1. GORDONIA Ell.
Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, with an acuminate terminal bud, slender acuminate naked axillary buds, and watery juice. Leaves pinnately veined, entire or crenate, subcoriaceous and persistent, or thin and deciduous. Flowers axillary, solitary, long-stalked or subsessile; calyx subtended by 2—5 caducous bracts; sepals unequal, rounded, concave, coriaceous, persistent; petals free or slightly united, obovate, concave, white, deciduous; stamens numerous, filaments short, united at base into a fleshy cup adnate to the base of the petals and inserted with them, or long and inserted directly on the petals; anthers introrse, yellow; ovary sessile; style elongated, erect, 5-lobed at the stigmatic apex; ovules 4—8 in each cell, pendulous in 2 series from its inner angle, collateral, anatropous. Fruit a woody oblong or subglobose 5-celled capsule loculicidally 5-valved, with a persistent axis angled by the projecting placentas. Seeds 2—8 in each cell pendulous, flat, without albumen; seed-coat woody, usually produced upward into an oblong wing; embryo mostly straight or oblique, with oblong flat or oblique cotyledons; radicle short, superior.
Gordonia with sixteen species is confined to the south Atlantic states of North America and to tropical Asia and the Malay Archipelago.
The generic name is in honor of James Gordon (1728—1791), a well-known London nurseryman.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Flowers long-pedicellate; filaments united into a cup; capsule ovoid, the valves not splitting from the base; seeds winged; leaves persistent.1. [G. Lasianthus] (C). Flowers subsessile; filaments distinct; capsule globose, the valves septicidally splitting from the base; seeds without wings; leaves deciduous.2. [G. alatamaha] (C).
1. [Gordonia Lasianthus] Ell. Bay. Loblolly Bay.
Leaves coriaceous, lanceolate to oblong, acute at apex, gradually narrowed to the cuneate base, finely or remotely crenately serrate, usually above the middle only, dark green, smooth and lustrous, 4′—5′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, persistent; finally turning scarlet and dropping irregularly through the year; petioles stout, wing-margined toward the apex, channeled, about ½′ in length. Flowers pungently fragrant, about 2½′ in diameter, expanding in July and continuing to open successively during two or three months, on stout red pedicels thickening from below upward, 2½′—3′ long, and usually furnished with 3 or 4 ovate minute subfloral bractlets; sepals ovate to oval, ½′ long, ciliate on the margins with long white hairs, and covered on the outer surface with dense velvety pale lustrous pubescence; petals rounded at apex, gradually contracted at base, silky-puberulent on the back, white, incurved, 1¼′—1½′ long and 1′ broad, stamens united into a shallow fleshy deeply 5-lobed cup pubescent on the inner surface and adnate to the base of the petals; ovary ovoid, pubescent, gradually contracted into the stout style persistent on the fruit. Fruit ovoid, acute, pubescent, ¾′ long, and ½′ in diameter, splitting to below the middle; seeds winged, nearly square, slightly concave on the inner surface and rounded on the outer surface, rugose, dotted with small pale brown excrescences, nearly 1/16′ long and half the length of the thin membranaceous oblique pale brown wing pointed or rounded at apex; embryo filling the cavity of the seed, nearly straight; cotyledons subcordate, foliaceous.
A short-lived tree, 60°—75° high, with a tall straight trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, small branches growing upward at first and ultimately spreading into a narrow compact head, and dark brown rugose branchlets marked during several years by the horizontal slightly obcordate leaf-scars; or rarely a low shrub. Winter-buds ¼′—⅓′ long, and covered with pale silky lustrous pubescence. Bark of the trunk nearly 1′ thick, deeply divided into regular parallel rounded ridges, their dark red-brown scaly surface broken into many irregular shallow furrows. Wood light, soft, close-grained, not durable, light red, with lighter colored sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual growth; occasionally used in cabinet-making.
Distribution. Shallow swamps and moist depressions in Pine-barrens; southeastern Virginia southward near the coast to the shores of Indian River on the east coast and to Cape Romano on the west coast of Florida, ranging to the interior of the peninsula from Lake to De Soto Counties, and westward along the Gulf coast to southern Mississippi; most abundant in Georgia and east Florida; gradually becoming less abundant westward.
2. [Gordonia alatamaha] Sarg. Franklinia.
Leaves obovate-oblong, rounded or pointed at apex, gradually narrowed to the long cuneate base, remotely serrate, usually above the middle only, with small glandular teeth, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 5′—6′ long and 1½′—2′ wide; turning scarlet in the autumn before falling; petioles stout, wing-margined above, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers 3′—3½′ in diameter, appearing about the middle of September, on short stout pedicels at first pubescent, finally glabrous, from the axils of crowded upper leaves, and marked by the broad conspicuous scars of 2 minute lateral subfloral pubescent bractlets; sepals nearly circular, ½′ in diameter, ciliate on the margins, and covered on the outer surface with short lustrous silky pale hairs; petals obovate, crenulate, white, membranaceous, 1′—1½′ long and 1′ broad, and densely coated on the outer surface with fine pubescence; filaments distinct, inserted on the petals; ovary conspicuously ridged, pubescent, truncate, and crowned with a slender deciduous style nearly as long as the stamens. Fruit globose, slightly pubescent, ¾′ in diameter, the valves splitting nearly to the middle and septicidally from the base to the middle; seeds 6—8, or by abortion fewer in each cell, closely packed together on the whole length of the thick axile placenta, nearly ½′ long, angled by mutual pressure, without wings.
A tree, 15°—20° high, with stout slightly angled dark red-brown branchlets covered with small pale oblong horizontal lenticels, and conspicuously marked by large prominent obcordate leaf-scars, with a marginal row of large fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds compressed, reddish brown, puberulous, ¼′—⅓′ long. Bark of cultivated plants smooth, thin, dark brown.
Distribution. Near Fort Barrington on the Altamaha River, Georgia; not seen in a wild state since 1790, and now only known by cultivated plants.
Often cultivated in the eastern states and hardy as far north as eastern New York and occasionally in eastern Massachusetts, and rarely in western and central Europe.