Leaves oblong to oblong-lanceolate, entire, often slightly contracted into a long point rounded at apex, gradually narrowed below, when they unfold thin, pilose, and tinged with red, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, bright green and lustrous above, pale and glaucous below, 3′—4′ long, ¾′—1½′ wide, with thickened revolute margins, a narrow orange-colored midrib, remote obscure primary veins arcuate near the margins, and thin closely reticulated veinlets; unfolding early in the spring, gradually turning yellow a year later, and falling during their second spring and summer; petioles stout, rigid, red-brown, ½′—⅔′ in length, flattened and somewhat grooved on the upper side, in falling leaving small circular leaf-scars displaying the end of a single fibro-vascular bundle. Flowers: peduncles glabrous, ½′—1′ in length; calyx pale yellow or creamy white, about ⅛′ long, with thin lobes ciliate on the margins, the outer broadly ovate, rounded and minutely apiculate, puberulous, about half as long as the oblong-lanceolate acute lobes of the inner series covered within by long pale hairs. Fruit ½′ long, dark blue or nearly black, very lustrous; flesh thin and dry, not readily separable from the ovoid slightly pointed seed.
A tree, 60°—70° high, with a trunk 2½°—3° in diameter, stout erect branches forming a dense shapely head, thick fleshy yellow roots, and branchlets many-angled, light brown, glabrous or coated with pale or rufous pubescence when they first appear, becoming in their second year terete and dark green; usually much smaller. Winter-buds coated with thick rufous tomentum, ¼′ long. Bark ½′—¾′ thick, dark red, deeply furrowed and irregularly divided into broad flat ridges separating on the surface into small thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, very strong, rather brittle, close-grained, bright red, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 4 or 5 layers of annual growth; occasionally used for cabinet-making, the interior finish of houses, and formerly in ship and boat-building.
Distribution. Borders of streams and swamps in rich moist soil, or occasionally in dry sandy loam in forests of the Long-leaved Pine; southern Delaware (Cypress swamp near Dogsboro, Sussex County, teste Nuttall); coast region from Virginia to the shores of Bay Biscayne and Cape Romano, Florida, along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Brazos River, Texas, and northward through Louisiana to southern Arkansas.
2. [Persea palustris] Sarg. Swamp Bay.
Persea pubescens Sarg.
Leaves elliptic or lanceolate, entire, often narrowed toward the apex into a long point, gradually narrowed at base, when they unfold dark red, thin and tomentose, at maturity pale green and lustrous above, pale and pubescent and rusty-tomentose on the midrib and primary veins below, 4′—6′ long, ¾′—1½′ wide, with thick conspicuous veins and slightly revolute margins; persistent until after the beginning of their second year and then turning yellow and falling gradually; petioles stout, rusty-tomentose, ½′—¾′ in length. Flowers: peduncles tomentose, 2′—3′ in length; calyx pale yellow or creamy white, often nearly ¼′ long, with thick firm lobes coated on the outer surface with rusty tomentum, those of the outer series broadly ovate, abruptly pointed at apex, pubescent on the inner surface, about half as long as the ovate lanceolate lobes of the inner series slightly thickened at the apex and hairy within. Fruit nearly black, ¾′ long.
A slender tree, occasionally 30°—40° high, with a trunk rarely exceeding a foot in diameter, and stout branchlets terete or slightly angled while young, coated when they first appear with rusty tomentum reduced in their second season to fine pubescence persistent until the end of their second or third year. Bark rarely exceeding ¼′ in thickness, dull brown, irregularly divided by shallow fissures, the surface separating into thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, soft, strong, close-grained, orange color streaked with brown, with thick light brown or gray sapwood of 36—40 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Pine-barren swamps, often almost to the exclusion of other plants, usually in the neighborhood of the coast from southeastern Virginia (Dismal Swamp) to the valley of the Caloosahatchee River and the Everglades Keys, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi; extending inland to the neighborhood of Wilmington, North Carolina, Aiken, South Carolina, western Georgia (Meriwether County), the interior of the Florida peninsula and to Autauga, Chilton and Tuscaloosa Counties, Alabama (R. H. Harper).