Gordonia with sixteen species is confined to the south Atlantic states of North America and to tropical Asia and the Malay Archipelago.
The generic name is in honor of James Gordon (1728—1791), a well-known London nurseryman.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Flowers long-pedicellate; filaments united into a cup; capsule ovoid, the valves not splitting from the base; seeds winged; leaves persistent.1. [G. Lasianthus] (C). Flowers subsessile; filaments distinct; capsule globose, the valves septicidally splitting from the base; seeds without wings; leaves deciduous.2. [G. alatamaha] (C).
1. [Gordonia Lasianthus] Ell. Bay. Loblolly Bay.
Leaves coriaceous, lanceolate to oblong, acute at apex, gradually narrowed to the cuneate base, finely or remotely crenately serrate, usually above the middle only, dark green, smooth and lustrous, 4′—5′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, persistent; finally turning scarlet and dropping irregularly through the year; petioles stout, wing-margined toward the apex, channeled, about ½′ in length. Flowers pungently fragrant, about 2½′ in diameter, expanding in July and continuing to open successively during two or three months, on stout red pedicels thickening from below upward, 2½′—3′ long, and usually furnished with 3 or 4 ovate minute subfloral bractlets; sepals ovate to oval, ½′ long, ciliate on the margins with long white hairs, and covered on the outer surface with dense velvety pale lustrous pubescence; petals rounded at apex, gradually contracted at base, silky-puberulent on the back, white, incurved, 1¼′—1½′ long and 1′ broad, stamens united into a shallow fleshy deeply 5-lobed cup pubescent on the inner surface and adnate to the base of the petals; ovary ovoid, pubescent, gradually contracted into the stout style persistent on the fruit. Fruit ovoid, acute, pubescent, ¾′ long, and ½′ in diameter, splitting to below the middle; seeds winged, nearly square, slightly concave on the inner surface and rounded on the outer surface, rugose, dotted with small pale brown excrescences, nearly 1/16′ long and half the length of the thin membranaceous oblique pale brown wing pointed or rounded at apex; embryo filling the cavity of the seed, nearly straight; cotyledons subcordate, foliaceous.
A short-lived tree, 60°—75° high, with a tall straight trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, small branches growing upward at first and ultimately spreading into a narrow compact head, and dark brown rugose branchlets marked during several years by the horizontal slightly obcordate leaf-scars; or rarely a low shrub. Winter-buds ¼′—⅓′ long, and covered with pale silky lustrous pubescence. Bark of the trunk nearly 1′ thick, deeply divided into regular parallel rounded ridges, their dark red-brown scaly surface broken into many irregular shallow furrows. Wood light, soft, close-grained, not durable, light red, with lighter colored sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual growth; occasionally used in cabinet-making.
Distribution. Shallow swamps and moist depressions in Pine-barrens; southeastern Virginia southward near the coast to the shores of Indian River on the east coast and to Cape Romano on the west coast of Florida, ranging to the interior of the peninsula from Lake to De Soto Counties, and westward along the Gulf coast to southern Mississippi; most abundant in Georgia and east Florida; gradually becoming less abundant westward.