6. CERCIS L.
Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, slender unarmed branchlets prolonged by an upper axillary bud, marked by numerous minute pale lenticels, and in their first winter by small elevated horizontal leaf-scars showing the ends of two large fibro-vascular bundles, and small scaly obtuse axillary buds covered by imbricated ovate chestnut-brown scales. Leaves simple, entire, 5—7-nerved with prominent nerves, long-petiolate, deciduous; petioles slender, terete, abruptly enlarged at apex; stipules ovate, acute, small, membranaceous, caducous. Flowers appearing in early spring before or with the leaves on thin jointed pedicels, in simple fascicles or racemose clusters produced on branches of the previous or earlier years, or on the trunk, with small scale-like bracts often imbricated at the base of the inflorescence, and minute bractlets; calyx disciferous, short-turbinate, purplish, persistent, the tube oblique at base, campanulate, enlarged on the lower side, 5-toothed, the short broad teeth imbricated in the bud; corolla subpapilionaceous; petals nearly equal, rose color, oblong-ovate, rounded at apex, unguiculate, slightly auricled on one side of the base of the blade, the upper petal slightly smaller and inclosed in the bud by the wing-petals encircled by the broader slightly imbricated keel-petals; stamens 10, inserted in 2 rows on the margin of the thin disk, free, declinate, those of the inner row opposite the petals and rather shorter than the others; filaments enlarged and pilose below the middle, persistent until the fruit is grown; anthers uniform, oblong, attached on the back near the base; ovary short-stalked, inserted obliquely in the bottom of the calyx-tube; style filiform, fleshy, incurved, with a stout obtuse terminal stigma; ovules 2-ranked, attached to the inner angle of the ovary. Legume stalked, oblong or broad-linear, straight on the upper edge, curved on the lower edge, acute at the ends, compressed, tipped with the thickened remnants of the style, many-seeded, 2-valved, the valves coriaceo-membranaceous, many-veined, tardily dehiscent by the dorsal and often by the wing-margined ventral suture, dark red-purple and lustrous at maturity. Seeds suspended transversely on a slender funicle, ovoid or oblong, compressed, the small depressed hilum near the apex; seed-coat crustaceous, bright reddish brown; embryo surrounded by a thin layer of horny albumen, compressed; cotyledons oval, flat, the radicle short, straight or obliquely incurved, slightly exserted.
Cercis is confined to eastern and western North America, southern Europe, and to southwestern, central and eastern Asia. Of the eight species now distinguished, three occur in North America. Two of these are arborescent.
The generic name is from κερκίς, the Greek name of the European species, from a fancied resemblance of the fruit to the weaver’s implement of that name.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.
Flowers in sessile clusters; leaves ovate, acute, cordate or truncate at base.1. [C. canadensis] (A, C). Flowers fascicled or slightly racemose; leaves reniform.2. [C. reniformis] (C).
1. [Cercis canadensis] L. Redbud. Judas-tree.
Leaves broad-ovate, acute or acuminate and often abruptly contracted at apex into a short broad point, truncate or more or less cordate at base, entire, glabrous with the exception of axillary tufts of white hairs, or sometimes more or less pubescent below, 3′—5′ long and broad; turning in the autumn before falling bright clear yellow; petioles 2′—5′ in length. Flowers ½′ long, on pedicels ⅓′—½′ in length and fascicled 4-8 together; rarely white (var. alba Rehdr.). Fruit fully grown in the south by the end of May and at the north at midsummer, and then pink or rose color, 2½′—3½′ long, falling late in the autumn or in early winter; seeds about ¼′ long.
A tree, sometimes 40°-50° high, with a straight trunk usually separating 10°-12° from the ground into stout branches covered with smooth light brown or gray bark, and forming an upright or often a wide flat head, and slender glabrous somewhat angled branchlets, brown and lustrous during their first season, becoming dull and darker the following year and ultimately dark or grayish brown. Bark of the trunk about ½′ thick and divided by deep longitudinal fissures into long narrow plates, the bright red-brown surface separating into thin scales. Wood heavy, hard, not strong, close-grained, rich dark brown tinged with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 8-10 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Borders of streams and rich bottom-lands, forming, especially west of the Alleghany Mountains, an abundant undergrowth to the forest; valley of the Delaware River, New Jersey, central and southern Pennsylvania southward to northern Florida, northern Alabama and southern Mississippi (Crystal Springs, Copiah County), and westward to southwestern Ontario (Point Pelee, Essex County), and through southern Michigan to southern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, western Oklahoma (Major and Dewey Counties), Louisiana, and the valley of the Brazos River, Texas; and on the Sierra Madre of Nuevo Leon; common and of its largest size in southwestern Arkansas, Oklahoma and eastern Texas, and in early spring a conspicuous feature of the landscape.
Often cultivated as an ornamental tree in the northeastern states, and occasionally in western Europe.
2. [Cercis reniformis] Engl. Redbud.
Cercis texensis Sarg.
Leaves reniform, when they unfold light green and slightly pilose, and at maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler, glabrous or pubescent on the lower surface, and 2′—3′ in diameter; petioles 1½′—2′ in length. Flowers about ½′ long, on slender pedicels ½′—¾′ in length and fascicled in sessile clusters, or occasionally racemose. Fruit 2′—4′ long, ½′—1′ wide; seeds ¼′ long.
A slender tree, occasionally 20° or rarely 40° high, with a trunk 6′-12′ in diameter, and glabrous branchlets marked by numerous minute white lenticels, light reddish brown during their first and second years, becoming dark brown in their third season; more often a shrub, sending up numerous stems and forming dense thickets only a few feet high. Bark of the trunk and branches thin, smooth, light gray. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained brown streaked with yellow, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 5 or 6 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Limestone hills and ridges; neighborhood of Dallas, Dallas County, Texas to the Sierra Madre of Nuevo Leon; common in the valley of the upper Colorado River, Texas; of its largest size on the mountains of northeastern Mexico.