Distribution. Swamps covered with water during several months of the year, or low river banks; valley of the Cape Fear River, North Carolina, southward to northern Florida (Bradford County) and westward usually not far from the coast through the Gulf states to the valleys of the Navasota (Brazos County) and of the Colorado (Matagorda County) Rivers, Texas, and northward through western Louisiana, eastern Oklahoma, and Arkansas to southeastern Missouri, northeastern Mississippi (near Iuka, Tishomingo County, T. G. Harbison), northern Kentucky (Henderson County), and the valley of the lower Wabash River, Illinois; comparatively rare and confined to the coast plain in the Atlantic states; abundant and of its largest size in western Louisiana and southern Arkansas.
3. CELTIS L.
Trees or shrubs, with thin, smooth often more or less muricate bark, unarmed or spinose branchlets, and scaly buds. Leaves serrate or entire, 3-nerved in one species, membranaceous or subcoriaceous, deciduous; stipules lateral, free, usually scarious, inclosing their leaf in the bud, caducous. Flowers polygamo-monœcious or rarely monœcious, appearing soon after the unfolding of the leaves, minute, pedicellate, on branches of the year, the staminate cymose or fascicled at their base, the pistillate solitary or in few-flowered fascicles from the axils of upper leaves; calyx divided nearly to the base into 4 or 5 lobes, greenish yellow, deciduous; stamens inserted on the margin of the discoid torus; filaments subulate, incurved in the bud, those of the sterile flower straightening themselves abruptly and becoming erect and exserted, shorter and remaining incurved in the perfect flower; anthers ovoid, attached on the back just above the emarginate base; ovary ovoid, sessile, green and lustrous, crowned with a short sessile style divided into diverging elongated reflexed acuminate entire lobes papillo-stigmatic on the inner face and mature before the anthers of the sterile flower, deciduous; minute and rudimentary in the staminate flower; ovule anatropous. Fruit an ovoid or globose drupe tipped with the remnants of the style, with thin flesh covered by a thick firm skin, and a thick-walled bony nutlet, reticulate-pitted in the American species. Seed filling the seminal cavity; albumen scanty, gelatinous, nearly inclosed between the folds of the cotyledons, or 0; testa membranaceous, of 2 confluent coats; chalaza colored, close to the minute hilum; embryo curved; cotyledons broad, foliaceous, conduplicate or rarely flat, variously folded, corrugate, incumbent, or inclosing the short superior ascending radicle.
Celtis is widely distributed through the temperate and tropical regions of the world, fifty or sixty species being distinguished.
Trees of the American species are often disfigured by gall-making insects which distort the buds and cause the production of dark broom-like clusters of short slender branchlets at the end of the branches.
Celtis was the classical name of a species of Lotus.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Fruit on pedicels much longer than the petioles. Leaves not covered below with conspicuous reticulate veinlets, green on both surfaces, smooth or rough above; fruit dark purple.1. [C. occidentalis.] Leaves covered below with a network of prominent veinlets, usually rough above. Leaves pale on the lower surface. Leaves broadly ovate, obliquely rounded at base, coarsely serrate, glabrous or slightly pilose below along the midrib and veins; fruit light orange-brown, the pedicels often 3 or 4 times longer than the petioles.2. [C. Douglasii.] Leaves oblong-ovate, mostly cordate or occasionally rounded at base, entire or slightly serrate toward the apex, covered below with pilose pubescence; fruit dark reddish brown, the pedicels usually not more than twice as long as the petioles.3. [C. Lindheimeri.] Leaves green on the lower surface, broadly ovate, obliquely rounded at base, entire, pubescent along the midrib and veins below, rarely smooth on the upper surface; fruit dark orange-red, the pedicels usually not more than twice as long as the petioles.4. [C. reticulata.] Fruit on pedicels shorter or only slightly longer than the petioles. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, long-acuminate, unsymmetrically cuneate at base, often falcate, entire or more or less serrate, smooth or rarely roughened on the upper surface; fruit orange color or yellow, the pedicels shorter or somewhat longer than the petioles.5. [C. laevigata.] Leaves ovate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, obliquely rounded at base, coarsely serrate or nearly entire, smooth or in var. georgiana roughened on the upper surface; fruit dark orange red, the pedicels usually shorter than the petioles.6. [C. pumila.]
1. [Celtis occidentalis] L. Hackberry. Sugarberry.
