4. UNGNADIA Endl.
A tree or shrub, with thin pale gray fissured bark, slender terete slightly zigzag branchlets, without a terminal bud, marked by large conspicuous obcordate leaf-scars, small obtuse nearly globose winter-buds covered with numerous chestnut-brown imbricated scales, and thick fleshy roots. Leaves long-petioled, 5 or 7 or rarely 3-foliolate, deciduous; leaflets ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, rounded or cuneate, and often oblique at base, irregularly crenulate-serrate, coated when they first appear on the lower surface like the petiole with dense pale tomentum, and pilose above, glabrous at maturity with the exception of a few hairs on the lower surface along the principal veins, pinnately veined, reticulate-venulose, the terminal leaflet long-petiolulate, the others short-petiolulate to subsessile. Flowers irregular, polygamous, in small pubescent fascicles or corymbs appearing just before or with the leaves from the axils of those of the previous year, usually from separate buds, or occasionally from the base of leafy branches; calyx 5-lobed, hypogynous, the lobes oblong-lanceolate, somewhat united irregularly at base only, deciduous; petals 4 by the suppression of the anterior one, or 5 and then alternate with the lobes of the calyx, hypogynous on the margin of a thickened truncate torus, unguiculate, bright rose color, deciduous, the claw as long as the lobes of the calyx, nearly erect, clothed with tomentum, especially on the inner surface, conspicuously appendaged at the summit with a fimbricated crest of short fleshy tufted hairs, the blade obovate, spreading, often erose-crenulate; disk unilateral, oblique, tongue-shaped, surrounding and connate with the base of the stipe of the ovary; stamens 7—10, usually 8 or 9, inserted on the oblique edge of the disk, much exserted and unequal, the anterior ones shorter than the others, equal or almost so and shorter than the petals in the pistillate flower; filaments filiform; anthers oblong, attached near the base; ovary ovoid, 3-celled, pilose, raised on a long stipe, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style subulate, filiform, elongated, slightly curved upward; stigma minute, terminal; ovules 2, borne on the inner angle of the cell near its middle, ascending, the micropyle inferior. Fruit a coriaceous 3-celled loculicidally 3-valved broad-ovoid capsule, conspicuously stipitate, crowned with the remnants of the style, rugosely roughened and dark reddish brown, loculicidally 3-valved, the valves somewhat cordate, bearing the dissepiment on the middle. Seed generally solitary by abortion, almost globose; seed-coat coriaceous, very smooth and shining, dark chestnut-brown or almost black; hilum broad; tegmen thin; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons thick and fleshy, nearly hemispheric, conferruminate, incumbent on the short conic descending radicle turned toward the hilum, remaining below ground in germination.
Ungnadia with a single species is confined to Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico.
The name is in honor of Baron Ferdinand von Ungnad, Ambassador of the Emperor Rudolph II. at the Ottoman Porte who sent seeds of the Horsechestnut-tree from Constantinople to Vienna in the middle of the sixteenth century.
1. [Ungnadia speciosa] Endl. Spanish Buckeye.
Leaves appearing from March to April with or just after the flowers, 6′—12′ long, with a petiole 2′—6′ in length, rather coriaceous leaflets, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface and pale and rugose on the lower surface, 3′—5′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, the terminal leaflet on a petiolule ¼′—1′ in length. Flowers 1′ across when expanded, in crowded clusters 1½′—2′ long. Fruit 2′ broad, opening in October, the empty pods often remaining on the branches until the appearance of the flowers the following year; seeds ½′—⅝′ in diameter.
A tree, occasionally 25°—30° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, dividing at some distance from the ground into a number of small upright branches, and branchlets light orange-brown and covered during their first season with short fine pubescence, and pale brown tinged with red, glabrous and marked by scattered lenticels in their second year; more often a shrub, with numerous stems. Winter-buds about ⅛′ in diameter. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ¼′ thick, light gray and broken by numerous shallow reticulated fissures. Wood heavy, close-grained, rather soft and brittle, red tinged with brown, with lighter colored sapwood. The sweet seeds possess powerful emetic properties and are reputed to be poisonous.
Distribution. Borders of streams, river-bottoms and limestone hills, and westward on the sides of mountain cañons; valley of the Trinity River, Dallas County and of the lower Brazos River, Texas, to the mountains of southeastern New Mexico, and southward into Mexico; most common and of its largest size forty to fifty miles from the Texas coast west of the Colorado River.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the southern United States.