6. ARBUTUS L.
Trees or shrubs, with astringent bark exfoliating from young stems in large thin scales, smooth terete red branches, and thick hard roots. Leaves petiolate, entire or dentate, obscurely penniveined, persistent. Flowers on clavate pedicels bibracteolate at base from the axils of ovate bracts, in simple terminal compound racemes or panicles, with scarious scaly persistent bracts and bractlets; calyx free from the ovary, 5-parted nearly to the base, the divisions imbricated in the bud, ovate, acute, scarious, persistent; corolla ovoid-urceolate, white, 5-toothed, the teeth obtuse and recurved; stamens 10, shorter than the corolla; filaments subulate, dilated and pilose at base, free, inserted in the bottom of the corolla; anthers short, compressed laterally, dorsally 2-awned, the cells opening at the top internally by a terminal pore; ovary glandular-roughened, glabrous or tomentose, sessile or slightly immersed in the glandular 10-lobed disk, 5 or rarely 4-celled; style columnar, simple, exserted; stigma obscurely 5-lobed; ovules attached to a central placenta developed from the inner angle of each cell, amphitropous. Fruit drupaceous, globose, smooth or glandular-coated, 5-celled, many-seeded; flesh dry and mealy; stone cartilaginous, often incompletely developed. Seeds small, compressed or angled, narrowed and often apiculate at apex; seed-coat coriaceous, dark red-brown, slightly pilose; embryo axile in copious horny albumen, clavate; radicle terete, erect, turned toward the hilum.
Arbutus with ten or twelve species inhabits southern and western North America, Central America, western, southern and eastern Europe, Asia Minor, northern Africa, and the Canary Islands. Three species occur within the territory of the United States. Arbutus produces hard close-grained valuable wood often made into charcoal, used in the manufacture of gunpowder. The fruit possesses narcotic properties, and the bark and leaves are astringent.
Arbutus is the classical name of the species of southern Europe.
CONSPECTUS OF THE SPECIES Of THE UNITED STATES.
Bark of old trunks dark red-brown. Ovary glabrous; leaves oval or oblong.1. [A. Menziesii] (B, G). Ovary pubescent; leaves oval, ovate, or lanceolate.2. [A. texana] (C). Bark of old trunks ashy gray; ovary glabrous, conspicuously porulose; leaves lanceolate or rarely narrow-oblong.3. [A. arizonica] (H).
1. [Arbutus Menziesii] Pursh. Madroña.
Leaves oval or oblong, rounded or contracted into a short point at apex, and rounded, subcordate or cuneate at base, with slightly thickened revolute entire or occasionally on young plants sharply serrate margins, when they unfold light green or often pink, especially on the lower surface, and glabrous or slightly puberulous, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale or often nearly white below, 3′—5′ long and 1½′—3′ wide, with a thick pale midrib and conspicuously reticulated veinlets; persistent until the early summer of their second year and then turning orange and scarlet and falling gradually and irregularly; petioles stout, grooved, ½′—1′ in length, often slightly wing-margined toward the apex; often producing late in summer a second crop of smaller leaves. Flowers about ⅓′ long, with a glabrous ovary, appearing from March to May on short slender puberulous pedicels from the axils of acute scarious bracts ciliate on the margins, in spicate pubescent racemes forming a cluster 5′—6′ long and broad. Fruit ripening in the autumn, subglobose or occasionally obovoid or oval, ½′ long, bright orange-red, with thin glandular flesh and a 5-celled more or less perfectly developed thin-walled cartilaginous stone; seeds several in each cell, tightly pressed together and angled, dark brown and pilose.
A tree, 80°—125° high, with a tall straight trunk 4°—5° in diameter, stout upright or spreading branches forming a narrow oblong or broad round-topped head, and slender branchlets light red, pea-green, or orange-colored and glabrous when they first appear, or on vigorous young plants sometimes covered with pale scattered deciduous hairs, becoming in their first winter bright reddish brown. Winter-buds obtuse, ⅓′ long, with numerous imbricated broadly-ovate bright brown scales keeled on the back, apiculate at apex, and slightly ciliate. Bark of young stems and of the branches smooth, bright red, separating into large thin scales, becoming on old trunks ⅓′—½′ thick, dark reddish brown, and covered with small thick plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, light brown shaded with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 8—12 layers of annual growth; used for furniture and largely for charcoal. The bark is sometimes employed in tanning leather.
Distribution. High well-drained slopes usually in rich soil or occasionally in gravelly valleys; islands at Seymore Narrows, and southward through the coast region of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon; over the coast ranges of northern California, extending east to Mt. Shasta and south along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada from altitudes of 2500°—4000° to Placer County; on many of the coast ranges south of San Francisco Bay to the mountains of southern California; common and of its largest size in the Redwood-forests of northwestern California; much smaller north of California; rare on the Sierra Nevada and southward except on the Santa Cruz Mountains, and often shrubby in habit.
Occasionally cultivated in the gardens of western and southern Europe.
2. [Arbutus texana] Buckl. Madroña.
Arbutus xalapensis S. Watson, not H. B. K.
Leaves oval, ovate, or lanceolate, rounded, acute and often apiculate at apex, and rounded or cuneate at base, with slightly thickened usually entire or remotely crenulate-toothed or coarsely serrate margins, often tinged with red when they unfold and pubescent below, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale and usually slightly pubescent on the lower surface, 1′—3′ long and ⅔′—1½′ wide, with a thick midrib often villose-pubescent below; petioles stout, pubescent, sometimes becoming nearly glabrous, 1′—1½′ in length. Flowers ¼′ long, with ciliate calyx-lobes and a pubescent ovary, appearing in March on stout recurved hoary-tomentose club-shaped pedicels from the axils of ovate acute hoary-tomentose often persistent bracts, in compact conic hoary-tomentose panicles 2½′ long. Fruit pubescent until half grown, becoming glabrous, usually produced very sparingly, ripening in summer, dark red, ⅓′ in diameter, with thin granular flesh and a rather thick more or less completely formed stone; seeds numerous in each cell, compressed, puberulous.
A tree, in Texas rarely more than 18°—20° high, with a short often crooked trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, separating a foot or two above the ground into several stout spreading branches, and branchlets light red and thickly coated with pubescence when they first appear, becoming dark red-brown and covered with small plate-like scales; often a broad irregularly shaped bush, with numerous contorted stems. Winter-buds about ⅛′ long, with hoary tomentose scales, the outer ovate, acute, the inner obovate and rounded at apex. Bark of young stems and of the branches thin, tinged with red, separating into large papery scales exposing the light red or flesh-colored inner bark, becoming at the base of old trunks sometimes ¼′ thick, deeply furrowed, dark reddish brown, and broken into thick square plates. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, brown tinged with red, with a lighter colored sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual growth; sometimes used in Texas for the handles of small tools and in the manufacture of mathematical instruments.
Distribution. Texas, dry limestone hills, Travis, Comal, Blanco, Kendall and Bandera Counties, on the Guadaloupe and Eagle Mountains, Culberson and El Paso Counties; southeastern New Mexico (Eddy County); on the mountains of Nuevo Leon in the neighborhood of Monterey.
3. [Arbutus arizonica] Sarg. Madroña.
Leaves lanceolate to rarely oblong, acute or rounded and apiculate at apex, and cuneate or occasionally rounded at base, with thickened entire or rarely denticulate margins, when they unfold, tinged with red, and slightly puberulous, especially on the petiole and margins, and at maturity thin, firm and rigid, light green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 1½′—3′ long and ½′—1′ wide, with a slender yellow midrib and obscure reticulate veinlets; appearing in May and after the summer rains in September, and persistent for at least a year; petioles slender, often 1′ in length. Flowers ¼′ long, with a corolla much contracted in the middle, and a glabrous porulose ovary, opening in May on short stout hairy pedicels from the axils of conspicuous ovate rounded scarious bracts, in rather loose clusters 2′—2½′ long and broad, their lower branches from the axils of upper leaves. Fruit ripening in October and November, globose or short-oblong, dark orange-red, granulate, ⅓′ in diameter, with thin sweetish flesh, and a papery usually incompletely developed stone; seeds compressed, puberulous.
A tree, 40°—50° high, with a tall straight trunk 18′—24′ in diameter, stout spreading branches forming a rather compact round-topped head, and thick tortuous divergent branchlets reddish brown and more or less pubescent or light purple, pilose, and covered with a glaucous bloom when they first appear, becoming bright red at the end of their first season, their bark thin, separating freely into thin more or less persistent scales. Winter-buds ⅓′ long, red, the two outer scales linear, acuminate a third longer than those of the next, rank, acute and apiculate and ridged on the back. Bark of young stems and of the branches thin, smooth, dark red, exfoliating in large thin scales, becoming on old trunks ⅓′—½′ thick, irregularly broken by longitudinal furrows and divided into square appressed plate-like light gray or nearly white scales faintly tinged with red on the surface. Wood heavy, close-grained, soft and brittle, light brown tinged with red, with lighter colored sapwood of 30—40 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Dry gravelly benches at altitude of 6000°—8000° on the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita Mountains, southern Arizona, and on the San Luis and Animas Mountains of southwestern New Mexico (Grant County); on the Sierra Nevada of Chihuahua.