Passing into
Rhamnus crocea var. insularis Sarg.
A form with larger less prominently toothed leaves sometimes 3′ long and 1½′ wide, rather larger flowers, with shorter and broader calyx-lobes a less deeply divided style, and larger fruits. A tree often growing to the height of 25°—30°, flowering later than the var. ilicifolia, and not uncommon on the islands of the Santa Barbara group and on the mountains of the adjacent mainland. A form (f. pilosa Trel.) with narrow revolute leaves densely pilose throughout, occurs in the Santa Maria valley of the mountains near San Diego.
2. [Rhamnus caroliniana] Walt. Indian Cherry.
Leaves deciduous, elliptic-oblong or broad-elliptic, acute or acuminate, cuneate or somewhat rounded at base, remotely and obscurely serrate, or crenulate, densely coated when they unfold with rusty brown tomentum, and at maturity thin, dark yellow-green above, paler below, glabrous or somewhat hairy on the lower surface, 2′—6′ long and 1′ to nearly 2′ wide, with a prominent yellow midrib and about 6 pairs of conspicuous yellow primary veins; turning yellow in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, pubescent, ½′ to nearly 1′ in length; stipules nearly triangular. Flowers appearing from April to June when the leaves are almost fully grown, on slender pedicels about ¼′ long, in few-flowered pubescent umbels, on peduncles varying from ⅛′—½′ in length; calyx 5-lobed, with a narrow turbinate tube and triangular lobes; petals 5, broad-ovate, deeply notched at apex and folded round the short stamens; ovary contracted into a long columnar style terminating in a slightly 3-lobed stigma. Fruit ripening in September and sometimes remaining on the branches until the beginning of winter, globose, ⅓′ in diameter, black, with thin sweet rather dry flesh and 2—4 nutlets; seeds obtuse at apex, rounded on the back, reddish brown, about ⅕′ long.
A tree, 30°—40° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, small spreading unarmed branches, and slender branchlets light red-brown and puberulent or covered with a glaucous bloom when they first appear, becoming slightly angled, gray, and glabrous, and marked during their second season by the small horizontal oval leaf-scars; more often a tall shrub, with numerous stems 15°—20° high. Winter-buds naked, hoary-tomentose. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, slightly furrowed, ashy gray and often marked by large black blotches. Wood rather hard, light, close-grained, not strong, light brown, with lighter colored sapwood of 5 or 6 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Borders of streams on rich bottom-lands, and on limestone ridges; Virginia to western Florida and westward through the valley of the Ohio River to southern Iowa and southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, the valley of the Washita River, Oklahoma (Ardman County), and to Kendall, Kerr and Uvalde Counties, western Texas; occasionally tree-like in western Florida and Mississippi, and of its largest size only in southern Arkansas and the adjacent portions of Texas; very abundant on the limestone barrens of central Kentucky and Tennessee.