed, sometimes distinctly 3-lobed, the middle lobe
incise and sharply serrated. The flowers conspicuous,
white or tinged with red, in terminal corymbs, with the
calyx and peduncles villous, or tomentose, at other times
with the exterior of the calyx smooth. The petals oval.
The germ is pear-shaped, with 3 or 4 styles. Apples
very small, dark purple, almost black when ripe, and
somewhat translucent, globose-ovoid, scarcely umbilicate
at base, and with the summit naked, the calyx, as in the
Siberian Crab, being deciduous. Seeds, like those of
the apple, and 2 in a cell, as usual.

I think it probable that the plants with “smooth
pedicels and with the calyx externally smooth,” ought to
constitute a distinct variety, which may be termed

24

RIVER CRAB APPLE.

Pyrus rivularis (3. levipes, in these the pedicels are also
glandular.

What this plant may become by cultivation, cannot
yet be determined. The Siberian Crab, (now so orna-
mental and generally cultivated,) which also affects the
alluvial borders of streams and rivers, round Lake
Baikal, and in Daouria, according to Pallas, in its native
soil, it only attains the height of 3 or 4 feet, with a trunk
about as thick as a man’s arm, and full of tortuous
branches. The berries, also, in Pallas’ figure, (Flora
Rossica, vol. 1. tab. 10.) are not so large as ordinary
peas, and pyriform or attenuate at the base like a pear.
All this tribe of plants, so eminently serviceable both
for ornament and use, deserve cultivation in a pre-
eminent degree, and the present species has also the
advantage of being perfectly hardy in all temperate and
even cold climates, as it stretches along the coast nearly
to the vicinity of eastern Siberia.

All the plants of this section of Pyrus are natives of
temperate Europe and northern Asia.

Plate XLIX.

A branch of the natural size. a. The apple.

Narrow Leaved Crab Apple, ( Pyrus angustifolia,
Aiton.) This appears to be scarcely more than a
variety of the Pyrus coronaria ; distinguishable indeed by
its narrower leaves, usually entire, which are often acute
below, but as the styles are neither perfectly distinct
nor constantly glabrous, and that the young leaves are
also pubescent, no sufficient distinction remains. The
fruit is likewise wholly similar.

■fohn T-F?ys&'/?

•tfmericafi &//

Byrus Americana, .

'

-

■

■

k

MOUNTAIN ASH.

§ III. Leaves pinnate or pinnatifid; styles 2 to 5, distinct;
pome globose or turbinate; pulpy. Sorbus. Linn.

AMERICAN MOUNTAIN ASH.

PYRUS Americana, foliis pinnatis glabris, foliolis oblongo-
lanceolatis acuminatis inciso-serratis, serraturis setaceo-
mucronatis, cymis compositis multifloris, fructibus globo-
sis . — Decand. Prod., vol. 2. p. 637. Torrey and Gray.
Flor. N. Amer., vol. 1. p. 472.

Sorbus Americana. TVilld. Knum., vol. 1 . p. 520. Pursh. Flor.
vol. 1. p. 341.

Sorbus aucuparia, 0. Mich. Flor. Bor. Am., vol. 1. p. 290.

The Mountain Ash, or Roan Tree of North America,
is met with sparingly in shady moist woods in moun-
tainous situations, from Labrador and even Greenland,
throughout the New England States, New York, Penn-
sylvania, and the variety microcarpa , with smaller berries,
extends to the high mountains of Virginia and North
Carolina.

It forms a small tree of great beauty, remarkable for
its elegant feathered foliage, in May and June clad with
its white and fragrant blossoms, and to the close of the
year, even into winter, decorated with its large clusters
of bright berries, which afford a favourite repast for
thrushes and other frugivorous birds, on their annual
VOL. II. 4

26

AMERICAN MOUNTAIN ASH.

round to more genial climates, or during their hybernal
residence: —

“Sanguineisque inculta rubent aviaria baccis.” Virgil.

The European species, which differs very little from
the present, becomes in the North of England, Scotland,
and Wales a tree of considerable size, so as occasionally
to be sawn into planks and boards. It attains the height
of 25 to 30 feet, with a diameter of 2 feet, and a tree in
Scotland, in Forfarshire, at Old Montrose, 65 years old,
is 50 feet high, with a diameter of 2 feet 10 inches.
The wood is said to be hard and durable, fit for econo-
mical purposes, such as mill-work, screws for presses,
spokes for wheels, &c. In ancient times it was also
esteemed for bows next to the Yew. The berries dried
and reduced to powder have even been made into bread,
and an ardent spirit may be distilled from them of a fine
flavour, but in small quantity. Though acid and some-
what astringent, they are accounted wholesome, and,
in the Highlands of Scotland, are often eaten when per-
fectly ripe; in the cold and sterile climate of Kamts-
chatka, according to Gmelin, they are used for the same
purposes.

The tree was formerly held sacred, and in the North
of England it is called the Witch-Hazel. In Wales it

o

was formerly planted in the church-yard as commonly
as the Yew, and on a certain day of the year, every
body religiously wore a cross made of the wood as a
charm against fascinations and evil spirits!

The American species, scarcely forms so large a tree
as that of Europe, attaining only the height of 15 to 20
feet, and the leaves are very smooth, except before their
complete expansion; the leaflets are about from 13 to
15, oblong-lanceolate, acuminated, with sharp and deep

AMERICAN MOUNTAIN ASH.

27

mucronate serratures. The cymes or flower clusters
are large and compound, and the fruit, like that of the
European species, is of a bright light scarlet. The
berries of the variety microcarpa are also of the same
colour, but smaller. The seeds, 2 in a cell, appear to
have the same cartilaginous coat as in the apple.

Plate L.

A branch of the natural size. a. A cluster of flowers, b. A
flower enlarged.

CERCOCARPUS.t

(Humb., Bonpl. and Kunth.)

Natural Order , Rosaceje, (Juss.) (Sub-tribe Cercocarpew,)
Linnsean Classification, Icosandria, Monogynia.

Tube of the calyx cylindrical, elongated, the lower part persist-
ent, the border hemispherical, 5-lobed, deciduous. Petals
none. Stamens many, seated on the border of the calyx.
Ovary solitary; style terminal, filiform and villous. Ache-
nium narrow, coriaceous, caudate with the long persistent and
enlarging plumose style. Seed linear.

Shrubs or small trees, with alternate straight-veined, coriaceous,
serrate or entire leaves on short petioles. Stipules small, adnate
to the base of the petiole. Flowers small, white, axillary or ter-
minating short branchlets, mostly clustered.

FEATHER BUSIL

CERCOCARPUS ledifolius, foliis crebris perennantibus
lanceolatis integris demum glabris subtus tomentosis
margine revolutis; Jloribus sessilibus panels fasciculatis ;
cauda carpelorum longissimum tortuosum . — Nutt all in
Torrey and Gray, Flor. Am. 1 . p. 427. Hooker ic. pi. tab.
324. (ined.)

We first observed this curious small tree in the Rocky
Mountain range, on the lofty hills of Rear River of
Timpanagos, near the celebrated “Beer Springs” which

t The name derived from «ra K a tail, and a fruit, in refer-
ence to the character of the fruit.

(Yroocarpus ledifolius.

y’Smddur s Z/ftt Fhi la

fhusstf/i a /j/t/mw

/■'/? it 7’ftrmrtde?
' . :y/f

FEATHER BUSH.

29

abound with carbonic acid. We saw it afterwards in
the central chain, on either side Thornberg’s ravine,
towards the summits of the highest ridges, to which, by
its enduring and dark verdure, it contributed to give a
wild and gloomy robing, contrasted by the glittering
white of the impending cliffs of gneiss near which it
grew. On the summits of the Beer Spring hills it form-
ed extensive thickets, each tree spreading out many
branches at a few feet from the ground with consider-
able regularity, almost in the manner of a Peach tree.
The stem was in some trees about a foot in diameter,
and the greatest height of the plant did not exceed 15
feet. It had much the appearance of a stunted Olive
tree, and was bitterish to the taste.

The wood is hard, tough, whitish, and very close-
grained, somewhat resembling that of the Birch. It
appeared to be of slow growth and sempervirent; the bark
smooth and whitish, the branchlets full of circular cica-
trices, and the leaves clustered at the extremities of the
twigs. The leaves are at length nearly smooth, at first
hairy, with a short pubescence, beneath always softly
villous, with brownish curled hairs,- their form is lanceo-
late, about li inches long, and 3 or 4 lines wide, the
border entire and revolute; beneath the hairs on the
under side we see the usual straight nerves. The older
leaves and other parts of the plant exude in small quan-
tities an aromatic resin, having the scent of that found
on some species of Birch (or Betula ). The flowers are
small and white, produced at the extremities of the twigs,
and are succeeded by the fruit, which forms one of the
most remarkable and singular characters of the genus,-
these have a strong resemblance to the seeds of the
Geranium, each small cylindric carpel sending out a
long plumose, tortuous tail, nearly two inches in length,
covered with yellowish-white silky hairs, which appear-

30

FEATHER BUSH.

ing simultaneously all over the bush, gives it a most
remarkable and uncommon appearance. It seemed to
prefer poor dry soils, and would bear the climate of
Europe or the northern parts of the United States very
well from the alpine situations in which we uniformly
saw it. It is somewhat astringent to the taste, and
agreeably, though not powerfully aromatic.

Plate LI.

A branch of the natural size with its fruit, a. The flower.
b. The fruit.

run

jbJixr.'Jfaexcfi Me

T.Siw.i<T/rs Zitk. FZi/a-

Piscidia erylhrina

Jamaica, Hcty/rced.

JfoisiiFanl <U la Jamaiy/a

■ '

WEST INDIA DOGWOOD

Natural Order , Leguminos^e. Linnxan Classification ,
Diadelphia, Decandria.

PISCIDIA, f (Linn.)

Calyx campanulate, 5-toothed. Corolla papilionaceous, with the
keel obtuse. Stamens monadelphous, with the 10th free at
the base. Style filiform, glabrous. Legume pedicellated,
linear, with 4 broad longitudinal wings, the seeds separated
by interruptions in the pod. The seeds oval and compressed,
with a lateral hylum; embryo curved; cotyledones thick and
elliptic; the radicle inflected. — West India trees with decidu-
ous, unequally pinnated leaves, produced after the develope-
ment of the flowers.

JAMAICA DOGWOOD.

PISCIDIA Erythrina, foliolis ovatis , leguminis stipite
calyce multo longiore , alls interrupts,

Piscidia Erythrina, Linn. Sp. pi. Jacq. Amer. p. 206. Swartz,
Obs. p. 277. Macfadyen, Flora of Jamaica, vol. 1 . p. 258.

Ichthyomethia foliis pinnatis ovatis , racemis terminalibus ,
siliquis quadrialatis, Browne, Jamaica, p. 296.

Coral arbor polyp hylla non spinosa, fraxini folio, siliqua alis
foliaceis exstantibus rotx molendinarix fluviatilis aucta,
Sloane, Jam., vol. 2. p. 32. tab. 176. fig. 4, 5. Lamarck,
Illust., tab. 605. fig. A.

Pseudo-acacia , siliquis alatis, Plumier, Icon. 229. tab. 233.
f. 2.

The Jamaica Dogwood is a native of the Antilles as

t The name from piscis , a fish, in allusion to its employment
as a fish poison.

32

JAMAICA DOGWOOD.

well as of the neighbouring continent of America,
having been observed by Humboldt and Bonpland in
mountainous places in New Spain, between Acapulco
and Mazatlan, and we have now to record it as a native
of Key West, in East Florida, where it was collected by
Dr. Blodgett. It becomes a tree of about 20 to 25 feet
in height, not remarkable for the elegance of its form,
the branches being straggling, but yet beautiful in the
season of flowering, which is about April, when, with
blossoms similar to our favourite White Locust, (Robinia
pseudo-acacia ,) the whole summit of the tree is profusely
loaded; they come out some time before the leaves, in
numerous panicles or spreading clusters, of a whitish
colour, mixed with purple; the uppermost petal or vexil-
lum in the centre tinged with green. The vexillum,
externally, as well as the calyx, is covered with a silky
pubescence. The leaves are unequally pinnate, with
about 5 leaflets, which are either broad ovate or obo-
vate, and slightly acuminate, entire, and beneath, as
well as the footstalk, more or less pubescent, particularly
when young. The pod is large, stipitate and villous,
with four broad undulated longitudinal wings.

In Jamaica this is esteemed one of the best timber
trees in the island; the wood is heavy, hard, and resi-
nous, coarse, cross-grained, and of a light brown colour;
it is very durable either in or out of water. It makes
excellent piles for wharves; and the stakes soon form,
in the tropical countries it inhabits, a good live fence.
The bark of the trunk is very astringent: it cures the
mange in dogs, and would probably answer well for the
tanning of leather: it is best known, however, for its
effects as a fish-poison, for which purpose it is pounded
and mixed with the water in some deep part of a river
or creek, when the water soon acquires a reddish shade,
and in a few minutes the fish begin to rise to the sur-

JAMAICA DOGWOOD.

33

face, where they float, as if they were dead, the larger
ones, however, recover, but the smaller fry are destroy-
ed. The tincture of the bark, indeed, is found to be an
intense narcotic, and has been employed beneficially to
relieve the pain produced by carious teeth. Jacquin
observes that this quality of intoxicating fish is found in
many other American plants. Tephrosia toxicaria of
South America and T. piscatoria of India and the South
Sea Islands, both plants of the same family with the
present, likewise possess the faculty of intoxicating fish.

Plate LII.

A branch of the natural size. a. The flowers and young pods.
b. The more perfect pod.

VOL. II.

5

ACACIA.f

(Necker, Wield.)

Natural Order , Leguminos^. Linncean Classification ,
PoLYGAMIA, MoNCECIA.

Flowers polygamous, perfect and staminiferous.— Calyx 4 to 5-
toothed. Petals 4 to 5, distinct or united into a monopetalous
4 to 5-cleft corolla. Stamens from 8 or 10 to 200. Legume
without interruptions between the seeds, dry, (without pulp,)
and 1-valved.

These are trees and shrubs principally of warm or mild cli-
mates, with or without stipular or scattered spines. The leaves
are usually small and variously pinnated, sometimes (particularly
in the New Holland species) the true leaves in the adult are
abortive, and the simple leafy petioles, called phyllodes, alone
supply their place. Flowers often yellow, more rarely white or
red, disposed in spherical heads or in spikes.

BROAD-PODDED ACACIA.

ACACIA latisiliqua, inermis glabra, pinnis 5-jugis,foliolis
10-1 5-jugis ellipticis obtusis,stipulis bracteiformibus dimi -
diato-cordatis, capitulis pedunculatis aggregatis in pani -
culam terminalem subdispositis , legumine longe stipitata ,
plana , utrinque acuta . — Decand. Prod., vol. 2. p. 467.
Acacia latisiliqua, inermis , foliis bipinnatis partialibus
quinquejugis , ramis flexuosis , gemmis globosis. Linn. Sp.

t An ancient Greek name, from ***£», to point , or sharpen ,
many of the species being thorny.

PI. LIU.

J.Ji. Min7t i/cJ.

Li// i o.i 2 iw s dnn/air

iiriuu/ -/jOi/Jed .Lrczciii

Acacia iatisiliqaa .

J/cftc'/a a ia/y/z si/uyzte.

BROAD-PODDED ACACIA. 35

PI. Persoon. Synops., vol. 2. p. 265. Wield. Sp., vol. 4. p.

1067. Macfadyen, Flor. Jam., vol. 1 . p. 318.

Acacia non spinosa , siliquis latis compressis , flore albo.

Peumier, (Ed. Burm.) tab. 6.

This species, like many others of the genus, remark-
able by its light waving feather-like foliage, is, according
to Dr. Blodgett, rare at Key West, where it becomes a
very large and spreading tree, flowering in the month of
May. It is also a native of the West Indies and the
warmer parts of the neighbouring continent, where it
was found by Plumier and Aublet. According to Mac-
fadyen, it is a cultivated plant in Jamaica. It bears a
great resemblance to the Acacia figured by Catesby, tab.
42, which is quoted as A. glauca , though by no means
the same plant as plate 36 of Trew, which latter is the
species most commonly cultivated under that name.

The wood of this Acacia is said to be white, hard,
and close-grained. The trunk, as described by Catesby,
attains a diameter of three feet, and is accounted an
excellent wood, next to the mahogany of Jamaica, and
is the best to be found in the Bahama islands. For
curious cabinet work it excels mahogany in its variable
shining tints, wdiich appear like watered satin. Several
species of the genus afford very hard and durable wood.

The small branches in this species are grey, slender,
and somewhat zigzag. The leaves are bipinnate, on
main petioles, a little more than an inch long; between
the first pair of pinnules, is usually seen on the petiole
a projecting though sometimes merely a depressed gland,
the next pairs are without glands to the summit of the
leaf stalk, where there is then another depressed gland.
The pinnules vary in our plant from 2 to 4 pair, (we
have not seen 5.) The leaflets of the pinnule are oblong-
elliptic, nearly smooth, obtuse, somewhat oblique, and
rounded at base, in from 8 to 15 or 16 pairs. From the

36 BROAD-PODDED ACACIA.

axills of the 2 or 3 uppermost leaves come out simple
or aggregated peduncles, usually by 3’s, above, running
together so as to form a small sparse flowered panicle,
with each of the clusters subtended by rather large
deciduous, amplexicaule, semicordate and acuminate
smooth bractes, which resemble stipules. The flowers
are disposed in spherical, rather small heads, on pedun-
cles about f of an inch long; they appear white from
the colour of the long tortuous hair-like stamens. The
calyx is canescent, with a close pubescence, and 5-cleft
at the summit. The corolla is deeply 5-parted, and of
a purplish-brown, with oblong-lanceolate divisions. The
stamens are 10 or more, with very long filaments, and
very small whitish rounded anthers. The legume, (ac-
cording to Dr. Blodgett,) is 4 or 5 inches long, flat, thin,
many-seeded, and an inch or more in breadth.

Plate LIII.

A small branch of the natural size. a. The flower somewhat
enlarged.

I'] 1.1V

. .... ^

Zlf?. 7?/j£Ze?:. /Js?Z.

jfriya. ?7?iat/ts Co&t

Blunt leaved InpVt

IN G A.t

(Plumier, Willd.)

Natural Order , LEGUMiNOSiE. Linncean Classification ,

PoLYGAMIA, MoN(ECIA.

Flowers polygamous, perfect, and male. — Calyx 5-toothed.
Corolla monopetalous, tubular-funnel-formed, exceeding the
calyx in length, with the border regular and 4 or 5-cleft.
Stamina numerous, exserted, (10 to 200,) with the capillary
filaments more or less united into a tube. Legume broadly
linear, compressed, I -celled. Seeds usually covered with
pulp, more rarely with a pellicle or with farinaceous matter.

Shrubs or trees of warm or tropical climates, chiefly indigenous
to India and America, usually unarmed. Flowers in spikes or
globular heads, red or white, rarely yellow.

BLUNT LEAVED INGA.

INGA Unguis-cati,J spinis stipularibus rectis, foliis conju-
gal o-geminat is, foliolis subrot undo-ellipticis subdimidiatis
membranaceis glabris , glandula in dichotomia petioli
glabri et inter foliola , florum capitulis globosis in race-
mum terminalem dispositis , legumine torto . — Dec and.
Prod., vol. 2. p. 436.

f An American name adopted by Plumier.

J The specific name of unguis-cati , alludes to the short and
rather concealed thorns with which this tree is provided. Browne
calls it the black-bead shrub, and from others in Jamaica, accord-
ing to Macfadyen, it receives the names of Barb ary -thorn and
Nephritic tree .

38

BLUNT LEAVED INGA.

Mimosa Unguis-cati. Linn. Spec. 499. Wield. Sp. pi., vol.

4. p. 1006. Jacqtjin, Hort. Schoenbrunn, yol. 2. tab. 34.
Descourt. Flor. Antil., vol. 1 . tab. 11 . Swartz, Obs. p.
389. Macfadyen, Flor. Jam., vol. 1 . p. 306.

Acacia quadrifolia , siliquis circinnatis. Plumier, (Ed. Bur-
man,) Icon. 4. Pluken., tab. 1. fig. 6.

.Acacia arbor ea major spinosa, pinnis quatuor, siliquis varie
intortis. Sloane, Hist. Jam., vol. 2. p. 56.

Mimosa fruticosa, foliis Ovatis binato-binatis, seminibus
atro-nitentibus. Browne, Jamaic., p. 252.

This very singular leaved tree, attaining about the
height of from 10 to 20 feet, is indigenous to many of
the West India Islands, as well as to Cumana and
Cayenne on the neighbouring continent, where it was
observed by Humboldt and Bonpland, and in the latter
place by Aublet. This is also another of the Caribbean
productions which extends to the limits of the United
States, having been recently found in Key West by our
friend Dr. Blodgett.

The wood is said to be yellow, the summit of the tree
irregular, and the branches straggling. The smaller
twigs are round and gray, inclining to brown, and
covered with minute warts. The thorns are stipular,
or come out at the junction of the leaf with the stem;
they vary in size, but are always short, and in some of
the twigs wholly absent. The leaves are bipinnate,
only 4 in number, the leaflets on each pinule being only
a single pair, sessile, obovate, very obtuse or subemargi-
nate and rounded above, glabrous and of a thin texture,
with widely reticulated nerves; the petiole channelled
above, with a hollow circular gland at the junction of
the secondary petioles. Racemes terminal, thyrsoid,
the pedicels long and fastigiate, almost like a corymb.
Flowers greenish-yellow and smooth, in globose heads.
Calyx small, 5-toothed. Corolla more than twice the

BLUNT LEAVED INGA.

39

length of the calyx, 5-cleft towards the summit, the seg-
ments acute. Filaments numerous, slender and capillary,
yellow, three times the length of the corolla. Legume
torulose, spirally twisted, of a reddish-purple colour;
seeds 5 or 6, black, shining, roundish, compressed, half
covered with a white fleshy arillus-like pellicle.

This plant has the credit of being a sovereign remedy
for nephritic complaints, for the stone and grave], and
also for obstructions of the liver. The bark is the part
employed, and Barham states (in his account of Jamaica,
where this tree grows) that in his time it was in such
general use, that it was rare to meet with a tree that
had not been barked. The decoction, of a red colour,
is very astringent, and acts as a diuretic. It has also
been employed externally as a lotion and injection, to
remove the relaxation of the parts. Upon the whole, it
would seem to be entitled to the notice of physicians,
and deserves a further examination.

Plate LIY.

A branch of the natural size. a. The flower somewhat en-
larged.

40

GUADALOUPE INGA.

INGA Guadalupe nsis, inermis, foliis conjugato-geminatis ,
foliolis obovatis subrhombeis obtusis venosis glaberrimis,
glandula in dichotomia petioli glabri et inter foliola, capi-
tulis globosis pedicellatis racemosis, legumine torto glabro.
Decand. Prod., vol. 2. p. 436.

Mimosa Guadalupensis, foliis bijugis foliolis ovalibus, obli-
quis subcoriaceis, capitulis corymbosis. Persoon. Synops.,
vol. 2. p. 262.

This species also becomes a tree of 12 to 20 feet
elevation at Key West, according to the observation of
the same gentleman who discovered the preceding. The
specimen described by Persoon, came from the island
of Guadaloupe. Decandolle suspects that it may be a
mere thornless variety of the preceding species, (/. Un-
guis-cati ,) but from numerous specimens which we have
inspected from Florida, there can remain very little
doubt of its distinction as a peculiar species.

The spines appear to be wholly wanting, the bark of
the branches is grey and rough with minute warts. The
petioles are about three lines long, and of the same
length with the partial ones; both are strongly grooved
and distinctly articulated. The leaves are smooth and
coriaceous, shining above, dull and paler beneath, deli-
cately and reticulately veined, quite opaque from their
thickness, cuneate-oblong or lanceolate-oblong, obtuse,
and sometimes rounded at the apex, at other times
rather acute and apiculated. A depressed gland at the
summit of the petiole between the stalks, and also one
less distinct between the pairs of leaflets. The flowers
are axillary and long pedunculate; they likewise termi-

ri.LV.

Cruada/viipe 7/?xfa

Inga Guadalupensis.

My a ok lx (suj/xleujMx

r%

/

GUADALOUPE INGA.

41

nate the branches in corymbose racemes. The heads
of flowers are hemispherical, and appear to have been
yellowish-green. The calyx is campanulate, with
acute and very distinct teeth; the corolla is mono-
petalous, more widely campanulate at the summit,
twice as long as the calyx, with acute segments. The
pods are dark purplish-brown, much curved, 3 to 4
inches long, about 4 an inch wide, attenuated at the
base, torulose and irregularly narrowed between the
seeds, but not intercepted within. The seeds are deep
black, somewhat compressed, and at one extremity half
covered by a bright rose-red fleshy and lobed arillus.

Plate LY.

A branch of the natural size. a. The ripe pod. b. The seed.

VOL. II.

6

SCHiEFFERA.t

(Jacqtjin.)

Natural Order , Celastrine^: ? Linnxan Classification ,
Dicecia, Tetrandria.

Dioecious. — Calyx small, 4-parted, persistent. Petals 4, alter-
nating with the sepals. Stamina 4, opposite to the petals.
Ovarium 2-celled. Stigmas 2. Berry dry, bipartite, cells
1-seeded. Seed erect, plano-convex; albumen fleshy; embryo
central, straight and flat.

Trees of tropical America with alternate, entire, coriaceous
leaves; stipules none; flowers several, axillary, small and pedi-
cellated, white or green.

JAMAICA BOX-WOOD.

SCHiEFFERA buxifolia, foliis lanceolato-ovatis basi at-
tenuate plerisque acutis ramulisque glabris , petalis viridis
obtusis.

ScHiEFFERiA frutescens, /2. buxifolia , foliis latius ovatis mu-
cronatis. Decand. Prod., vol. 2. p. 41. Lam. Illust. t. 809.
Buxi folio majore acuminato , arbor baccifera, fructu minor e
croceo dipyreno. Sloane, Hist. Jamaica, vol. 2. p. 102. tab.
209. fig. 1.

According to Dr. Blodgett, this plant, common at
Key West and on the adjoining keys of East Florida,
becomes a tree of 30 feet in height, and is an article of

t Named in honour of James Christian Schseffer, of Ratisbon,
author of several Botanical works.

TLLVL

LaJrrfT/iy Srnc/MJ;/Vit /a

Si'Jhrf/era aJcudlcs dc 6/its

Jamaica Boa- - tread

ScliceiTera buxifolia.

JAMAICA BOX-WOOD.

43

export from the Bahama islands, where it is valued at
about 40 dollars the ton. From Poiteau’s herbarium it
appears to grow in the island of St. Domingo; it is also
apparently identic with the Jamaica plant of Sloane.
The wood is pale yellow, very close and fine-grained,
and might easily be mistaken for that of the true Box,
which name it bears in the Bahamas.

The twigs are slender and covered with a light grey
bark. The leaves are very smooth and shining on the
upper surface, with slender branching veins, lanceolate
and very acute, yet on the lower part of the same
specimen blunt or even emarginate, but they are always
narrow'ed below. The male flowers (the only ones I
have seen) are small, on very short peduncles, 3 or 4
together, with a rather minute calyx, and 4 broadish,
green, oblong, obtuse petals. The stamens are usually
4, shorter than the petals, sometimes more by the in-
graftment of 2 peduncles. The stigmas are 2 and short.
The berries rather flattened and 2-lobed, about the size
of a grain of cubebs, dry, but with a thick integument,
2-celled, 2-seeded, and of a pale orange-yellow when
ripe. Appearances of resin are visible on some of the
buds, and the berries have rather an acrid bitter taste,
something like that of tobacco; yet, notwithstanding
their disagreeable taste, they are greedily devoured by
birds.

The w r hite flowers of S.frutescens, the S. completa of
Swartz, and its humble stature, appear to distinguish it
from our plant.

Plate LVI.

A branch of the natural size. a. The male flower, b. The
fruit.

CEANOTHUS.t

(Linn., in part.)

Natural Order , Rhamne^e, (Decand.) Linnxan Classifica-
tion, Pentandria, Monogynia.

Calyx campanulate, shortly 5-cleft, with the border deciduous.
Petals 5, cucullate and arched, exserted, with long claws.
Stamens exserted. Disk thickened at the margin surround-
ing the ovary. Styles 3, united to the middle. Fruit dry
and rigid, mostly 3-celled, obtusely triangular, seated on the
persistent tube of the calyx, tricoccous, dehiscing by the inner
sutures. Seeds obovate, even.

Shrubs or undershrubs, rarely small trees of the temperate
parts of America. Roots large and ligneous. Leaves alternate,
ovate or elliptical, mostly serrate, sometimes entire, persistent
or deciduous. Flowers white or blue, in umbel-like clusters,
aggregated at the extremities of the branches into thyrsoid
corymbs. The taste of the root and most other parts of the
plant more or less astringent. One of the species was formerly
employed as a succedaneum for tea, and hence the name of “New
Jersey Tea P

TREE CEANOTHUS.

CEANOTHUS thyrsiflorus, arborea , erecta; ramis angula -
tis,foliis ova to-ob longis, subellip ticis, obtusis crassiusculis ,
glanduloso-serrulatis subglabris , subtus subvillosis ; thyrsis
oblongo-ovalibus densifloris corymbulis axillaribus termi-
nalibusque , ramis Jloriferis foliosis; floribus azureis.

j* An ancient Greek name employed by Theophrastus for a
plant now unknown.

Pl.IYIt

Tree CeanolKns

TREE CEANOTHUS.

45

Ceanothus thyrsiflorus . Escholts, in Mem. Acad. St. Petersb.

(1826.) Hooker, Flor. Bor. Amer. 1 . p. 125. Hooker and

Arnott, in Botan. Beechey, p. 136. Torrey and Grey, 1.

p. 266 .

Though several species of this elegant genus in
California, Oregon, and along the North-West Coast
become considerable shrubs, this is the only one which
can be classed amongst trees. It was somewhat abun-
dant on dry gravelly hills in the vicinity of Monterey,
where I arrived in the month of March, about the time
that it was bursting into flower. My attention was
called to it in the wood-pile, where considerable stems,
at least as thick as a man’s leg, lay consigned to the
ignoble but still important use of fire-wood. The wood
appeared hard, tough, of a reddish colour, and it afforded
a durable fuel. The branches were tortuous, spreading,
and covered with a rough bark, the branchlets green and
angular. Leaves nearly elliptic, the uppermost ovato-
oblong, all glandularly serrulate; above smooth, beneath
pubescent, particularly along the three strong nerves
which traverse the leaf to the summit; the petioles very
short; the upper branchlets terminating in thyrsoid
panicles of deep blue and very elegant flowers, made up
of numerous round, dense clusters, in small corymbs;
the terminal mass oval, about three inches long, by
about an inch in width; the clusters are subtended by
ovate, acuminate, broad, villous and deciduous bractes.
The calyx, petals and peduncles, are of a deep sky-blue;
the segments of the calyx ovate; the petals, as usual,
unguiculate and exserted as well as the stamens; the
anthers are yellow. With the fruit I am wholly un-
acquainted.

As this is a hardy and very ornamental plant it well
deserves cultivation. The flowers appear early in the

46

TREE CEANOTHUS.

spring, and the whole summit of the tree appears of an
intense blue.

The bark of the Ceanothus azureus, a plant allied to
the present species, is esteemed in Mexico as a febrifuge.

Plate LVII.

A branch of the natural size. a. The flower.

Ceanothus macrocarpus. Nutt, in Torrey and Grey. As
this is not the plant of Willdenow, I take this opportunity of
correcting the error, and propose to call it Ceanothus mega-
carpus.

Persimmon ( Diospyrus virginiana.) fi. pubescens ,foliis sub-
tus molliter pilosis.

Of this remarkable variety, with the leaves softly
pilose beneath, I have seen specimens from Louisiana
collected by Mr. Teinturier, and a very similar, but less
pubescent variety, was found in Georgia by the late Dr.
Baldwyn, (according to specimens in the herbarium of
the Academy of Natural Sciences in this place.)

pi.xvm

ftnclcunf. fiZTt

C S/s?u?/ 'UtznO'

Snake Wood

_Z/<c?rA <?

COLUBRIN A.

(Richard.)

Natural Order , Rhamne^e. Linnsean Classification ,
Pentandria, Monogynia.

Calyx spreading, 5-cleft; the tube hemispherical. Petals 5,
obovate, convolute. Stamens 5, with ovate, 2-celled anthers.
Disk fleshy, rather flat, slightly 5-angled. Ovary immersed
in and adhering to the disk, 3-celled. Style trifid. Stigmas 3.
Fruit capsular, dehiscent, tricoccous, girt at the base by the
adnate, permanent, entire tube of the calyx. Seeds furnished
with a short stalk, the testa coriaceous, very smooth.

Trees or shrubs of tropical America and Asia. Leaves alter-
nate, with pinnate nerves and reticulated with transverse veins.
Flowers in short axillary cymes.

SNAKE-WOOD.

COLUBRIN A Americana, foliis ovatis subacuminatis inte-
gris , subtus ramulis floribusque ferrugineo-villosis , flori-
bus axillaribus corymboso adgregatis .

Ceanothus colubrinus . Lamarck. Decand. Prod., vol. 2. p.

31. Persoon. Synops., vol. 1. p. 244.

Rhamntjs colubrinus . Jacqtjin, Amer. 74. No. 2. Hort. Vindo-
bon., vol. 3. tab. 50. Vogel, icon. rar. tab. 105. Linn. Syst.
Yol. 1. p. 195.

Rhamnus arboreus , foliis obovatis venosis , capsulis sphxricis y
inferne ad medietatem calyptratis . Browne, Jamaic. p.
172. No. 2.

48

SNAKE-WOOD.

Rhamnus ferrugineus. Nutt, in Torres' and Gras. Flora N.

Am. 1 . p. 263. and Journ. Acad. Nat. Sc. Philad., vol. 7. p. 90.
Jlrhor baccifera indica , Joins majoribus splendentibus flore

pentapetalo. Comm. Hort. p. 475. tab. 90.

A flowering specimen of this tree was collected at
Key West, in East Florida, by Mr. Titian Peale. From
this imperfect relic I conceived it to belong to a new
species which I hence called the ferruginous Buck-
thorn, but on comparing it more attentively with a fine
specimen of Rhamnus colubrinus collected in St. Do-
mingo by Poiteau, I felt satisfied of their identity. It is
indigenous to the islands of St. Martin, the Bahamas,
Jamaica, St. Domingo, and Cuba, where, on the high
mountains, it becomes a tree of 20 feet in height; but
on the borders of the sea, among the brushwood, it
seldom attains a greater height than that of 6 or 7 feet.
The branches spread out horizontally and are thickly
covered with leaves. It is remarkable for the ferrugi-
nous down spread over the petioles and young leaves, as
well as upon the peduncles and calyx of the flowers.
The bark is smooth and blackish, but the younger
branches are grey and downy. The leaves are alter-
nate, oval, somewhat acuminately and abruptly pointed,
entire, smooth and shining above, tomentose beneath
when young, afterwards only so on the nerves, 3 to 4
inches long by about 2 inches wide; the petioles from
a quarter to half an inch long. The flowers are small,
disposed in short axillary corymbs, containing in each
cluster about 7 to 10. The calyx is villous and ferru-
ginous, 5-parted, the divisions ovate and somewhat
acute, the petals, 5 in number, are narrow, linear-
oblong, about the length of the divisions of the calyx,
unguiculate, concave, and partly embracing the stamens,
which are about the same length. Fleshy disk of the
germ conspicuous, broadly 5-lobed. The style is simple,

SNAKE-WOOD.

49

terminating in 3 simple, obtuse stigmas. The fruit
nearly half way embraced by the persistent base of the
calyx, is a capsule of 3 lobes, with 3 valves, and 3 elas-
tic cells. The seeds are solitary, nearly round and
somewhat compressed, shining and black, remaining
often after the lapse of the capsule attached to the base
of the cells. With the wood of this tree or its economy,
I am unacquainted.

Another species of this genus, with smooth, elliptic
and somewhat acuminated leaves on longish petioles,
occurs, according to La Sagra, in Cuba. In this also,
the small axillary umbels are very few-flowered, smooth
and pedicellated; this might be called Colubrina glabra .

Plate LYIII.

A branch of the natural size. «. The umbel of flowers, b. The
flower a little enlarged, c. The seed remaining attached to the
receptacle.

VOL. II.

7

BUCKTHORN.

Natural Order, Rhamne^. Linncean Classification,
Pentandria, Monogynia.

RHAMNUS, t (Linn.)

Calyx urceolate, with the border 4 or 5-cleft. Petals 4 or 5 ,
alternating with the calyx, entire, emarginate or 2-lobed, more
or less convolute, sometimes wanting. Torus thin, lining the
tube of the calyx. Stamina situated before the petals. Ovary
free, and not immersed in the torus or disk, 2 to 4 celled.
Styles 2 to 4, distinct, or combined. Fruit drupaceous, con-
taining 2 to 4 cartilaginous nuts.

The Buckthorns are all shrubs or small trees, with alternate
and rarely opposite leaves, on short petioles, often pennately
nerved. The flowers are small and greenish, usually in short
axillary clusters or small corymbs.

CAROLINA BUCKTHORN.

RHAMNUS carolinianus, (Walter, Flor. Carol, p. 101.)
erectus,foliis ovali-oblongis integriusculis glabris, umbellis
pedunculatis , ftoribus hermaphroditis , fructibus globosis.
Miciiaux, Flora Boreal. Amer., vol. 1. p. 153. Dec and.
Prod., vol. 2. p. 26.

Rhamnus Carolinianus; erect, unarmed; leaves oval-oblong,
obscurely serrate, nearly glabrous (or rarely pubescent be-
neath); umbels axillary, on peduncles much shorter than the
petioles; flowers perfect, pentandrous (sometimes tetrandrous),
petals minute, embracing the very short stamens; styles united
to the summit; stigmas 3; fruit globose, rather dry, 3 to 4
seeded. Torrey and Gray, Flora N. Amer. 1. p. 262.

This fine Buckthorn, though usually a shrub in our

f From the Celtic ram , branching: and hence the Greek

P1.L1X.

Carolina Buckthorn.

JjZ&j&rs tfakFr i

G&T&Z&ne'

'

■

.

.

■

CAROLINA BUCKTHORN.

51

southern and south-western forests, on the borders of
Palmetto creek, Laurens county, in Georgia, the late
Mr. Croom observed trees of this species 30 to 40 feet
high. In the forests of Arkansa, they attain the height
of ordinary peach or apple trees, and congregated toge-
ther produce shady groves of considerable extent. The
quality or uses of its wood remain a desideratum. The
stems are, however, slender for their height, being not
more than 4 to 6 inches in diameter.

The leaves are 3 to 6 inches long, and 1 to 2 inches
wide, oval-oblong and widening towards the summit, the
extremity more or less briefly acuminate, the border
slenderly serrulate, and sometimes irregularly waved,
the lateral pennate veins are 10 to 12 and rather dis-
tant; the very young leaves before expansion are some-
what ferruginously villous. Umbels on stout pedicels,
from 10 to 15 flowered. The calyx pubescent but not
ferruginous, the segments lanceolate; petals 2-lobed at
the extremity. The fruit black, as large as a small pea,
is mostly 3-seeded. Seeds black, plano-convex, without
a groove.

This species begins to appear in North Carolina, and
extends through Georgia to Florida. West of the Mis-
sissippi, it is abundant on the banks of the Arkansa,
and Mr. Say collected it within the range of the Rocky
Mountains.

In Bartram’s Botanic Garden, at Kingsessing, where
this species is perfectly hardy, it forms an elegant tree,
and has attained the height of near upon 25 feet in 20
years. Colonel Carr, the worthy proprietor of this inte-
resting garden, tells me that for a considerable time the
berries remain red and are very ornamental; at length
towards winter they turn black, and remain so for a
long time, until some famished flock of Robins falls upon
and strips them nearly at once.

52

PURSH’S BUCKTHORN.

Plate LIX.

A branch of the natural size, a . The flower enlarged, b. The
berries.

PURSH’S BUCKTHORN.

RHAMNUS Purshiantxs, (Decand.) inermis, erectus , foliis
lato-ellipticis minute denticulato-serratis subtus pubescen -
tibus nervis lateralibus obliquis lineatis , pedunculis ax-
illaribus umbellatis Jloribusque pubescentibus , calyce 5-
petalis minutis cucullatis. Hook. Flor. Bor. Amer.,
vol. 2. p. 123. t. 43. Decand. Prod., vol. 2. p. 25.

Rhamnus alnifolius. Pursh, Flor. Am. Sept., vol. 1. p. 166.
(non U Her i tier.)

This is another species of Buckthorn which becomes
a tree of 10 to 20 feet elevation, with a trunk of 9
inches in diameter. It was discovered within the Rocky
Mountain range on the banks of Salmon river, by Cap-
tain Lewis; and it is of common occurrence on the
borders of the Oregon, in the upland shady woods near
the skirts of the prevailing Pine forests. Menzies also
met with this tree near Nootka, on the North-West
coast of America. It bears a strong resemblance to
the R. Carolinianus , but the leaves are broader, shorter,
and more decidedly serrated, and the berry is strongly
3-lobed.

The branches are round, dark brown and pubescent.
The leaves are 3 to 5 inches long, petiolate, deciduous,
but at length somewhat coriaceous, broadly elliptic,
rounded or rarely somewhat acute at the base, obtuse
or sometimes very shortly acuminate, the margin mi-
nutely serrulate, the young leaves pubescent at length,

CATHARTIC BUCKTHORN.

53

only so on the nerves beneath, the nerves in oblique
lines; petioles pubescent. Stipules quickly deciduous,
peduncles solitary, an inch or more long, umbellated;
pedicels pubescent, elongated in the fruit. Calyx exter-
nally pubescent, 5-cleft, the segments acute, internally
carinate. Petals minute, cucullate, bifid at the apex,
shorter than the calyx, very concave and cucullate.
Stamens opposite the petals and involved in them.
Germ small, ovate. Style shorter than the germ; the
stigma obtuse and 3-lobed. Berry wider above, 3-celled,
3-seeded. The seed obovate, black, very shining, con-
vex externally, internally with a central elevated line at
the base, at the hylum yellow.

The Cathartic Buckthorn ( Rhamnus cathaiiicus') ap-
pears to be a native of the northern states of the Union,
as it occurs in the wildest situations. The berries and
syrup of this species have long been employed in medi-
cine. The juice of the berries, in a dose of 5 or 6
drachms, proves a strong cathartic, but it is generally
made into a syrup. The bark has also an emetic
quality. The juice of the unripe berries with alum
gives a yellow dye; that of the ripe fruit, concentrated
by evaporation, and treated in the same manner with a
solution of alum, gives a green paste, the sap green
employed by painters, and from the manner in which it
is prepared for sale, is called in France, vert de vessie.

In New England, particularly in the vicinity of Bos-
ton, this species is much employed for useful and orna-
mental hedges, and bearing well to be cut, growing
thick, and remaining green till winter, it is strongly
recommended for this useful purpose.

MANCHINEEL.

Natural Order , Euphorbiacea: ? Linnsean Classification ,
Moncecia, Monadelphia.

HIPPOMANE,t (Linn.)

I

Moncecious. — Male flowers with a subcampanulate, emarginate
calyx and no corolla. A single columnar filament terminating
in 4 anthers. — In the fertile flower there is a 3-leaved calyx
and no corolla. Style very short. Stigma 6 or 7 cleft. Fruit ,
a drupe containing a 6 to 7 or more celled nut; each cell with
one seed; the cells indehiscent.

A large poisonous tree of tropical America, with alternate en-
tire leaves; the male flowers clustered in interrupted terminal
spikes. The fruit solitary and sessile, resembling an apple.

MANCHINEEL.

HIPPOMANE mancinella, foliis ovatis serratis . Linn.
Willd. Sp. PI. Lamarck, Illust. tab. 793. Jacq. Amer. edit,
pict. tab. 238. Aublet. Guian., vol. 2. p. 885.

Malus americana , laurocerasi folio , venenata . Mancinello
arbor seu Massinilia dicta . Commel. Hort., vol. 1. p. 131.
tab. 68.

Juglandi ajfinis arbor julif era, lactescens , venenata, pyrifolia,
Mancanillo hispanis dicta . Sloane, Jamaic. Hist., vol. 2.
p. 3. tab. 159.

t From tWc?, a horse , and madness . The name, however,

was applied by the Greeks to a very different plant which grew
in Arcadia, said to render horses furious.

■

\

PI. LX

<5

Z _Z? /' » .Si-Tz+Zei-ins li-lTt-

//i/y/w 'meins .1/ /insvnsllsu

Manchineel

sis-sn iMisi*

MANCHINEEL. 55

Mcincanilla pyrifacie. Plumier. Gen. p. 49. tab. 3. MSS.

vol. 6 . t. 109. Catesby’s Carol., vol. 2 . p. 95. t. 95.

Arbor americana Mancinello dicta , fructu pomi venenato,
nucleis septenis et pluribus, in ossiculo muricato, totidem
loculis dispertito , inclusis. Peuken. Almag., p. 44. Phytog.
tab. 142. fig. 4.

Hippomane arboreum lactescens, ramulis ternatis; petiolis
glanduld notatis; Jloribus spicatis, mixtis. Brown, Jam.
p. 351.

The Manchineel Tree attains a great size on the sea
coast in various parts of the West India Islands and the
neighbouring continent. It has also been found growing
very common at Key West, in low places, where it at-
tains the height of 30 to 40 feet. It has much the
aspect of a pear tree at a distance, while the fruit re-
sembles in appearance and scent a small apple, and is
produced in such abundance that the ground, when they
fall, appears as it were paved with them; they possess,
however, very little pulp, being internally occupied by a
deeply grooved nut as large as a chestnut. No animal,
except goats and maccaws, chooses to feed on them,
and they become dry, brown and spongy, and as useless
as they are deleterious. The wood, on the contrary, is
in great esteem for tables, cabinets, and other articles of
furniture, being close grained, heavy, durable, finely
variegated with brown, white, and shades of yellow, and
susceptible of a high polish. Tables made of it almost
resemble marble, and are equally smooth and shining.
Great caution, however, is necessary in felling the tree;
and before they begin, it is the usual practice of the
workmen, first to kindle a fire round the stem, by which
means the milky sap becomes so much inspissated as
not to follow the blows of the axe. They also take the
further precaution to cover the face with a net of gauze,
to prevent the access both of the juice and the particles
of sap wood, which might be deleterious.

/

56 MANCHINEEL.

All parts of the Manchineel tree abound with a white
milky sap, which is very poisonous, and so caustic, that
a single drop received upon the back of the hand imme-
diately produces the sensation of the touch of a coal of
fire, and soon raises a watery blister. The Indians,
according to Hawkins, used to poison their arrows with
this juice, which retained its venom for a long time.
Another and much more deadly poison was commonly
used for this purpose, however, by the American savages
of the warmer parts of America, namely, the warari,
chiefly obtained from the juice of the Strychnos, and this
was distinguishable by producing the effect of tetanus or
lock-jaw, which, mostly fatal, was sometimes protracted
for several days before producing death. It is reported,
that many of the Europeans who first landed in Surinam
died suddenly from sleeping under this tree; and there
may probably be some foundation in truth for such
reports, when we take into consideration the volatile
nature of the poisonous principle of these plants. As in
the venomous species of Rhus or Sumach, also, while
many individuals are affected by the poison, others, for
no evident reason, can touch or handle these plants with
impunity. Hence, though Jacquin asserts that he re-
posed under the shade of the Manchineel for the space
of 3 hours without experiencing any inconvenience, it
does not follow that it would be equally harmless to all
who should hazard the experiment; and with a laudable
prudence, the inhabitants of Martinique formerly burnt
down whole woods of the Manchineel in order to clear
their country of so dangerous a pest.

Catesby acknowledges that he was not sufficiently
satisfied of its poisonous qualities “till assisting in the
cutting down a tree of this kind on Andros Island, I paid
for my incredulity; some of the milky poisonous juice
spurting in my eyes, I was two days totally deprived of

MANCHINEEL.

57

sight, and my eyes and face much swelled, and felt a
violent pricking pain the first 24 hours, which from that
time abated gradually with the swelling, and went off
without any application or remedy, none in that unin-
habited island being to be had. It is no wonder that
the sap of this tree should be so virulent, when rain or
dew, falling from its leaves on the naked body, causes
blisters on the skin; and even the effluvia of it are so
noxious as to affect the senses of those which stand any
time under its shade.”

Oily substances are considered the best remedy for
this poison. Some also recommend a large glass of
sea-water to be drank instantly as a preventive.

The branches of the Manchineel are covered with a
greyish smooth bark. The leaves, which fall annually,
are alternate, petiolate, numerous, oval, pointed, almost
cordate at the base, slightly and distantly serrulate, dark
green, rather thick, shining, veined, and transversely
nerved, 3 to 4 inches long, by about 2 inches wide.
Stipules oval and caducous. The flowers are small and
of a yellow colour, monoecious, and grow upon straight
terminal spikes, like catkins. The male flowers are
minute, collected together in clusters of about 30 toge-
ther, each cluster subtended by a concave, caducous
scale. The calycine scales are accompanied at their
base by 2 large lateral orbicular depressed glands. The
fertile flowers are sessile and solitary. The drupe in
colour and odour is so like a small apple that it might
easily be mistaken for it; it is shining, and of a yellow-
ish-green colour, with a white and milky pulp. It con-
tains a thick, bony nut, full of angular crests which
project almost through the skin; it has ordinarily 6 or
7, sometimes as many as 14? 1-seeded cells, which have
no spontaneous dehiscence or valves. The male flowers
have a very small one-leaved, roundish, bifid calyx, with

VOL. II. 8

EXCiECARIA.t

Natural Order , Euphorbiacea,. Linnsean Classification ,
Duecia, Monadelphia.

Dioecious or Monoecious. — Male flowers in cylindric aments,
solitary, or by 3’s, subtended by single scales; the filament of
the stamens 3-parted at the summit. Female flowers solitary
or in spikes, with a calyx of scales. Capsule tricoccous.

§. Gtmnanthes. (Gymnanthes, genus. Swartz.) Monoecious.
Female flowers solitary, pedicellate, the pedicel articulated
and terminated by a minute toothed calyx, its base surrounded
by embracing scales. Male flowers by 3’s. — Trees of tropical
America, with alternate, entire, sempervirent leaves.

SHINING-LEAVED POISON WOOD.

EXCiECARIA lucida, jloribus foemineis subsolitariis pedi-
cellatis; masculis tripartitis spicatis; foliis cuneato-ellip-
licis, lanceolatisve subserratis.

Excjscaria lucida, monoica, floribus pedicellatis, stamini-
bus trichotomis, femineis pedunculalis, foliis ellipticis sub-
serratis. Swartz, Prod. p. 1122.

Ricini fructu glabro, arbor julifera, lactescens, folio myr-
tino. Sloane, Catal. Hist., vol. 2. p. 131. tab. 158. fig. 2.

According to Dr. Blodgett, this plant, in Key West,
becomes a tree of 30 to 40 feet in height. It is also indi-
genous to Jamaica and Cuba, and a broad leaved variety
was collected by Poiteau in St. Domingo. The wood
is yellowish-white, hard and close grained, but of its uses,
or the economy of the plant, we are as yet ignorant.

The branches are covered with a grey and somewhat
rough bark. The leaves are alternate, shortly petiolate,

f From excaecare, to blind. The juice of the plant being so
acrid as to cause blindness.

ALEURITES.

59

cells, in place of 3, the characteristic number in Euphor-
biaceae.

The large oily kernels of the Aleurites triloba , known
in the Sandwich and Friendly Islands by the name of
Too-tooe, are employed by the natives generally for
lights; pierced with a skewer, they are lighted like a
candle or a torch, and burn well and for a long time,
giving out a bright flame and smoke. An excellent oil
is obtained from these nuts by expression, which is used
for a variety of purposes, and answers well for paint.
It constitutes likewise one of the most ornamental and
characteristic trees of the forest, visible at a great
distance by the paleness and whiteness of its verdure,
and hence the name of Aleurites given to it by Forster,
from its mealy appearance. It grows rapidly and affords
a fine shade, producing leaves which resemble those of
the Plane tree.

EXCiECARIA.t

Natural Order , Euphorbiacea:. Linnsean Classification ,
Dicecia, Monadelphia.

Dioecious or Moniecious. — Male flowers in cylindric aments,
solitary, or by 3’s, subtended by single scales; the filament of
the stamens 3-parted at the summit. Female flowers solitary
or in spikes, with a calyx of scales. Capsule tricoccous.

§. Gtmnanthes. {Gymnanthes, genus. Swartz.) Monoecious.
Female flowers solitary, pedicellate, the pedicel articulated
and terminated by a minute toothed calyx, its base surrounded
by embracing scales. Male flowers by 3’s. — Trees of tropical
America, with alternate, entire, sempervirent leaves.

SHINING-LEAVED POISON WOOD.

E X 0 JE C A 1 v I A lucida, floribus fcemineis subsolitariis pedi-
cellatis; masculis tripartitis spicatis; foliis cuneato-ellip-
ticis, lanceolatisve subserratis.

Exca:caria lucida, monoica, floribus pedicellatis, stamini-
bus trichotomis, femineis pedunculai is, foliis ellipticis sub-
serratis. Swartz, Prod. p. 1122.

Ricini fructu glabro, arbor julifera, lactescens, folio myr-
tino. Sloane, Catal. Hist., vol. 2. p. 131. tab. 158. fig. 2.

According to Dr. Blodgett, this plant, in Key West,
becomes a tree of 30 to 40 feet in height. It is also indi-
genous to Jamaica and Cuba, and a broad leaved variety
was collected by Poiteau in St. Domingo. The wood
is yellowish-white, hard and close grained, but of its uses,
or the economy of the plant, we are as yet ignorant.

The branches are covered with a grey and somewhat
rough bark. The leaves are alternate, shortly petiolate,

j- From excxcare, to blind. The juice of the plant being so
acrid as to cause blindness.

Exe^jcaria lucifla

Shining Zeartd' dyallndzt luisani

PI MI,

#

SHINING-LEAVED POISON WOOD.

61

smooth and shining on the upper surface, and on both
sides rather prominently and elegantly veined and reti-
culated; they are slightly and distantly serrulated, often
lanceolate, and somewhat obtuse. On- other branches
the leaves are almost oblong-elliptic, and narrowed or
wedge-formed at the base. In the rainy season, towards
the extremities of the twigs come out close, brown,
cylindric, axillary aments, which at length shoot into
loose spikes or aments covered with numerous male
flowers, growing by 3’s together on a common pedicel,
which divides above into the 3 flowers, each subtended
(apparently?) by a still smaller scale, and consisting of
a secondary short stipe, divided into 3 stamens. The
anthers are round, small, and 2-celled. At the base of
the catkin, or below in a separate axil], issues the
pedicellated female flowers, subtended at the base by
appropriate scales, and with the rudiments of a calyx
beneath the germ. The stigmas are 3, rather thick,
and reflected. The fruit is tricoccous, supported upon
an elongated pedicel and rather large. The tree, like
most of the family of the Euphorbiacese, is filled with a
caustic milky juice.

According to Rumphius, the juice of the ExccBcaria
Agallocha, and even its smoke when burnt, affects the
eyes with great pain, as has been sometimes experienced
by sailors, in cutting the wood for fuel, who, having
accidentally rubbed their eyes with the juice, became
blinded for a time, and some of them finally lost their
sight. The Agallocha wood, formerly so much esteemed,
remarkable for its fragrant odour and inflammability,
belongs to the genus Aquilaria, and has no relation with
this family of plants.

Plate LXI.

A branch of the natural size. a. The male flower, b. The
female do.

TALLOW TREE.

Natural Order , Euphorbiace,e, (Jussieu.) Linnsean
Classification , Moncecia, Monadelphia.

STILLINGIA,t (Linn.)

Monoecious. — Staminiferous flowers solitary, or many and small,
with an entire hemispherical involncrum. Perianth tubular,
widened and ciliated on the border. Stamens 2 or 3, exserted,
with the filaments slightly united at the base. Fertile flowers
solitary, involucrate; perianth as in the male. Style with 3
stigmas. Capsule 3-lobed, 3-grained, surrounded by the en-
larging involucrum. Seeds 3.

Arborescent, shrubby or herbaceous plants, with a milky sap.
Leaves alternate, entire or serrulated, having stipules. Flowers
in spikes, the spikes solitary, lateral or terminal, the upper part
staminiferous.

TALLOW TREE.

STILLINGIA sebifera, arborea; foliis petiolatis , rhombeis
acuminatis integerrimis , infra basin glandula petiolari ,
floribus masculis numerosis . — Willd. Sp. PL 4. p. 588.
Mich. Flor. 2. p. 213. Pursh, 2. p. 608. Elliott, Sk. 2.
p. 651.

Croton sebiferum. Linn. Sp. PL 1 . c.

Ricinus Chinensis sebifera , populi nigrx folio . Petiver.
Gazoph. 53. tab. 34. fig. 3. Plukenet. Amalth. 76. tab. 390.
fig. 2 .

The Tallow tree grows to the height of 20 to 40 feet,

t So named in honour of Dr. Stillingfleet, an English botanist.

/. ' Sutc^a2/v. / i/A*

/a/dcnrlrtc

TALLOW TREE.

G3

and so nearly resembles the black poplar in its foliage
that it might be mistaken for it if the leaves were ser-
rated. It is indigenous to China, where it grows on the
borders of streams. It is now naturalized in both Indies,
in the south of Europe, and in the southern part of the
United States, along the sea-coast. It resembles a
cherry-tree in its trunk and branches. The bark is of a
whitish-grey, and soft to the touch. The branches are
long, smooth and flexible, ornamented with leaves from
their middle to their extremities, where they grow in a
kind of tuft. These leaves are oval-rhomboidal, on
longish petioles, wider than long, very entire, acumi-
nated, green and smooth on both sides, furnished at
their base with two very small sessile glands; before
falling, at the approach of winter, they become red.
The stipules are membranous and linear-lanceolate.
The flowers are terminal, disposed in erect spikes,
resembling catkins, which are about two inches long.
The male flowers are numerous, very small and pedi-
cellated, with a very short monophyllous and almost
truncated calyx; with 2, 3, and sometimes more stamens
having exserted filaments. The fertile flowers are in
small numbers at the base of each spike. The capsules
are smooth, brown, and oval, 3-lobed, divided internally
into 3 bivalvular cells. Each cell contains a somewhat
hemispherical seed, internally flattened and grooved,
externally convex and rounded, covered with a some-
what firm, white, sebaceous or fatty substance. The
seeds remain firmly attached above by 3 threads, which
traverse the fruit, and thus remain suspended after the
fall of the valves of the capsule, so that the tree seems
to be covered with clusters of white berries, which,
contrasted with the red colour of the fading leaves,
produces a very peculiar and elegant appearance.

The Tallow tree, as its name implies, furnishes the

64

TALLOW TREE.

Chinese with a material for candles; they extract besides
from its seeds oil for their lamps. The ordinary method
employed in separating the tallow from the fruit, is by
bruising together the capsules and seeds, afterwards
boiling the mass in water, and skimming off the oil
that arises to the surface, which, when cold, becomes
condensed like tallow. To every 6 pounds of this fat
is sometimes put 3 pounds of linseed oil, with a little
wax to give it a more solid consistence. The candles
thus obtained are of an extreme whiteness, but are also
made red by the addition of vermilion. It is said that
the Chinese steep these candles in a sort of wax, also
the produce of a tree, which forms a crust around the
tallow that hinders them from melting.

In the Southern States, though the trees produce an
abundance of perfect fruit, no use is yet made of it.

Plate LXII.

A branch of the natural size. a. A cluster of male flowers.
b. A single male flower, c. The seeds or nuts coated with wax.

65

PRIVET LEAVED STILLINGIA.

STILLINGIA ligustrina, foliis lanceolatis utrinque attenu -
at is integerrimis petiolatis, flosculis masculis stub soli tar Us,
triandris.

Stillingia ligustrina. Mich. Flor. Bor. Amer., vol. 2. p. 132.
Willd. Sp. PI. 4. p. 566. Pursh, vol. 2. p. 608. Nutt.,
vol. 2. p. 226. Elliott, vol. 2. p. 651.

This native species of the genus Stillingia, in the
forests of East Florida, according to the observations
of my friend Mr. Ware, becomes a tree, and attains an
elevation of 30 feet. In Georgia, at Columbus, on the
banks of the Chatahoochee, where I have observed it in
considerable abundance, it only forms a shrub of 10 or
12 feet. Although a handsome tree or shrub, nearly
evergreen, and resembling the privet when in flower,
so far from being pleasing, it emits a very disagreeable
odour, almost as foetid as carrion.

The bark is nearly smooth and brownish-gray, the
branches diffuse, and only clad with leaves towards the
summits; these are from 1 to 2 inches in length and
about f of an inch in width, they are either wholly
lanceolate or oval-lanceolate, very smooth, entire, and
acute or acuminated at either extremity; the petioles are
about 2 or 3 lines long. The flowers are small, green-
ish-yellow, in lateral and terminal shortish spikes; in
some specimens, wholly staminiferous, in others with a
few fertile flowers at the base of the spikes. Scale or
bracte of the sterile flowers short, ovate, mostly 1 -flow-
ered. Perianth 3-cleft, stamens generally 3, the filaments
very short. Fertile flower similar. Styles 3, united at
base, reflected; stigmas simple. Capsule 3-seeded.

VOL. II. 9

DRYPETES

(Vahl.)

Natural Order , Euphorbiace^: ? (Juss.) Linncean Classifi-
cation , Dl(ECIA, TeTRANDRIA to OcTANDRIA.

Dioecious. — Male with the calyx 4 to 6 leaved, and unequal.
Corolla none. Stamina 4 to 8, exserted. Disk central,
villous. — Female, with the flower as in the male. Ovary
free, subovate, villous, 2-celled, or by abortion 1-celled; ovules
2 in each cell, pendulous. Styles 2, or by abortion 1, short;
stigmas capitate, villous. Drupe subovate, villous, dry, 1-
celled, 1-seeded, rarely 2-celled, 2-seeded. Seed filling up
the cell of the fruit; albumen large and fleshy; embryo large,
inverted, straight; cotyledones foliaceous.

Trees of the tropical parts of America with alternate, nearly
exstipulate leaves, and axillary clusters of small herbaceous
flowers.

SMALL FLOWERED DRYPETES.

DRYPETES crocea, foliis oblongo-lanceolatis acuminatis
integerrimis nitidis , flore masculo 4-6-andro, femineo
distylo .

Drypetes crocea, foliis oblongis , integerrimis , nitidis , flore
masculo 4-5-andro, femineo distylo . Poiteau, Annales du
Museum Hist. Nat. (3d series,) vol. 1. p. 159. tab. 8.
Schjeffera lateriflora, floribus lateralibus apetalis.
Swartz, Flor. Ind. Occident., vol. 1 . p. 329.

This plant, at Key West, in East Florida, (according

PI . LX1II.

SmaZl' fl<? vvcreiUJiy'pS&s'

Dry petes croeea

L JJrypelz? SaJrwn e

SMALL FLOWERED DRYPETES. (37

to Dr. Blodgett,) becomes a large tree. The wood
appears to be whitish and close-grained, and that of D.
alba is very hard, and much esteemed by carpenters.
At St. Domingo, Poiteau remarked, that it generally
seemed to prefer the protecting shade of other large
trees with which it grew. It appears to be a very
elegant evergreen; the twigs exuding a slightly aromatic
resin, in small quantities, which, spreading over the
petiole and mid rib of the leaves, communicates, at
times, a white or glaucous hue. The leaf, to the taste,
is slightly bitter and astringent, with some aroma aris-
ing from the resin it possesses; and it has so much the
flavour of tea, as almost to promise a succedaneum for
that favourite beverage.

The bark is of a light grey and warty. The leaves are
from 3 to 3£ inches long, and from 1 to 1| wide, entire
or slightly repand, attenuated into a short petiole, of a
coriaceous consistence. The surface is delicately and
lightly reticulated as in the leaf of the Bay ( Laurus ).
The flowers are small and numerous, in axillary round-
ish clusters; these in the male consist of a brownish-
green calyx of 4 small ovate divisions, pubescent on the
margin, containing 4 to 6 short stamens. The calyx of
the female contains a germ with 2 short styles and capi-
tate stigmas; there are 2 ovules in each cell; the drupe
is villous, and when ripe is of the colour of saffron,
containing but a single seed. The perisperm has the
hot and acrid taste of strong mustard, but is, notwith-
standing, the particular food of a small beetle.

Plate LXIII.

A branch of the natural size. a. The male flower, b. The
female flower, c. The fruit.

68

GLAUCOUS DRYPETES.

DRYPETES glatica, foliis ovato-oblongis, aliis obtusius-
culis, remote crenulatis, aliis longioribus, integerrimis,
acuminatis; Jloribus 6-8 -andris. Vahl. Eclog. Amer.
fascic. 2. p. 49.

This species also becomes a tree, and grows at Key
West with the preceding; it is likewise indigenous to
Montserrat and Porto Rico. The branches are cylindric,
somewhat angular above, with the buds thinly covered
with a brownish down. The leaves are very similar to
those of the preceding species, and often glaucous, with
a thin resinous coating. The male flowers are 4 to 5-
leaved, with 6 to 8 stamens; there is no corolla. The
drupe is oval, villous, becoming the size of a small hazel-
nut, with a suture on one side, and terminated, when
young, with a single, sessile, reniform stigma.

The wood is probably of the same quality as in the
preceding species.

J‘LLU\:

R « ri i Ills ( } ciiiform ca

HORSE-CHESTNUT.

(Marronier d’Inde, Fr.)

Natural Order , Hippocastane;e, (Decand.) Linncean
Classification , Heptandria, Monogynia.

iESCULUS,f (Linn.)

Calyx tubular-campanulate, 5-toothed. Petals 4 or 5, more or
less unequal, unguiculate. Stamens 6 to 8, (often 7,) with
separate filaments. Ovary roundish, 3-celled, with 2 collate-
ral ovules in each cell. Fruit subglobose, coriaceous, even or
echinate, 1 to 3-celled. Seeds solitary, large, with a broad
hilum, and no albumen. Cotyledones subterraneous.

Trees or shrubs of North America and temperate Asia, with
opposite, digitate, serrated leaves. Flowers conspicuous, in ter-
minal panicles, on articulated pedicels.

§ 3. Fruit unarmed , leaves stipulate , the tube of the calyx
at length cleft . — Calothyrsus.

CALIFORNIAN HORSE-CHESTNUT.

iESCULUS californic a; staminibus corolla longioribus ,
petalis 4, subxqualibus , calycibus tubuloso-campanulatis
inxquali-de ntatis; thyrsus abbreviatis densifloris; petiolis
marginatis , foliolis quinque ovato-lanceolatis subellipticis
acutis serrulatis glabris glaucescentibus , basi rotundatis
subcordatis . — Nutt, in Torr. and Gray. Flora N. Amer.,
1. p. 251.

Calothyrsus Californica. Spach, in Ann. Sc. Nat. (ser. 2.)

p. 62.

This is the only species hitherto discovered of this
ornamental genus, on the Western side of the American
continent; and it differs from the ordinary type quite
sufficient to constitute a separate section.

f The Latin name of a tree which furnished an esculent nut.

70

CALIFORNIAN HORSE-CHESTNUT.

I observed it very sparingly on the border of a small
stream in the immediate vicinity of Monterey, in Upper
California, flowering in the month of March, with the
usual precocious habit of the genus. It appears also to
have been observed in some part of California by Botta,
according to Spach.

It forms a low spreading bushy tree, about 15 to 20
feet high, with clusters of spreading branches issuing
from near the root, so as to form a sort of thicket. The
trunk is smooth and grey, only a few inches in diameter,
and the wood very similar to that of other species of
the genus.

The leaves, usually in 5’s, have broad and flat margi-
nated petioles, terminating usually in 2 long, linear,
conspicuous and somewhat membranaceous stipules; the
whole cluster of leaves is also subtended by several
broad stipules, which appear to be the innermost series
of bud scales, but they are quite persistent and fre-
quently terminated by rudiments of leaves; the inner
leaves of the flowering branches are often in 3’s or 4’s.
The leaflets, 3 to 4 inches long, are supported upon long
and slender petioles, beneath they are pale and some-
what glaucous, everywhere smooth, finely and obtusely
serrulated and acute at the points, below they are
rounded and sometimes sinuated. The flowers are of a
pale rose-colour without a mixture of any other colour,
and produced in a crowded, compound spike or thyrsus.
The calyx is somewhat whitely villous, indistinctly 5-
toothed, and at length cleft down nearly to the base on
the lower side. The petals appear connivent, with the
claws shorter than the calyx, scarcely at all spreading,
and are generally in 4’s. Stamens 5 or 6. I have not
seen the fruit, but the germ is 2 or 3-celled, and villous.

Plate LXIV.

A branch of the natural size. a. The germ.

LONG-SPIKED PAVIA.

71

In the Herbarium of the Academy of Natural Sciences
in Philadelphia, is a specimen collected in Nepal by Dr.
Wallich, named JEsculus indica, which bears no incon-
siderable resemblance to the present species. It has the
same perfectly smooth leaflets, 7 in number, oblong-
lanceolate, serrulate and acuminate, without stipular
scales. The thyrsus is very large, compound and showy,
with a villous irregularly-toothed calyx, often anteriorly
cleft, as in the preceding species. The petals appear to
have been white, 4 in number, the 2 inner much nar-
rower, with a fading red spot in the centre of each.
The stamens are 5 to 7, and much exserted; the fruit
without spines, is therefore a Pavia. I find no descrip-
tion or allusion to this magnificent species, which well
deserves a place in gardens, and is probably hardy.

In passing, I must remark, that no two species of the
genus are more perfectly distinct from each other than
the JE. Ohioensis of Decandolle and Michaux (Pavia of
the latter), and the JE. glabra. The Ohioensis becomes
a lofty tree, with 5 or more remarkably long leaflets,
(7 to 9 inches long,) acuminated at each end, and be-
neath more or less pubescent, at least along the ribs.
The flowers are also white and showy, not green or
yellowish-green, and inconspicuous as in the constantly
dwarf plant known as 2E. glabra.

Long-Spiked Pavia (jEscuIus macrostachya, Mich.)
This elegant and very distinct Pavia grows abundantly
in all the lower parts of Alabama and West Florida.
The fruit, like all the rest of the genus, is inedible and
bitter, and in place of food, affords a pretty good fish-
poison. The fsecula of the seeds of all the species can
be manufactured into starch.

SOAP-BERRY TREE.

(Savonnier, Fr.)

Natural Order , Sapindaceal (Jussieu.) Linncean
Classification , Octandria, Trigynia.

SAPINDUS, (Linn.)

Sepals (or calyx leaves) 4 to 5. Petals 4 or 5, glandular or
bearded within, or with a lateral filament at the summit of the
claw. Stamens 8 to 10, with the filaments villous. Styles
combined, stigmas 3. Carpels 3, globose, fleshy, connate, 2
of them in general abortive. Seed large and spherical, one in
each carpel (or small capsule).

The plants of this genus are small trees, with the present ex-
ceptions, and one of doubtful character in Japan, all inhabitants
of the tropical climates of America and India. The leaves are
without stipules, abruptly pinnate, or unequally pinnate by the
abortion of the last pair of leaflets. The flowers are small and
whitish, very numerous, disposed in racemes or panicles. The
pulp of the berries in all the species is saponaceous. (The name
is a contraction of Sapo-indicus , or Indian soap.)

FLORIDA SOAP-BERRY.

SAPINDUS marginatus, vachi superne august e marginata ,
foliolis glabris insequilateralis laneeolatis subfalcatis acu -
minatis 5-6 jugis , paniculis compositis terminalibus ,
petalis inappendiculatis.

Sapindus marginatus . Willd. Enumer. p. 432. Decand.

Prod., vol. 1. p. 607. Torrey and Gray, vol. 1. p. 255.
Sapindus saponaria . Lamarck’s Illust. tab. 307. Mich.
Flora Bor. Am. 1. p. 242. Pursh. Flor., vol. 1. p. 274.
Nutt. Gen. Am. 1. p. 257. Elliott’s Sketches, Bot., vol. 1.
p. 460. S. inxqualis. Decand., vol. 1. p. 608.

This elegant tree, exclusively indigenous to the United

Pl.TiXVL

Floruloo Stay. Horry

>S apindus Margin atu g .

StoyttMoitr lic'la.F/vru’f*-

FLORIDA SOAP-BERRY.

73

States, is found along the coast of Georgia and Florida,
and in the interior as far as Arkansaw. It varies in height
from 20 to 30 feet and sometimes even to 40 feet. Branches
erect and smooth; the leaves smooth and shining, com-
posed of 4 to 9 pair of alternate, lanceolate, acuminate,
subfalcate leaflets. Panicles of flowers large, dense, termi-
nal and axillary.

Berries about the size of a cherry, with a saponaceous
pulp, usually only one of the three carpels fertile.

The S. saponaria of the West Indies, to which this spe-
cies is allied, has long been in use by the natives for the
purposes of soap. The fleshy covering of the seed, and
also the root in some measure, makes an excellent lather in
water ; but if used too frequently and of too great strength,
is apt to burn and injure the texture of the cloth.

The round black seeds were at one time largely imported
into England, for the purpose of making buttons for waist-
coats, being durable and not apt to break.

At present they are used in the West Indies for various
ornamental purposes, being tipped with silver or gold, and
strung for beads, crosses, &c. It is also used as a medi-
cine, and pounded and thrown into water, has the singular
property of intoxicating and killing the fish which may be
there.

The w r ood is soft and not very durable.

Plate LXV.

Represents a branch of the natural size, a, A panicle of flowers.

10

74

M E L I C 0 C C A,* (Browne, Linn.)

(Knepier, Fr.)

Natural Order , Sapindaceae. Linncean Classification , Oc-

TANDRIA, MoNOGYNIA.

Flowers polygamous. Calyx 4 to 5-parted, persistent. Petals , the same
number with the divisions of the calyx inserted into a hypogynous disc.
Stamens often 8. Ovary superior, mostly 3-celled. Style 1, the stigma
capitate or 3-lobed. Drupe coated, mostly 1 -celled, 1 -seeded. Seed
attached to the axis of the cell.

Trees or shrubs, mostly of tropical America, with equally pinnated,
alternate leaves, usually in 2 to 3 pairs, and entire. The flowers small,
disposed in axillary or terminal spikes or panicles ,* the fruit with a suc-
culent pulp.

ROUND FRUITED HONEY-BERRY, or GENIP

TREE.

MELICOCCA paniculata, foliis pinnatis , 2-3 -jugis, foliolis oblongo-
lanceolatis integris , floribus panicidatis subcorymbosis laxis , 5 -petcclis
drupis splicer ids,

Melicocca paniculata, Juss., Mem. Mus. Hist. Nat., vol. 3, p. 187, t. 5.
Dec and. Prod. vol. 1, p. 615.

This species, nearly allied to the common Honey-Berry
of the West Indies, ( M bijuga ), was discovered in St.
Domingo by M. Poiteau, and of which a very excellent

*From honey, and kokjcos a berry, in allusion to the sweetness of
its fruit.

Pl.LXVI

ThunA hon&ybt>rry.

Melicocca paniculata.

Krvt-pi&r

HONEY BERRY.

75

figure is given by Jussieu, in the Memoirs of the Museum
of Natural History. Dr. Blodgett has also met with it on
Key West, where it becomes a large tree. Of the nature
of the wood we are not informed. The fruit of the com-
mon species is said to be about the size of a large plum,
and green ; containing a sweet, acid, and slightly astringent,
gelatinous pulp, resembling the yolk of an egg. The berry
of the present kind appears to be wholly similar, but it is
spherical instead of ovate. The nuts of the Genip Tree
are also eaten, after being roasted in the manner of ches-
nuts. The flowers appear in April, when the leaves are
shed, and are very fragrant, even at a distance, attracting
swarms of bees and humming birds. This species, accord-
ing to Browne, was brought to the West Indies from Suri-
nam.

The wood of the Melicocca trijuga, ( Schleichera trijuga
Willd.) of the isles of France and Bourbon, is so hard and
fine grained as to afford to the natives a favourite wood
for bows, arrows, and the shafts of their spears, called
sagaye's. The M. bijuga becomes a large and beautiful
tree 30 to 40 feet high, affording an extensive and grateful
shade. The bark of the branches in the Florida plant, are
brownish and rough, with small whitish excrescences. The
leaves are smooth on both surfaces, (in the St. Domingo
specimens, a little pubescent on the mid rib beneath,) of a
dark shining green above, and scarcely any paler beneath.
They are pinnated usually in 2 pairs, rarely 3 or only 1
pair, 3 to 34 inches long, by from 1 to II of an inch wide,
with the main petiole about half an inch long; they are
lanceolate or oblong, usually obtuse, delicately feather
veined, with the vessels running together and reticulating
below the margin. The flowers are small and disposed in
axillary, but chiefly terminal panicles. The calyx is tomen-
tose, with 5 obtuse, ovate, spreading and reflected seg-
ments ; the petals, 5, are smaller, pale yellow, and narrowed

76

HONEY BERRY.

below into a minute claw. Stamens, 6 to 10; often 8;
shorter in the fertile flowers, and in them usually 6. Germ
ovate. Style distinct, with a capitate, somewhat 3-lobed
stigma. Drupe spherical, 1 seeded, coated with a dry,
rather brittle integument, externally yellowish.

Plate LXVI.

A branch of the natural size, a . The male flower, b . The female do.
c. A cluster of the drupes about half grown.

Common Ailanthus. ( Ailanthus glandulosa .) This tree,
originally from China, is now commonly cultivated for its
shade, in towns in many parts of the United States. It
grows with great rapidity, and produces a great deal of
wood, which is found to be of a close grain, and capable
of acquiring a fine polish. In this State, it somewhat
resembles satin-wood. With its durability I am unac-
quainted; but if found useful, it might be cultivated or
planted over waste lands in the southern and middle States
with advantage.

,

•

■

. .

pu,xvn.

Larpe lowed JtapU.

Acer Alarrojih^Uum.

Ural U a (jvaudes Feuilley

77

MAPLES.

(Erable, Fr.)

Natural Order , Acerine^e. (Decand.) Linncean Classifica-
tion ; POLYGAMIA Or OcTANDRIA, MoNOGYNIA.

ACER.* (Tournefort.)

Flowers polygamous. — The calyx 5-lobed, or 5 parted. Petals 5 or none.
Stamens rarely 5, often 7 to 9 ; ovarium 2-lobed, stigmas 2. Samar ex
or pericarps in pairs, winged, united at base ; each, by abortion, 1 or
rarely 2-seeded, the wings of the pericarp lanceolate and diverging,
thicker and blunt on the outer margin. Embryo curved, with wrinkled
leafy cotyledones, and an inferior radicle : albumen none.

Trees and shrubs of temperate climates, chiefly of Europe and North
America, the leaves opposite as well as the branches, palmate! y lobed.
Flowers clustered, or pendulously racemose, arising from buds of the pre-
ceding season, mostly lateral.

LARGE LEAVED MAPLE.

ACER macrophyllum ; foliis digitato- 5 -lobis , sinubus rotundatis , lobis
subtrilobatis repando-dentatis , subtis pubescentibus , racemis erectis, fila-
mentis 9, hirsutis , ovariis hirsutissimis. Pursh. Flor. Amer. Sept,
vol. 1, p. 267. Decand. Prod. vol. 1, p. 594.

Acer macrophyllum ; leaves large, very deeply 5-lobed ; lobes oblong
or slightly cuneiform, entire, or sinuately 3-lobed, the margins some-
what repand ; racemes nodding ; flowers rather large ; petals obovate ;
fruit hispid, with elongated slightly diverging glabrous wings. Torre y
and Gray, Flora N. Amer. vol. 1, p. 246.

Acer Macrophyllum . Hooker’s Flora Boreali Americana, vol. 1, p. 112,
t. 38.

*From the Latin, acer , sharp ; the wood having been used for pikes or
lances.

78

LARGE LEAVED MAPLE.

The topographical range of this splendid species of Ma-
ple, wholly indigenous to the north-west coast of America
or the territory of Oregon, is a somewhat narrow strip
along the coast of the Pacific, not extending into the inte-
rior beyond the alluvial tracts of the Oregon, which com-
mence at the second cataracts of that river, (known by the
name of the Dalles,) and at the distance of about 130 miles
from the sea. To the north, it extends probably to the
latitude of 50°, or the borders of Fraser’s river, and although
by Decandolle, it is said to extend to Upper California on
the south, we did not observe it in the vicinity of Monterey;
and therefore conclude that its utmost boundary in this
direction must be to St. Francisco, in about the 38th degree
of latitude. This fine species was discovered by Menzies,
and afterwards collected by Lewis and Clarke. It nowhere
presents a more interesting appearance to the traveller than
in the immediate vicinity of the falls of the Oregon ; its
dense shade, due to the great magnitude of its foliagp and
lofty elevation, as well as the wide extent of its spreading
summit, are greatly contrasted with the naked, woodless
plains of that river, w'hich continue uninterruptedly to the
mountains ; a tract over which the traveller seeks in vain
for shade or shelter, and where the fuel requisite to cook
his scanty meal, has to be collected from the accidental
drift wood which has been borne down from the distant
mountains of its sources.

The largest trunks of this species that we have seen,
were on the rich alluvial plains of the Wahlamet, and
particularly near to its confluence with the Tlacainas ; here
we saw trees from 50 to 90 feet in height, with a circum-
ference of 8 to 16 feet. It appears always to affect the
drier and more elevated tracts, where the soil is well
drained.

The wood, like that of the Sugar Maple, exhibits the
most beautiful variety in its texture ; some of it being undu-

LARGE LEAVED MAPLE.

79

lated or curled, — other portions present the numerous con-
centric spots which constitute the Bird’s-eye Maple; and
so frequent is this structure, that nearly every large tree
which was cut down afforded one or other of these varieties
of wood. As yet, in those remote and unsettled regions, it
has only afforded a beautiful and curious material for the
gun-stock of the savage or the hunter. Like the Sugar
Maple also, it affords an abundance of saccharine sap,
which to an infant settlement, may one day be turned to
advantage. As an ornamental plant, it stands pre-eminent ;
and from the latitude it occupies it must be entirely hardy
in every part of Europe below the latitude of 60°. The
young trees are often tall, slender and graceful, and when
in blossom, which is about the month of April, present a
very imposing appearance, clad with numerous drooping
racemes of rather conspicuous yellowish and somewhat
fragrant flow'ers. At an after period, the spreading sum-
mit of deep green leaves, each near a foot in diameter,
affords an impervious and complete shade. The fruit or
carpels are also larger than usual, and have the remark-
able character of being clothed, even when ripe, w-ith
strong hispid hairs. The flowers, irregular in the number
of their parts, present often as many as 10 sepals, in two
rows, and the same number of stamens. The carpels or
seed-vessels also grow sometimes as many as 3 together.

According to Loudon, specimens of the timber, which
were sent home by Douglas, exhibit a grain scarcely infe-
rior in beauty to the finest satin wood. A tree grown in
the London Horticultural Society’s Garden, had in 1835,
attained the height of 25 feet, and it makes, when well cul-
tivated, annual shoots of from 6 to 10 feet in length, and
plants are to be had in London at half a crown a-piece.
It deserves to be cultivated also in the United States, as it
is one of the most useful and ornamental trees of the genus,

80

ROUND LEAVED MAPLE.

and at the same time perfectly hardy in all temperate cli-
mates.

Plate LXVIL

A leaf of the natural size, a . The raceme of flowers, b. The fruit.

ROUND LEAVED MAPLE.

Acer circinatum ; foliis orbiculatis basi subcordatis 1-lobis incequaliter
acute-dentatis utrinque glabris , nervis venisque ad axillas pilosis .
Pursii. Flor. Amer. Sept. 1, p. 267. Hooker. Flor. Bor. Am. 1, p.
112, t. 39.

Acer circinatum ; leaves cordate, 7 to 9-lobed, the nerves all radiating
directly from the apex of the petiole ; lobes very acutely serrate, with a
slender acumination ; corymb few flowered ; petals ovate or linear,
shorter than the calyx; fruit glabrous, with oblong divaricate wings.
Torrey and Gray, Flor. Amer. 1, p. 247.

This remarkable species, like the preceding, is confined
to a narrow district along the coast of the Pacific, bounded,
according to the observations of Mr. Douglas, between the
latitudes of 43° and 49°. It is certain that we did not meet
with it in any part of Upper California, and it is therefore
fully as hardy as the preceding. Though much more
singular in mode of growth and general appearance, it
has nothing of its imposing grandeur. The trunk, which
is smooth, only attains the height of 15 to 40 feet. It
affects the lowest alluvial flats, that escape the influence of
the periodical inundations to which the rivers it borders
are subject ; here the stems arise in clusters of 4 or 5 toge-
ther, conjoined at the root, from whence they spread out in
wide curves, sending off slender spreading branches, that
often on touching the ground strike out roots, and give
rise to offsets so numerous and so entangled, as almost

Leer Cttt cilia tuia

fto Hiui Ucu edAlapl r.

UraMe Cirri ne.

.

.

u m, uii, '■

-

9

v

*

*

i

.

*

.

ROUND LEAVED MAPLE.

81

wholly to obstruct the progress of the hunter through the
forest, the dense shade it also produces excludes nearly
every other vegetable, and its curved and interlaced trunks,
like those of the Mangrove, form a kindred forest some-
times of several acres in extent. It is this singular tree,
chiefly in connection with the Large Leaved Maple, which
on descending the Oregon, at the Lower Falls, first pre-
sents us with the phenomena of a forest, and that too of
the most impervious shade, and which in low situations,
continues to accompany us even into the heart of the Pine
forest, to the shores of the Pacific.

According to Douglas, the wood is fine, white, close-
grained, tough, and susceptible of a good polish, and like
that of the Red Maple, it sometimes presents a beautiful
curled fibre. From the slender branches, the aborigines
make the hoops of their large scoop-nets employed in taking
the salmon at the rapids, and in the contracted parts of
the river to which they ascend.

The leaves of this species are of a delicate and thin con-
sistence, and from their nearly equal and numerous points,
with the straight direction of the ribs, present the appear-
ance of small outspread fans. At the extremities of the
twigs, when the leaves are almost fully grown, in the
month of May, come out the scattered clusters of flowers,
which at a little distance appear red from the colour of the
calyx. The fruit itself, or winged capsules, also appear of
a bright and lively red, and have a peculiarity in the direc-
tion of the wings, nearly at right angles with the peduncle
or flower stalk, which does not exist in any other of our
species.

Judging merely from the very brief specific character of
the Acer Septemlobum of Japan, as described by Thunberg,
we should imagine there existed in that species no inconsi-
derable affinity with our plant.

11

82

MOUNTAIN SUGAR MAPLE.

Plate LXVIII.

A twig of the natural size, a . The fertile flowers, b. The male do.

MOUNTAIN SUGAR MAPLE.

ACER grandidentatum, leaves slightly cordate or truncate at the base,
with a minute sinus ; pubescent beneath ; rather deeply 3-lobed, the
sinuses broad and rounded ; lobes acute with a few sinuous indenta-
tions ; corymb nearly sessile, few flowered ; the pedicels nodding ; fruit
glabrous, with small diverging wings. Nutt all in Torrey and Gray,
Flora, N. Amer. 1, p. 247. A . barbatum ? Dougl. in Hook. Flora,
Bor. Amer. 1. c. (not of Michaux.)

This species, nearly related to the Common Sugar
Maple, occurs in the high valleys of the Rocky Mountains,
nearly in the same situations with the Currant Leaved
species, forming small groves by themselves, remarkable
for the delicate paleness of their verdure, and filling, appa-
rently, situations occupied by scarcely any other forest
trees but the trembling and large toothed Poplars. They
never attain the magnitude of the true Sugar Maple, all
that we saw being mere saplings of 18 to 20 feet high,
and but little thicker than a man’s leg, with a smooth pale
bark. The leaves are also smaller, as well as the winged
capsules, and the leaves, when adult, are still rather softly
hairy beneath, and with both surfaces nearly of the same
colour ; the pedicels and base of the calyx are also hairy.
From the affinities of this species, there can be little doubt
but that it might be employed, as far as it goes, for all the
purposes to which the Sugar Maple is applicable, and pro-
bably in some of the richer and lower lands, it may attain
a sufficient grow'th for economical purposes.

This species is, doubtless, the Acer barbatum of Douglas,

) ! > l Al\

•J- 7. Fr&it/zs c£e£

Acer

6'uy<^'^%fayfe-

GraiicJideiitaluin

7, ’ S iricZaw l?7/i

E/radle cle l Mc?rUayrt / 6'

PLtXX

leer Drummonds

/traffic (/<’ fin tmTtuwd

2)r?zfKrn0n^JftwYt

DRUMMOND’S MAPLE.

83

not of Michaux, (which is indeed a nonentity made of frag-
ments of several species.) He found it growing in valleys,
near springs, on the West side of the Rocky Mountains,
near the sources of the Columbia. We also met with it in
a lofty ravine on the 3 Butes, tw’o days march to the west
of Lewis’s River. The real Sugar Maple is said by Torrey
and Gray, to grow as far west as Arkansas and the Rocky
Mountains.

Plate LXIX.

A branch of the natural size with the fruit.

DRUMMOND’S MAPLE.

ACER drummondii, foliis cordatis majusculis , 3-5 -lobatis subtus tomen-
tosis canescentibus lobis acutis fastigiatis incequaliter inciso-dentatis ,
'pedicellis elongatis , fructibus glabris , alls lato lanceolatis vix diver gen-
tibus.

Acer drummondii, Hooker and Arnott , in Journ. Botan. p. 199.

Acer rubrum, yl Torrey and Gray , Flora N. Amer. vol. 1, p. 684.

This fine species of Maple was discovered by Drum-
mond and Professor Carpenter, in Louisiana. It is found
exclusively in very low swamps, generally subject to inun-
dation, and flowers in February, 3 weeks earlier than any
other species in the same country, according to Professor
Carpenter; he met with it more particularly in the swamps
of Opelousas.

This tree, though allied to the Red Maple, appears to be
sufficiently distinct from that species, as well by its general
appearance as its geographical range, as yet being only
known to the swamps of Louisiana. I have also been told
of its existence in the province of Texas.

84 DRUMMOND’S MAPLE.

The bark of the small branches appears to be light
brown ; the young shoots, petioles, and the lower side of
the leaves, are clothed even when adult, with a white, soft,
and woolly pubescence, which when removed from the
foliage, leaves a glaucous surface ; above they are smooth.
The leaves are 3 to 4\ inches long, by 4 or 5 wide, with 3
to 5 rather short lobes, having acute sinuses, the lower
lobes are small and obtuse, the terminal ones acute, but
scarcely acuminate, and the central lobe scarcely longer
than the rest ; the base of the leaf, when fully grown, is
auriculated with a small sinus, the margin is irregularly
serrated and toothed, with the serratures and teeth distant
and often obtuse. The fruit situated on long smooth clus-
tered peduncles is at first divergent at an acute angle, at
length almost convergent by the inner enlargement of the
wing of the carpel, wdiich is broadly lanceolate, strongly
veined and confluent below, down to the juncture of the
fruit. The wings of the samara, are, at first, reddish, at
length brown. The adult samara is from 1J to If of an
inch long, and about | an inch wide.

Plate LXX.

A branch of the natural size, with a cluster of the fruit in a young state,

and the adult samara.

•

V

•

i'l l vyj

J. 7. /'renrJicAzZ

’/.Sinclairs &M.,

leer Triprlitam

( >z7T<mt fcarea' , &7Xt£r/e fr?y&astfr

85

CURRANT LEAVED MAPLE.

ACER tripartitum ; foliis subreniformi-orbicularis trifidis tripartite ve,
laciniis inciso-dentatis , medio cuneiformibus sublobatis , laterali sub -
rhomboidea , racemis corymbosis ; fructibus glabris, alls b'evissimis latis
cuneato-avalibus diver gentibus.

Acer tripartitum ; leaves with a subreniform orbicular outline, 3-cleft or
3-parted; segments incisely toothed; the middle one cuneiform, often
slightly lobed, the lateral ones somewhat rhomboidal ; racemes corym-
bose ; fruit glabrous, with very short and broad cuneate-oval diverging
wings. Nuttall in Torrey and Gray’s Flora Bor. Am. 1, p. 247.

This singular shrub, which we introduce into the Sylva
of the United States, to complete the history of the Maples,
was discovered in the Rocky Mountain range, in about the
latitude of 40°, within the line of Upper California, in the
narrow valleys and ravines occupying the lofty hills near
the borders of Bear River, which passes into the lake of
Timpanagos. It appeared to be a scarce species, confined
to an alpine region, for we found, by observing the boiling
point of water, that the plains themselves, stretching far
and wide like interminable meadows or steppes, were
elevated between 6 and 7000 feet above the level of the
ocean.

At a little distance, this diminutive species might have
been taken for a currant bush both in the size of the plant
and by its leaves. It formed small clumps on the declivities
of the mountains, where some moisture still remained amid
the drought which constantly prevails throughout the
summer in this western mountain tract. From the cool
and elevated region occupied by this species, it is certain
that it might be cultivated in all the temperate parts of
Europe and the United States, as a matter of curiosity, if
not of beauty. The leaves, divided down to the base, make

86

CURRANT LEAVED MAPLE.

an approach in habit to the genus Negundo or Box Elder,
though in other respects different.

The height of this species is not more than about 3 feet.
The leaves have petioles longer than themselves. The
branches are whitish, and smooth, as is every other part of
the plant ; the leaves of a dark glossy green. The winged
fruit is small, and in proportion with the reduced stature of
the species ; having the wings broad even at the base, so
as to leave between them an unusually small sinus. Bud
scales broad, ovate, villous within.

Japan again affords, apparently, an analogous species to
the present in the Acer trifidum of Thunberg, but in this
the leaves are also entire as well as trifid, and the divi-
sions themselves entire. It is also marked as becoming a
tree.

Plate LXXI.

A branch of the natural size.

DWARF MAPLE.

ACER glabrum ; foliis subrotundis , 3-5 -lobatis basi truncatis , lobis incisis
acute dentatis utrinque glabris , corymbis pedunculatis ; fr.jdctibus
glabris , alls erectis subobovatis brevibus ; petiolis foliis brevioribus .

Acer glabrum , Torrey, Am. Lyceum N. York 2, p. 172.

Acer glabrum ; leaves nearly orbicular, truncate or subcordate at base,
3 to 5 lobed; lobes short and broad, acutely incised and toothed;
flowers in a corymbose raceme, fruit glabrous, the wings very short and
broad, somewhat obovate, nearly erect. Torrey and Gray, Flor. N.
Amer. vol. 1. p. 247.

This diminutive species, closely related to the Currant
Leaved Maple, was met with in the Rocky Mountains, by

DWARF MAPLE.

87

Doctor James, in about the latitude of 40°. In size and
form, the leaves resemble the common currant, and are
somewhat smaller than in the preceding ; they are smooth,
and commonly 3-lobed, with very acute and narrow sinuses,
which scarcely extend dow 7 n to the middle of the leaf ; the
lobes are broader than long, blunt, and often subdivided
into 2 or 3 lesser parts. The petioles are shorter than the
leaves. The flowers about 6, in a short umbellate raceme.
Stamens and linear obtuse sepals, quite smooth. Stamens
about 8, with the same number of sepals. The wdngs of
the fruit approach the size of those of the European Acer
campestre , or a little shorter, but broader and more obtuse.
Douglas also found the same species, (according to T. &
Gray,) growing in the Blue Mountains of Oregon, which
are about 40 miles east of the Oregon or Columbia River.

We have not had an opportunity of figuring this species,
the specimens being too imperfect.

In regard to the geographical limits of the N. American
Maples ; the A . dasycarpum , or white maple, so abundant
along all the great western streams, also continues into the
western prairies as far as the banks of the Arkansas, till,
at length, stripped of its rich alluvial lands, it enters the
arid plains of the far West. It is also met with on the
banks of the Kansas and Big Vermillion river, west of the
Missouri, accompanied by the Negundo aceroides , or Box
Elder, which latter continues to the borders of the Platte.
It is now much cultivated as a shade tree in the streets of
our towns and cities, where it grow r s with rapidity, and is
not attacked by insects.

The Red Maple, (A. rubrum ,) which extends from the
Gulf of Mexico to Canada, is also, according to Douglas,
found west to the sources of the Oregon ; this fact, how-
ever, we have not been able to corroborate. A variety with
yellowish flowers, noticed by Marshall, is not unfrequent in

88

DWARF MAPLE.

the vicinity of Philadelphia, in New Jersey, and in Chester
County, according to Dr. Darlington. In this the leaves
are smaller and 3-lobed, and more or less tomentose be-
neath.

The Bearded Maple. (A. barlatum of Michaux), ac-
cording to Torrey and Gray, turns out to be a nonentity,
as it is founded upon the flowers of the Sugar Maple, the
fruit of the Red Maple, and a leaf (probably) of the Acer
spicatum or Mountain Maple !

Sugar Maple. (Acer saccharinum.') It is reported that
1,065,000 pounds of maple sugar have been made annually
of late, in New Hampshire, and that several of the counties
use it exclusively, raising some also for sale.

The Sugar Maple, in and about Warwick, Goshen, and
Edenville, in the state of New York, as well as in the
neighbouring parts of New Jersey, attains an unusually
large growth. Trees near Edenville may be seen which
are 80 to 90 feet high, and with a diameter of from 2, 3,
or even 4. feet. A very vigorous tree with a round. sum-
mit, clad nearly to the base with a dense and very shady
circle of branches, about 70 feet high, having a diameter
of 2 feet 10 inches, and yet a comparatively young and
vigorous tree, may be seen near the late Dr. Fowler’s house,
at Franklin Furnace, and several others in the same neigh-
bourhood appear equally beautiful and large. In the old
trees, the bark accumulating for ages, gives the trunk a
rough and shaggy appearance, almost equal to that of the
Shell-bark Hickory.

Of this genus, there are according to Decandolle, 1
species in Tartary, 5 in Europe, (excluding varieties
erected into species,) 6 in Japan; one with oblong acumi-
nate entire leaves in Nepaul, and specimens of 6 more
species in the Herbarium of the Academy of Natural

DWARF MAPLE.

89

Sciences of Philadelphia, collected also in Nepaul, by Dr.
Wallick, and probably in the region of the Himmalay
Mountains, of these the most remarkable is the Acer can-
datum, with unequally serrated 3-lobed leaves, having
slender acuminated points an inch or more in length.

90

NEGUNDO.

(Moench. Nutt. Gen. Am.) Agee, (Linn.)

Flowers dioecious.— Calyx minute 4 to 5-toothed. Petals none. Male,
Stamens 4 to 5, anthers linear and acuminate. Samara (or fruit)
similar to that of the Maple.

Trees of North America, with pinnate or twice trifoliate leaves, the
leaves ovate or lanceolate, toothed or incisely cleft, resembling those of
an Ash. Racemes of the male flowers short and aggregated, with filiform
pedicels. Fertile flowers racemose.

CALIFORNIAN BOX ELDER.

NEGUNDO californicum, foliis trifoliolatis pubescentibus junioribus
tomentosis, foliolis ovatis acuminatis trilobatis inciso-serratis ; fructibus
pubescentibus.

Negundo Californicum . Hook, and Aenott, Bot. Beechy. Suppl. p. 327,
t. 77. Torrey and Gray, Flora 1, p. 250 and 684.

Of this species, collected by Douglas in Upper California,
we know nothing from personal observation, not having
met with it in our visit to that country. It is remarkable
for the almost tomentose pubescence of its leaves, and the
petioles and young branchlets are said to be velvety; the
leaflets usually 3, are ovate acuminate, 3-lobed, cleft, and
serrated. The samara oblong, pubescent, rather shorter
than the oblique, obovate, and nearly erect wings of the
seed.

It appears there is yet a third species of this Genus,
called by Decandolle, Negundo Mexicanum, which has also
trifoliate leaves.

TMXX 2 U 1

Ni * uiimJn Cal ifor n i ( yu 1 11

n. Bc’a' & fas? 7*.

CALIFORNIAN BOX ELDER.
Plate LXXII.

91

A branch of the natural size in fruit, a. The male flowers.

Box Elder, ( Negundo aceroides .) This tree, on the low
alluvial borders of rivers, extends much farther to the north
than was supposed by Michaux. Richardson, Drummond,
and Douglas, found it to be abundant about the Red River
and Saskatchawan, which latter river, (in latitude 54°,) is
its most northern limit. It also occurs on the western
banks of the Missouri, and those of the streams which
enter it from the West. It likewise extends into the inte-
rior of Arkansas, and for some distance on the borders of
the Platte. According to Douglas, the Crow Indians manu-
facture Sugar from its sap, but it is not near as saccharine
as that of the Sugar Maple.

92

BUCKWHEAT THEE.

Natural Order, Malpighiaceae. (Juss.) Linncean Classi-
fication, Decandria Monogynia.

CLIFTONIA,* (Solander, herb. Banks and Gasrtner.)
Mylocarium, ( Willd. Enum.)

Calyx inferior, 5 -cleft. Petals 5, unguiculate. Stamens 10 , 5 of them
shorter, the filaments dilated at base ; anthers opening longitudinally.
Germ prismatic, 3 or 4 sided ; Stigma sessile, 3 or 4-lobed. Cajpsule
dilated, mostly 3-winged, 3-celled. Seed solitary.

A tree with alternate, entire, coriaceous, evergreen leaves, without stipules.
Flowers bracteolate, in terminal racemes, white tinged with a blush of red.

BUCKWHEAT TREE.

CLIFTONIA ligustrina. Mylocarium ligustrinum , Willd. Enum.

Hab. Berol. Pursh. Flor. Bor. Am. 1 , p. 302, t. 14. Elliott, Sketch

1, p. 508. Bot. Mag, t. 1625.

This elegant tree which enlivens the borders of the pine
barren swamps of the South, is met with no where to the
north of the Savannah river, on the line of Georgia and
South Carolina. From hence it is occasionally seen in all
the lower and maritime region of Georgia, as well as the
lower part of Alabama and West-Florida. It attains the
height of 8 to 15 or more feet, being much branched, and

# In honour of Dr. Francis Clifton, of London, a Fellow of the Royal
Society, and a medical writer of the last century.

PI. I, XXII I

V'-m-ess, <* 5 s£

Szsve/afs' Zit/z

J/zeab />W

Clittorua* liaustritia

’ /eJlt/ZfS’ tf&Trveru-

'

.

'

BUCKWHEAT TREE.

93

spreading out at the summit like an apple tree. The ver-
ticillate branches are regularly covered with a smooth
grey bark. The wood is compact and whitish. It is
exceedingly ornamental in flower, which takes place in
early Spring, in the month of March, when the whole sur-
face of the tree is covered with the most delicate, elegant,
and somewhat fragrant flowers. The borders of all the still
and sluggish streams, and the dark swamps of the South are
enlivened by the numerous trees of this species with which
they are interspersed. In the intervals of their shade, in
West Florida, we frequently saw growing and already in
flower, the Atamasco Lily, or Amaryllis of the North.

When the flowers are past, the tree puts on a still more
curious appearance, being loaded with triangular, winged
capsules resembling Buckwheat, and hence its common
name. The leaves resemble those of Privet, are evergreen,
thick, very smooth, not perceptibly veined, and glaucous
beneath.

In the Spring of 1773, the indefatigable Wm. Bartram
discovered this tree, where I afterwards also saw it grow-
ing, on the borders of the Savannah River, in Georgia.
He thus very clearly decribes it, as “ a new shrub of great
beauty and singularity. It grows erect, 7 or 8 feet high.
A multitude of stems arise from its root, there divide them-
selves into ascending branches, which are garnished with
abundance of narrow lanceolate obtuse pointed leaves, of a
light green, smooth and shining. These branches with
their many subdivisions, terminate in simple racemes of
pale incarnate flowers, which make a fine appearance
among the leaves. The flowers are succeeded by desic-
cated triquetrous pericarpi, each containing a single ker-
nel.” (Bartram’s Travels, page 31.) How so fine a plant
came to be overlooked for near half a century, is really
surprising, considering the avidity of collectors and gar-
deners. In the northern States and in Britain, it is a hardy

94

BUCKWHEAT TREE.

greenhouse plant, and well worth cultivating. But to see
it in perfection, you must behold it in its native swamps,
attaining the magnitude of a tree, and blooming profusely
on the verge of winter, without any thing near it as a con-
trast, save a withered carpet of leaves and leafless plants,
and in the midst of a gloom and solitude that scarcely any
thing else at the time relieves.

In Bartram’s Botanic Garden, (Kingsessing), it appeared
to be quite hardy, and survived for many years without
any protection.

Plate LXXIII.

A branch of the natural size, the fruit.

95

C YE ILL A.

Natural Order , Cyrille^.* ( Torrey and Gray , in note,
FJor. N. Amer. L, p. 256.) Erice^e, (Jussieu.) Linncean
Classification , Pentandria, Monogynia.

CYRILLA.f (Richard, in Mich. Dr. Garden and Linn,
excluding the fruit.)

Calyx 5-parted, persistent, the divisions small, ovate-lanceolate acute.
Petals 5, sessile, lanceolate and acute, thick and convex in the centre,
exceeding the length of the calyx. Stamens 5, about the length of the
petals, the filaments subulate, anthers cordate, distinct, 2-celled, opening
longitudinally. Ovary , superior, oval, with a short style, and 2, or
rarely 3 thick obtuse stigmas ; ovules solitary, suspended. Pericarp
oval, small, at first somewhat fleshy indehiscent, at length suberose, 2-
celled, the cells 1 -seeded, and the seed pendulous from the summit of
the cells.

* To this genus, as a natural groupe, Torrey and Grey refer also the
Cliftonia , ( Mylocarium , Willd.,) as well as the Elliottia of Muhlenberg,
and the whole are considered as a sub-order of Ericaceae. Of Elliottia,
however, I conceive we know too little to be able to decide on its natural
affinities, it will probably remain near Clethra in Ericaceae. Cliftonia
appears to be inseparable from the Malpighiace^e. The only genus, then,
at present embraced in this order, is that of Cyrilla, which without any
real affinity to the Ericaceae, is allied to the Malpighiace^ by its fruit.
The description of the genus, for the present, may be considered also as
that of the order. The fruit of some other plant than the present, is de-
scribed by Linnaeus, Schreber, Willdenow, L’Heritier, and Duhamel ; as
they give a bilocular, bivalvular capsule, containing many small angular
seeds. It is to Richard, in Michaux, that we owe the first correct descrip-
tion of the fruit of Cyrilla.

t In honour of Dominico Cyrilli, professor of Medicine, at Naples, and
a botanical author.

96

CAROLINA CYRILLA.

CYRILLA racemiflora, foliis cuneato-lanceolatis , viz acutis , sub-mem*
branaceis , glabris , petalis calyce triplo bngioribus medio convexis.
Cyrilla racemiflora . Linn. Mantis, p. 50. Walter. Flor. Carol, p.
103. Willd. Sp. PL 1. c. Elliott, Sketch, I. p. 294. Nouv. Du-
ll amel, yol. 1, p. 215, t. 46.

Cyrilla racemifera , Vandell. Florul. Lusitan. et Bresil, specim. 88.
Cyrilla Caroliniana. Richard in Mich. Flor. Bor. Amer. 1, p. 158.
Persoon 1 , p. 175.

Itea Cyrilla . L’Herit. Stirp. vol. 1, p. 137, tab. 66. Swartz, Prod .
p. 50. Sp. pi. 1, p. 1146.

This very elegant tree begins to appear in the low
humid woods and pine barrens of South Carolina, in
swampy places, where it attains the height of 12 to 20
feet, with a diameter of 8 to 10 inches, and is sometimes
so loaded with its numerous racemes of white flowers that
we can scarcely perceive the leaves. It is in fact one of
the most beautiful trees of the southern forests, and is there-
fore often preserved in the vicinity of habitations as an
ornament. It continues to be met with throughout Georgia
and the Floridas ; reappears in the West Indies, and was
discovered by Vellozo in Brazil. According to Michaux
the elder, there is also a second species, ( Cyrilla Antil-
lcma,') with laurel-like leaves in the Antilles.

From the name of Iron-Wood sometimes given to it by
the English, it would appear that the wood is hard and
close-grained, but no experiments have yet been made
upon it. In Bartram’s Botanic Garden, at Kingsessing, in
this vicinity, it is perfectly hardy ; there is now growing
there a tree near upon 20 feet high, and 2 feet 2 inches in
circumference. The bark on the old trunks is of a reddish

I M. L XX IV.

Cvrilla racewiflora

i'artfwiay i YriZZa,

fyn/Ze de 62 zn>fa?f.'

CAROLINA CYRILLA.

97

brown colour, in layers of about a line in thickness, of a
soft, elastic, fibrous and friable consistence, almost like
Agaric, and may be used like that substance as a styptic.

The tree presents a widely spreading bright green sum-
mit, and the branches come out in a circular order, present-
ing numerous slender twigs. The leaves are alternate,
rather narrow and lanceolate, very entire, sometimes oblan-
ceolate, nearly perennial. The flowers are small but very
numerous, disposed in slender pendulous racemes, producing
a very graceful effect, and these racemes are clustered at
the extremities of the branches of the former season. The
petals are three times as long as the calyx, inserted with-
out claws at the base of the germ, and have each an oblong,
convex elevation or thickening of the petal on the lower
part. The filaments alternate with the petals, and are
somewhat shorter. The anthers are incumbent, cordate,
2-celled, bifid at the base. Style short, the stigmas 2 and
obtuse. The pericarp of an oval form, never opens, is 2-
celled, the sides filled with a dry spongy granular pulp,
and with a single ovate seed in each cell.

Plate LXXIV.

A branch of the natural size. a. The flower enlarged.

13

98

MAHOGANY.

(Mahagon, Fr.)

Natural Order , Cedrele^e. (R. Brown.) Linncean Classi-
fication. , Decandria, Monogynia.

SWIETENIA * (Linn.)

Calyx minute, 4 to 5-lobed, deciduous. Petals 4 or 5. Stamina 8 to 10,
united into a subcampanulate 10 toothed tube, internally antheriferous.
j Style short ; stigina discoid, dentate. Capsule ovoid, large and woody,
5-celled, many seeded, opening from the base upwards, with 5 marginal
valves ; the axis large, persistent, pentangular above, 5-winged below
with the partitions of the valves. Seeds , alated, pendulous, about 12 in
each cell, imbricated in a double series. Embryo transverse. Coty-
ledons confluent in and confounded with the fleshy albumen.

Trees of warm or tropical climates, chiefly India and America, with
hard dark reddish wood. The leaves abruptly pinnated, mostly with un-
equal sided leaflets. Flowers in axillary or somewhat terminal loose
panicles.

* Named by Jacquin, in honour of Gerard L. B. Yon Swieten , archiater
to Maria Teresa, Empress of Germany, who, at his persuasion, founded
the Botanic Garden at Vienna.

/

*

I

P1LXXY.

T/h French <F7

>Swieti7iia Malioponi

Ifor/e^Mj- Tree . UFmaw huir^uc

y sirfc/cu/wiiy/i

99

MAHOGANY TREE.

SWIETENIA mahogoni, foliis subquadrijugis , foliolis ovato-lanceolatis
falcatis acuminatis basi incequalibus , racemis axillaribus paniculatis.
— Linn. Sp. pi. Decand. Prod. vol. 1, p. 625. Cavan. Dissert, vol.
7, p. 365, t. 209. Jacq. Amer. (Ed. picta), p. 127. Catesby, Carol,
vol. 2, t. 81. Adr. Jussieu, Mem. Mus. vol. 19, p. 249, t. 11. La-
marck, Encyc. vol. 3, p. 678. Hook. Bot. Miscel. vol. 1, p. 21, t. 16.
Torr. & Gray, Flor. vol. 1, p. 242.

Cedrela foliis pinnatis , floribus spar sis , ligno graviori . Brown, Jam.
p. 158.

Cedrus mahogoni. Miller, Diet. No. 2.

The late Doctor Muhlenberg was the first to announce
the existence of the Mahogany tree within the limits
of the United States, and he gives it in his catalogue
as a native of Florida. Torrey and Gray add in their
Flora, “We have seen in the herbarium of the late Mr.
Croom, a capsule from a collection made in Southern Flo-
rida by the late Doctor Leitner, who considered the tree
to which it belonged to be the true Mahogany,” 1, p. 242.
In one of those botanical excursions to explore the wilds
of Florida, in which he had previously been so eminently
successful, the indefatigable Leitner fell a victim to the
savage hostility which has now so long been protracted
over that devoted soil. He ascended a creek into the inte-
rior, — and was seen no more !

. . . facilis descensus Averno.

Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere auras,

Hoc opus, hie labor est.

jENEID. lib. YI.

The Mahogany tree is said to be of rapid growth, be-
coming a lofty tree, with a graceful spreading summit,

100

MAHOGANY TREE.

the stern attaining very large dimensions, acquiring a
diameter of 5 or 6 feet. It grows in the warmest parts
of America, as in Cuba, Jamaica, St. Domingo, Aca-
pulco on the Pacific, Realijo in Guatemala, and the
Bahama islands, and generally affects a rocky soil or
the sides of mountains, growing often in places almost
absolutely deprived of earth. The seeds germinate in the
clefts of rocks, and when the roots meet any insurmount-
able impediment, they spread out and creep till they find
entrance into other clefts into which they can penetrate,
and sometimes it happens that the increasing dimensions
of the roots succeed so far as to split the rocks themselves.
Such trees in the Bahama islands, growing so contorted for
want of soil, produce the much esteemed and curiously
veined wood, known in Europe as “ Madeira wood.” In
Jamaica it is also a common tree on the plains or lower
hill sides, and Dr. Macfadyen remarks, in that island he
had never met with it at an elevation above 3000 feet, nor
very close to the sea shore. In some of the islands it is
now rare in the neighbourhood of the sea, because of its
convenience for embarkation, and it is cut down of all
ages, without any forethought for the future.

Doctor Macfadyen, speaking of the Mahogany of Ja-
maica says, “ It is at present much more scarce than it
appears to have formerly been. It was from this island
that the supply for Europe was in former times principally
obtained, and the old Jamaica Mahogany is still considered
superior to any that can now be procured from other coun-
tries. In 1753, according to Dr. Browne, 521,300 feet in
planks, were shipped from this island, but at present very
little is exported from it. It was formerly so plentiful as
to be applied to the commonest purposes ; such as planks,
boards, shingles, &c.” “The beauty of the Mahogany
wood, is said to have been first discovered by a carpenter
on board of Sir Walter Raleigh’s vessel, at the time the

MAHOGANY TREE.

101

ship was in harbour at Trinidad, in 1595.” The first use
to which it was applied in England, was the humble one of
forming a candle-box, and about the end of the 17th cen-
tury, it was brought into notice by Dr. Gibbons, a London
physician, who had received planks of it from his brother,
commanding a vessel in the West India trade. Since
which time it has been employed for costly furniture, and
occupies the most distinguished place in the drawing-rooms
of nobility and fashion, quite supplanting the old oaken
tables and domestic panelling of antiquity.

The most beautiful wood for variety of figure and agree-
able accident, is obtained from sections of the base of the
stem and root. No other wood can rival it for diversity
of shades, presenting spots, waves and clouds, more varied
even than the tortoise shell, which it so much resembles.
Its superior density also allows it to acquire the highest
polish of which any wood is susceptible.

The principal supply of Mahogany is now obtained from
Honduras ; but it is of a very inferior quality, being open
grained, light and porous, and of a paler and inferior colour.
Trees, it seems, grown in low or alluvial lands, never give
a rich and hard wood. Hence the Mahogany of St. Do-
mingo and that of the Bahama Islands, is considered supe-
rior to what is at present exported from Jamaica. It was
formerly employed by the Spaniards of Havanna in ship-
building, and it is said to be unattacked by worms, to
endure long in water, and to receive the bullet without
splitting. Mr. Grout, cabinet maker, in Philadelphia, so
curious in our native woods, has favoured me with a speci-
men of Mahogany from East Florida, remarkable for its
waving spots, which almost exactly resemble those of the
Bird’s Eye Maple.

The bark of the Mahogany is astringent, and considered
useful in diarrhoea; indeed it resembles that of the Cin-
chona in colour and taste, though somewhat more bitter.

102 * MAHOGANY TREE.

It has been given with success in powder, as a substitute
for Peruvian Bark.*

The leaves of the Mahogany have a very light, airy and
graceful appearance, feathered or pinnate, in 3 to 5 pairs
of leaflets, ending abruptly without any terminal one.
They are remarkable for their obliquity or the inequality
of their sides, the lower portion of the leaf from the mid-
rib not being more than half as wide as the upper, they
are quite entire, smooth, shining, and coriaceous like the
laurel, being probably of long duration, and giving the tree
the character of an evergreen ; their form is between ovate
and lanceolate, with a very slender and sharply acuminated
point ; the general footstalk is about an inch and a half
long. The flowers are small and greenish-yellow, disposed
in loose, axillary, long pedunculated panicles, 3 to 4 inches
long and pendent. The flowers and their mode of growth
are a good deal like those of the Melia, or Pride of India,
but they are smaller. The calyx is minute, with 5 very
shallow lobes. Petals oblong-ovate. Tube of the sta-
mens cylindric-campanulate, 10 toothed, internally a little
below the summit, bearing the anthers, which are small,
yellow, and alternating with the teeth of the tube. A short
denticulate disc encircles the base of the ovary. Ovary
ovate, green; style cylindrical; the stigma peltate, with
5 denticulations. Capsule egg-shaped, the size of an
orange, rufous-brown, minutely tuberculated, 5-celled,
opening with 5 valves from the base, covered within with
a distinct coriaceous plate. Receptacle central, large, pen-
tagonal, with the angles prominent, opposite, and meeting
up with the edges of the valves, so as to form the septa of
the cells; seeds at the apex of the receptacle, 15 in each
cell, compressed, truncated at base, expanded at the sum-
mit into a membranaceous, oblong wing.

7 o O

* Macfadyen , Flora Jamaic. p. 177 .

MAHOGANY TREE.

103

'I o show the present extensive use of Mahogany in Eng-
land, it may be sufficient to mention that in 1829, the im-
portation amounted to 19,335 tons.

In Cuba and Honduras, it becomes one of the most
majestic of trees, growing and increasing for some centu-
ries. Its gigantic trunk throws out such massive arms,
and spreads the shade of its shining green leaves over
such a vast surface, that all other trees appear insignifi-
cant in the comparison. A single log not unfrequently
weighs 6 or 7 tons, and a tree has been known to contain
as much as 12,000 superficial feet, and to have produced
upwards of 1000/. sterling. The largest log ever cut in
Honduras, was 17 feet long, 57 inches broad, and 5 feet 4
inches in depth; measuring 5,168 superficial feet, or 15
tons weight.

The Mahogany of Honduras* is cut about the month of
August, by gangs of men of from 20 to 50 each. The
woods are penetrated and surveyed from the summit of
some lofty tree, and the leaves at this season having ac-
quired a yellow reddish hue, are discerned by an accus-
tomed eye at a great distance. The trees are commonly
cut 10 or 12 feet from the ground, a stage being erected
for the purpose. The trunk from the dimensions of the
wood it furnishes, is deemed the most valuable ; but for
ornamental purposes, the limbs, or branches, are generally
preferred.

A sufficient number of trees being felled to occupy the
gang during the season, they commence cutting the roads
upon which they are to be transported. This may fairly
be estimated at two-thirds of the labour and expense of
Mahogany cutting. Each mahogany work forms in itself
a small village on the bank of a river, — the choice of situ-

# Supposed by Mr. R. Browne to be a peculiar species, on the authority
of Brown’s Hist, of Jamaica.

104

MAHOGANY TREE.

ation being always regulated by the proximity of such river
to the mahogany intended as the object of future operation.

These roads are cleared out by the cutlass and the axe,
in the same manner that the first roads in our back forests
are made; bridges have also to be constructed. The trunks
of the trees are then cut into square logs. April and May,
being the driest season in this climate, is chosen as the
only time when the logs can be drawn to their destination
from the interior of the forest. Each truck requires 7 pair
of oxen and 2 drivers, and 12 to lead or put the logs on
the carriages. From the intense heat of the sun, the cattle
especially, would be unable to work during its influence,
and consequently the loading and carriage of the timber is
performed in the night. On the rise of the rivers at the
close of May, the logs are floated down to their destination
and finally shipped from Belize in Honduras to Europe.

Plate LXXV.

A branch in flower of the natural size, a . The capsule, b. The seed.

105

0 RANGE TREE.

(L’Oranger, Fr.)

Natural Order , Aurantiaceje, (Correa.) Linncean Classi-
fication , POLYANDRIA M9NOGYNIA.

CITRUS * (Linn.)

Calyx 5-cleft, persistent. Petals 5 or more, oblong, spreading. Stamens ,
filaments about 20 to 60, forming a cylinder and disposed in several
sets. Germ superior, style cylindrical with a capitate stigma. Berry
many-celled, inclosed by a fleshy glandular rind, the cells 9 to 18, sepa-
rated from each other by membranous envelopes, pulp watery, contained
in numerous utricular vesicles. Seeds oblong, attached to the inner
angle of the cell, albumen none. Pmbryo straight, the seed leaves or
cotyledones large and thick, often more than 2.

Trees or shrubs of tropical or mild climates, chiefly indigenous to
eastern Asia, India, and China, with a single species in Guiana, (tropical
America.) Leaves alternate, solitary, articulated to the summit of a
petiole which is usually margined or alated, the axils of the leaves, in the
uncultivated state, usually produce simple spines.

* Derived from Ktrpioc, the Lemon, and airptov, the Citron, which among
the Greeks and Romans included also the Cedar or some similar tree,
which they probably associated from the fragrance of its wood.

14

106

WILD ORANGE TREE.

CITRUS vulgaris, (Risso) petiolis alatis , foliis ellipticis acutis crenu -
latis, floribus icosandris , fructuum globosarum cortice tenui scabroso ,
pulpa acri amara. Dec and. Prod. I. p. 539. Risso, Annal. Mus. vol.
20, p. 190.

Citrus Aurantium Indicum. Gall. citr. p. 122.

Citrus Bigarradia. Nouv. Duhamel, vol. 7, p. 99.

Bigarade of the French, or Bitter Orange.

Citrus spinosissima ? Meyer, Essequib. p. 247.

Aurantium vulgar e, acre ; primum . Farrarius, Hesper. p. 374.
Aurantium sylvestre , medulla acri . Tournefort’s Institutes^ p. 620.
Malm Aurantia sylvestris , J. Bauhin, Hist. vol. 1, p. 99.

From the relation of William Bartram, in his Travels
up the St. John’s in East Florida, in the year 1774, it is
evident that the Orange tree is abundantly indigenous to
the banks of that stream. Groves of Orange trees, of large
dimensions, loaded with their golden fruit, spread them-
selves before the traveller in the greatest profusion, and he
might readily imagine himself transported in reality to the
gardens of the Hesperides. As the Orange was there found
an established denizen of the country, previous to all Euro-
pean settlement, we must of course conclude it to be, like
the banana and some other tropical productions, a native
alike of both the old and the new continent. These forests
of the Wild Orange trees are frequent in East Florida as
far north as the latitude of 28°. According to the observa-
tions of the late Mr. Croom, “ they are rarely found north
of latitude 29° 30', although there is a small grove near the
Alligator Pond, which is somewhat north of latitude 30°.
The fruit, (according to Torrey and Gray,) is known by the
name of the Bitter-Sweet Orange.

To show the extent of these groves, in a notice of the

PI L XX VI

Seaway e

Wllc£ Tree

Citrus nil Jans

' -

,

■

*

'

.

. 1

■/

■

WILD ORANGE TREE.

107

town of New Smyrna, Bartram observes, “ I was there
about 10 years ago, (1764), when the surveyor run the
lines of the colony, where there was neither habitation nor
cleared field. It was then a famous Orange grove, the
upper or south promontory of a ridge nearly half a mile
wide, and stretching north about 40 miles,” &c. All this
was one entire Orange grove, with Live Oaks, Magnolias,
Palms, Red Bays, and others. (Bartram’s Travels, in a
note to page 144.) On page 253, he also remarks, “I have
often been affected with extreme regret, at beholding the
destruction and devastation which has been committed, or
indiscreetly exercised on those extensive fruitful Orange
groves, on the banks of St. Juan, by the new planters under
the British government, some hundred acres of which, at
a single plantation, have been entirely destroyed, to make
room for the Indigo, Cotton, Corn,” &c.

In the forests of Essequibo there appears to be a variety
of this species of Orange, equally indigenous with the pre-
sent, it is also wild about Vera Cruz, and near Mexico and
Panuco,* and is indigenous in Porto Rico, Barbadoes,
and the Bermudas, as well as in Brazil, and St. Jago of
the Cape Verd Islands. Hughes also speaks of it in
his time as being natural in the W’oods at Orange Bay in
Jamaica, both the sweet and sour kinds in great plenty.
The specimens which I have seen brought from East Flo-
rida, by Mr. James Reed, are evidently referable to the
present species, the Orange of India, though we have not
had the satisfaction of seeing any specimen of the fruit;
but, according to Bartram, the taste is sufficiently grateful,
as he made use of it to season and add a relish to his
animal food.

India is the native country of the Orange now so gene-
rally naturalized in the south of Europe, particularly along

* Phillips in Hakluyt’s Voyages, 1. c.

108

WILD ORANGE TREE.

the coast of the Mediterranean. About Nice all the known
species and varieties of this grateful fruit are cultivated in
perfection. The Orange has also been supposed to be a
native of the Hesperides, or Canary Islands, and its fruit
to be the golden apples, which the daughters of Hesperus
caused to be so strictly guarded by a watchful dragon. Under
this idea, Ventenat changed the name of the natural order
to which it belongs from Aurantise to Hesperidse, an inno-
vation more poetic than philosophical, and which has not
been adopted.

The Lemon appears to have been the first of the genus
which was introduced into Europe. Theophrastus, and
after him Pliny, speak of a fruit known under the name of
the Apple of Persia, or of Media. Virgil in his Georgies,
extols the happy effects supposed to be produced by the
use of the Apple of Media.

. . . Animos et olentia Medi

Ora fovent illo, et senibus medicantur anhelis.

Georg. Lib. 2.

The Phocians are supposed to have been the first who
planted this tree on the coast of the Mediterranean, when
they founded the city of Marseilles. In the 11th century
the Seville Orange was already spread through all the
islands of the Mediterranean, and in the 13th century it
was established about Nice. The species of Orange of
which we are now treating, (the Bigaradier of the French,)
appears to have been introduced from India into Europe by
the Arabs, who cultivate it in all the countries subjected to
their dominion. The Citron passed from Egypt into Europe
in the time of the Crusades. According to the testimony
of one of the Arabian writers, it was from Phenicia that the
golden Orange was conveyed to the gardens of Seville.
No traveller has in a positive manner established the
native country of the true Orange ; and it is nearly alike

WILD ORANGE TREE.

109

whether we should attribute it to Japan or the islands of
the Pacific, more particularly the Philippines.

The duration of the Orange tree, in the countries where
it is indigenous, is no doubt very great. Many of those
cultivated in the maritime Alps of France, are more than
250 years of age; and according to Risso, a wind from the
S. S. E. in February 1807, overturned in the commune of
Esa, citron trees which were more than 500 years old.
Tamara and Ferrarius both describe an Orange tree,
planted in the year 1200 by Saint Dominick, in the garden
of the convent of Saint Sabine in Rome, which is said still
to exist.

The Orange is considered the most beautiful tree of
Europe ; the majesty and regularity of its form, the bril-
liant and unfading green of its graceful foliage, its white
and fragrant flowers, and splendid fruit, strike the beholder
with admiration. Its beauty is not transient like that of
ordinary orchard trees, but nearly throughout the year it
is luxuriantly adorned with flowers and fruit. The culti-
vated Orange attains the height of 25 to 30 feet, with a
circumference of 2 or 3 feet. The wild Orange of Florida,
however, acquires a greater height than those which I
have observed in cultivation in the Azores. The wood is
compact, close and fine grained, very hard, and suscep-
tible of a fine polish, slightly veined, and suitable for inlaid
work. The wood of the Wild or Bitter Orange is pre-
ferred by chemists because of its superior density. The
leaves have also a more powerful odor, distilled they give
a bitter aromatic water, known in Languedoc by the name
of PEau de Naples. By the same operation is also ob-
tained an essential oil of a better quality than that from
the leaves of the true orange. The Orange-Flower Water ,
a well known perfume, is obtained also from this species.
It is praised for its cordial virtues, and as a cephalic, vermi-
fuge, and antispasmodic. The fruit is made great use of

110

WILD ORANGE TREE.

for seasoning fish and meats, and to give a relish to various
sauces. A wine is also made from the juice of the sweet
Orange, mixed with the extract of the peel fermented, which
keeps a long time, and when old acquires the taste of the
Malvoisie of Madeira.

The smell of the Orange flower is almost universally es-
teemed, it is salutary and refreshing, and is unrivalled for its
excellent perfume. The juice of the fruit is equally grateful,
it allays heat and thirst, and by promoting various excre-
tions, proves of considerable use in febrile and inflamma-
tory diseases. The outer yellow rind of the Seville Orange
is a grateful aromatic bitter, tending to improve the appe-
tite, and it is employed in making the well known conserve,
marmalade.

In the Azores, the cultivation of the Orange as an article
of commerce, is of great importance to the inhabitants, and
every means are employed for its success. The trees in
Fayal are defended from the severe sea breezes by very
high stone walls, and plantations of young trees are de-
fended for several years by rows of the Faya {Myrica Faya,)
planted between them, and though the trees there rarely
attain a greater height than 20 or 25 feet, they spread out
many large branches and sometimes a single tree has pro-
duced as many as 6000 Oranges. The best kind brought
to the European markets are those from the island of St.
Michael. They have an even shining rind with a deli-
ciously sweet and agreeable pulp.

As I have already remarked, a specimen of the Wild
Orange from Florida, is in no way distinguishable from the
Citrus vulgaris of Asia, it has the same elliptic leaves, with
alated peduncles, small axillary spines, and axillary and
terminal white flowers on short peduncles, with 20 stamens.

Plate LXXVI.

A branch of the natural size, with the fruit.

PI LXXVII

,/ 7. French v£?£

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Ye// iw n&werefZ //(tYra/tv/res

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C/l&ytej / ° jauAJ'it

Ill

balsam tree.

Natural Order, Guttiferas, (Juss.) Linncean Classifica-
tion, PoLYANDRIA MoNOGYNIA.

CLUSIA* (Linn.)

Calyx of 4 to 8 sepals imbricated and coloured. Corolla of 4 to 8 petals.
Stamens numerous. Style none. Stigma radiately peltate. Flowers
commonly polygamous, with the fertile ovary surrounded by a short
thick nectary. Capsule fleshy, coriaceous, 5 to 12 valved, opening at
the apex ; placentse triangular, united into a central column, each one
attached to the introflected valvules. Seeds terete; cotyledones sepa-
rable.

Parasitical trees of tropical America, with opposite coriaceous entire leaves
without stipules.

YELLOW FLOWERED BALSAM TREE.

CLUSIA flava, floribus polygamis , calyce polyphyllo , corolla tetrapetala
Jiava , staminibus numerosis brevibus , stigmatibus circiter 12, foliis
obovatis obtusis aliquando emarginatis , breviter petiolatis striatis. De-
cand. Prod. vol. 1, p. 559.

Clausa flava, foliis aveniis , corollis tetrapetalis . Linn. Syst. Veg.

vol. 4, p. 328. Jacq. Stirp. Amer. p. 272, t. 167.

* Named in honour of Charles de l’Ecluse, a celebrated botanist of the
16th century.

112 YELLOW FLOWERED BALSAM TREE*

Clusia arbor ea, foliis crassis , nitidis , obovato-subrotundis ; floribm soli -

tariis. Brown, Jam. p. 236.

Terebinthus folio singular i^ non alato , rotundo succulento ; fiore tetrape -
pallide luteo , fruclu majore , monopijreno . Sloane, Jam. p. 167.

Hist. vol. 1 , p. 91, t. 200, f. 1 .

This singular and splendid tree is a native of Jamaica,
and Cayenne in South America, where it is found among
rocks on the declivities of mountains. We have now also
to record it as a native of Key West in Florida, where it
has recently been found with so many other tropical pro-
ductions by Dr. Blodgett. It grows to the height of about
20 feet or upwards, and like other kindred species of the
genus, is parasitic on the trunks or limbs of other trees, a
habit supposed to be occasioned by birds accidentally scat-
tering the viscid seeds, which take root like those of the
Misseltoe ; when having obtained a considerable size, the
roots creep along the surface of the tree in quest of nourish-
ment and support, penetrating into any decayed cavity of
the supporting trunk, and finally reaching the ground
though at forty feet distance, where now, at length, per-
manently fixed, it becomes a large and independent tree.
A viscid or resinous balsamic whitish juice exudes from
every part of the tree when cut, which becomes red or
brownish when exposed to the air, and hardens like other
gums or colophony. As yet this substance has been
applied to no useful purpose more than as a dressing to the
sores of horses, and by the Indians is mixed with tallow to
pay their boats to prevent leakage.

The leaves of this plant as well as those of C. rosea and
C. alba are very remarkable in their form and appearance ;
being very smooth and of a thick leathery consistence,
wedge-shaped or inversely oval, 5 or 6 inches long by about 4
wide, entire or slightly repand at the summit, which is round-
ed, they are insensibly narrowed downwards to a thick
petiole about half an inch in length, and marked beneath

YELLOW FLOWERED BALSAM TREE. H3

with many transverse ascending veins which are scarcely
perceptible at the surface, all inosculating together near
the border. The flowers are shortly pedunculate, axillary
and terminal, solitary or by 3’s on the same peduncle.
The calyx is almost quadrangular, composed of 16 sepals,
disposed in 4 ranks ; they are somewhat rounded and con-
cave, the inner series gradually becoming larger. The
corolla is pale yellow, of 4 oval petals somewhat un-
guiculated, very thick, two of them larger than the others.
Stamens very numerous, on short thick filaments, nearly
in 4 rows round the germ, with the anthers distinctly 2-
lobed. The germ is very small, with a thick 12 rayed,
almost capitate stigma, with 4 lateral appendages. The
capsule with 12 cells and 12 thick valves containing nume-
rous oblong seeds, enveloped in a soft pulp and attached to
a large oblong 12 furrowed placenta or receptacle. The
fruit is about the size of a fig with something of its form,
and hence it is known to the Negroes by the name of the
Wild Fig. (Macfadyen.)

Plate LXXVIL

A small branch with the leaves reduced to about one-half their natural

size.

15

114

TORCH WOOD.

(Balsamier, Fr.)

Natural Order , Amyridace^e, (R. Brown). Linncean Clas-
sification, OcTANDRIA MoNOGYNIA.

AMYRIS* (Linn.)

Calyx 4-toothed, persistent. Petals 4, oblong, spreading, imbricated in
the bud. Stamens 8, shorter than the petals. Stigma sessile, obtuse and
indistinct. Drupe 1 -seeded, with a chartaceous nut.

Trees or shrubs of tropical America, with opposite compound leaves,
mostly of a single pair, or trifoliate pinnate ; the leaflets as well as the
drupe filled with pellucid aromatic glands. Flowers white, in terminal,
trichotomous panicles.

FLORIDA TORCH WOOD.

AMYRIS floridana, foliis brevi-petiolatis , foliolis X-jugis cum impari
ovatis integerrimis obtusiusculis subacuminatis nitidis , panicutis ter-
minations abbreviatis , drupa subglobosa basi angustata .

Amyris Floridana , Nutt, in Sillim. Journ. vol. 5, p. 294. Decand.
Prod. 2, p. 81. Torrey & Gray, Flora of North Amer. 1 p. 221.

This plant forms a small evergreen tree, about 15 to 20
feet high, and like most of the genus, affects the borders of
the sea. Major Ware first found this species in some part

# The name is derived from ^ vppu , Myrrh , in allusion to the gum or
resin afforded by different species of the genus.

t'L.LXX.Vin.

VUywcZcui’-f ItfJL-

ffl&ru/iX To 7'\ ‘/is // b(>(/

A mvris b’londaita

Jbalrantw o/es / y %c/7 r ?£?e s’

■

■

FLORIDA TORCH WOOD.

115

of East Florida, no doubt near the coast ; and fine speci-
mens have been collected on the shores of Key West, by
Dr. Blodgett.

The general appearance of this elegant tree, and its lucid
leaves almost remind one of the myrtle; the leaves, always
growing by 3’s, are equally filled with aromatic, oily reser-
voirs, looking like pellucid dots when viewing the leaf as
held up to the light. They are opposite, on petioles of
about i an inch in length ; the petiole of the central leaflet
of the three is also about the same extent ; the leaflets are
short, about 1 to 1| inches long, by an inch in width,
perfectly entire, of a broad ovate form, shortly acuminate,
with the point mostly obtuse, but slightly apiculated ;
beneath dull and paler, above reticulately veined and shin-
ing. The flowers are small and yellowish white, in termi-
nal, shortish, oppositely branched panicles. The calyx is
minute, and 4 toothed. The petals 4, oval-oblong, concave,
spreading and glandular beneath. Stamens 8, shorter than
the petals, with long, white, oblong-linear 2-celled anthers,
which open lengthways. The germ is ovate, with a small,
sessile, concave stigma. The berry is black and glaucous
with a bloom, narrowed below, about the size of a grain of
black pepper, and covered with an agreeably aromatic, oily
pulp.

This species is considerably allied to Amyris maritima,
which produces a white, hard and odoriferous wood, but
in that plant the leaves are really obtuse, almost round, not
acuminate, decidedly crenate on the margin, and of a
much thicker consistence.

The wood of this species is yellowish white, close grain-
ed, and capable of receiving a high polish. The leaves and
bark of several of the West India species of this genus
yield a fine balsamic juice, wholly resembling that of the
Gilead balsam. By distillation the wood would also yield
a very grateful perfume.

116

FLORIDA TORCH WOOD.

One of the oriental species formerly included in this
genus, has been long familiar ; namely the A. Gileadensis,
which yields the balsam of Mecca or of Gilead, the most
fragrant and pleasant of balsams. From the A. Elemifera
of Brazil, is obtained the gum Elemi. The A. Ambrosiaca
of Guiana, (now referred to Idea of Aublet,) becomes a
tree, and yields a very odoriferous balsam from the trunk
and branches, which is used in dysentery, and burnt in
houses and churches as a perfume. It also produces the
resin of Coumia.

Plate LXXVIII.

A branch of the natural size. a. The flower, b. The fruit.

x

*

PI. LXXIX.

Burs e r a (ru rn mif e r a ,

West* JtuUcltz Birch* free.

(roma/rt d ‘d?7n*criyu&.

117

E U R S E R A. (Jacciuin.)

(Gomart, Fr.)

Natural Order , Burserace^e, (Kunth.) Linncean Classifi-
cation , POLYGAMIA DlCECIA.

Flowers Polygamous. Male. Calyx small, 3 to 5-parted, with obtuse
lobes. Petals , 3 to 5, spreading, with a valvular astivation. Stamina
6 to 10 ; annular disk, with 6 to 8 crenulations. Fertile Flowers,
with the calyx 3-parted. Petals 3. Stamens 6. Ovary ovate, 3-celled.
Style short, with a capitate obtuse, 3-lobed stigma. Drupe oblong, with
3 nuts ; the bark succulent and trivalvular ; 2 of the nuts abortive ; the
fertile one fleshy, bearing 2 ovules, and perfecting only one seed. Seed
pendulous, without albumen ; cotyledones foliaceous, with wrinkled folds,
the radicle straight and superior.

Tropical American balsam-bearing trees, with unequally pinnated and
sometimes simple articulated leaves, with small flowers in axillary racemose
panicles.

Named after Joachim Burser, Professor of Botany at Sara, in Naples.

WEST INDIAN BIRCH TREE.

BURSERA gummifera, foliis deciduis scepius impari-pinnatis , foliolis
ovatis acutis membranaceis , racemis axillaribus . Decand. Prod. vol.
2, p. 78. Jacquin. Amer. p. 94, tab. 65. Swartz, Obs. p. 130.
Terebinthus major betulce cortice, fructu triangulari. Sloane, Jam. t.
199.

Terebinthus foliis cordato-ovatis pinnatis , cortice Icevi rufescente, foribus
masculis spicatis. Bbown, Jam. p. 345.

The West Indian or Jamaica Birch becomes a large, lofty

118

WEST INDIAN BIRCH TREE.

and graceful tree, with an upright, smooth, round trunk of 3
to 4 feet in diameter, having an even, thin, membranaceous
brown or greyish bark, peeling offin shreds like the European
Birch ; but in other respects it bears not the slightest rela-
tion to that tree. It produces a fine, spreading, much
branched summit, full of elegant, feathery leaves, almost
like those of the Ailanthus ; and though an exclusive native
of the tropics, it annually sheds its leaves in the winter,
flowering and renewing its foliage in the months of March
and April. It is common in most of the West India islands,
as well as in the adjoining continent, and is described as
being common on Key West, by our friend Dr. Blodgett.
It is known to the French inhabitants by the name of Gum-
mier, from the circumstance of its affording resin $ by the
Spaniards it is called Almicigo or Mastic Tree, each one
comparing it with something growing in their native coun-
try.

All parts of the plant abound with a glutinous, bal-
samic juice, having the odor of turpentine, which soon
thickens in the air, and forms a transparent gum-resin of a
dark green color, bearing some resemblance to mastic, but
with an unpleasant alliaceous smell. It is soluble in alco-
hol, and may be employed, like mastic, as a transparent
varnish. It might also be substituted in the form of pills
for Copaiba and other nauseous balsams, in diseased dis-
charges from the mucous membranes. Jacquin observes,
that the bark of the root is often exported to Europe in
place of that of the Simaruba, and by some it is said to
possess, in fact, the same properties as Quassia.

As a timber tree, the Bursera is considered of little value,
the wood being white, soft and brittle, and it is seldom put
to any use but as fuel.

The leaves are alternate, and unequally pinnated ; rather
long petiolate, composed each of 3, 5, 7, or even sometimes
9 opposite leaflets, which are petiolated, oval, acuminate,

WEST INDIAN BIRCH TREE.

119

rounded at base, and somewhat cordate, entire, at length
smooth on both sides, even, and a little shining above,
(an inch and a half to two inches wide, and about 3 inches
long, when fully expanded after the flowering period.) The
flowers are small, whitish, scentless, growing in axillary,
clustered flowered racemes or panicles, towards the sum-
mits of the branches. The drupe is about the size of a
hazel nut, greenish, tinted with brownish purple when ripe,
resinous, fragrant, with a succulent bark, appearing some-
what 3-lobed, 3-celled and 3-valved, with only 1 seed
usually coming to perfection, the nuts of the 2 other cells
being abortive ; the nuts are very white, a little compress-
ed, each containing one kernel.

Two other species of this genus are described by Decan-
dolle, B. acuminata , from St. Domingo, of which but little is
known, and the B . simplicifolia , which is probably not a
congener, having a single nut, exactly 3-sided, with the
angles partly salient. This bears simple leaves, and forms
a tree only about 15 feet in height.

The Bursera paniculata , (now Colophonia mauritiana ,)
the Bois de Colophone of the isle of France, gives out from
the slightest wound in the bark, a copious flow of limpid oil
with a pungent, turpentine odor, which soon congeals to
the consistence of butter, assuming the appearance of cam-
phor.

Plate LXXIX.

A branch of the natural size, a . The drupe, b. The nut. c. The
male flower, d . The female flower, e. A small fruiting branch.

120

SUMACH.

Natural Order , Anacardiace^e, (R. Brown.) Linncean
Classification, Pentandria Trigynia.

RHUS* (Linn.)

*

Flowers polygamous or bisexual. — Calyx small, 5 -parted, persistent.
Petals 5, small, ovate spreading, imbricated in aestivation. Stamens 5,
equal, free. Torus an orbicular disk. Ovary ovate or globose, 1-
celled: ovule solitary. Styles 3, distinct or combined. Fruit almost
a dry drupe. The Nut bony, 1 -celled, 1 -seeded, even or grooved.
Seed, (by abortion,) solitary, attached to the extremity of a basilar
funiculus. Embryo inverted ; cotyledones foliaceous ; radicle curved
and opposite to the hylum.

Shrubs or trees of various countries and climates, but more abundant
in those which are mild. Leaves alternate, compound, ternate or pinnate.
Panicles axillary and terminal, the flowers small, greenish, and inconspi-
cuous.

§ Metopium. Drupe ovate-oblong, dry and smooth , nut chartaceous .
Seed arillate .

# The name is derived from the Celtic word rhudd, signifying red, from
the prevailing colour of the fruit. The name Sumach is from the Arabic,
name Simag .

'

a

\

A

.

Pl.LXXX

Kli in

M e to p i uni

f 07' al Sumach .

S umive J4e tojil.

121

CORAL SUMACH.

RHUS metopium, foliis pinnatis 2-S-jugis cum impari glaberrimis ,
foliolis petiolulatis ovatis integerrimis.

Rhus metopium. Linn. Amcen. Acad. vol. 5, p. 395. Decand.
Prod. vol. 2, p. 67.

Metopium foliis subrotundis pinnato-quinatis , racemis alaribus. Brown,
Jamaic. p. 177, tab. 13, fig. 3.

Terebinthus maxima , pinnis paucioribus majoribus atque rotundioribus ,
fructu racemoso spar so. Sloane, Jam. 167. Hist. vol. 2, p. 90, t. 199.
Fig. 3. Raii, Dendrol. p. 51.

Borbonia fructu cor allino, fore pentapetalo. Plumier, ic. 61.

This stately species of Sumach becomes a tree of 15 to
20 or more feet in height, and in Jamaica affects the cal-
careous hills. It is also a native of Cuba and Key West,
(Dr. Blodgelt). The wood is hard, and when large enough,
suitable for furniture.

Like several other native species of the genus, it is to
some individuals poisonous to the touch. This, and the
Mountain Sumach, are called in St. Domingo, “ Mountain
Manchiniel,” from the poisonous qualities of the juice they
exude. The branches are erect and smooth. The leaves
come out at the ends of the branches, and are unequally
pinnate, usually 2 pair and an odd one, but sometimes 3
pair and a terminal leaflet. The leaves are very smooth
and coriaceous, quite entire, upon long petioles; the leaflets
are usually broad-ovate and acuminate, on longish partial
petioles, the upper pair unequal at the base; sometimes
they are of an elliptic form, and occasionally obtuse and
rounded at the extremity. The flowers are dioicous ; in
terminal, loose, open, spreading panicles which are about
the length of the leaves ; the bracts are very small. The
16

122

CORAL SUMACH.

calyx is 5-parted, the segments ovate and dilated with
membranous margins. Petals 5, ovate, yellowish-white,
covered with dark longitudinal lines. Stamens 5, not ex-
serted. In the fertile flower the stigma appears to be very
small and unequally 3-lobed. The berries are oblong,
smooth, somewhat oblique, scarlet, and as large as peas;
the nut is thin and chartaceous.

A transparent gum in small quantities, exudes sponta-
neously from the peduncles of the flowers, which probably
is of the nature of varnish.

Among the useful and remarkable species of this ex-
tensive genus, may be mentioned the Elm-Leaved Sumach,
( Rhus Coriaria ), which is so far harmless as occasionally to
be employed for culinary purposes, the seeds being com-
monly used in Aleppo at meals to provoke an appetite.
The leaves and seeds are also used in medicine as astrin-
gent and styptic applications. From time immemorial it
has been employed like oak bark for tanning leather, and
that of Turkey is chiefly tanned with this plant. The pulp
of the drupes of several species affords an agreeable acid,
similar to that of wood sorrel, either the oxalic or tar-
taric.

The Rhus vernix affords the Japan varnish, which oozes
from incisions made in the tree, and grows thick and black
when exposed to the air. It is so transparent, that when
laid pure upon boxes or furniture, every vein of the wood
may be clearly seen. With it the Japanese varnish most
of their household furniture made of wood. The milky
juice of the plant stains linen a dark brown; the whole
shrub like our Poison Ash, (J2. venenata ), to which it is
nearly allied, is in a high degree poisonous ; and the poison
is communicated by touching or smelling any part of it.
Inflammations appear on the skin in large blotches, suc-
ceeded by pustules which rise in the inflamed parts, and

CORAL SUMACH.

123

fill with watery matter, attended with burning and itching,
which continues for several days, after which the inflam-
mation subsides. The extremities and glandular parts of
the body are those which are most affected. Our Rhus
radicans and R. Toxicodendron , (Poison Vines), operate
nearly in the same way, though in a less degree than the
Poison Ash or Rhus vernix. Many persons, however, can
approach and handle these deleterious plants with impunity.
One of the most dangerous species in America, is the Rhus
pumila , of Michaux, a native of North Carolina. Mr.
Lyons, a well-known and assiduous collector of rare and
ornamental plants, suffered extremely from its venom, by
merely collecting the seeds ; it produced a general fever,
and affected the use of his limbs for several years.

Plate LXXX.

A branch of the natural size, a . The male flowers, h . A flower

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