Leaves oblong-obovate to oblanceolate or elliptic, rarely oval or ovate on leading shoots, rounded or acute at apex, cuneate at base, thin, dark dull green, and finally reticulate-venulose on the upper surface, thickly covered below with soft silky pale or gold-colored pubescence, usually becoming dark rusty brown by midsummer, 1′—3′ long and 1⅛′—1½′ wide, with slightly thickened and revolute margins and a prominent midrib; turning yellow and falling irregularly during the winter; petioles slender, hairy, grooved, ¼′—1′ in length. Flowers appearing from May in Florida to July in South Carolina, ⅛′ long, on pedicels ½′—1′ in length and coated like the calyx with rufous silky pubescence, in many-flowered crowded fascicles; calyx ovoid, with oblong lobes; appendages of the corolla large, ovate, acute, crenate, shorter than the ovate staminodia about as long as the lobes of the corolla; ovary narrow-ovoid, gradually contracted into an elongated style. Fruit ripening and falling in the autumn, short-oblong to ellipsoid, ⅓′—½′ in length; flesh sweet and edible; seed oblong, short-pointed at apex, ¼′—⅓′ long.
A tree, 20°—30° high, with a trunk occasionally 5′—6′ in diameter, straight spreading flexible tough branches unarmed or armed with straight stout rigid spines sometimes 1′ in length, and slender branchlets coated when they first appear with silky pale pubescence often tinged with red and soon rusty brown, becoming glabrous before winter, and then dark red and slightly roughened by occasional minute dark lenticels; or often a shrub only a few feet high. Winter-buds minute, subglobose, with imbricated ovate scales rounded at apex and clothed with rusty brown tomentum. Bark of the trunk thick, brown tinged with red, and divided irregularly by deep fissures into narrow flat reticulate ridges covered with minute appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, light brown streaked with white, with lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Dry sandy soil; South Carolina (Saint Helena Island and Bluffton, Beaufort County), southward in the coast region of Georgia and east Florida to Cape Canaveral and through the interior of the peninsular to Cedar Keys on the west coast; near Bainbridge, Decatur County, southwestern Georgia.
2. [Bumelia lanuginosa] Pers. Gum Elastic. Chittam Wood.
Leaves oblong-obovate, rounded and often apiculate at apex and gradually narrowed at base, coated when they unfold with pale ferrugineous tomentum dense on the lower and loose on the upper surface, and at maturity thin and firm, dark green and lustrous above, more or less lanuginose below with rusty brown or silvery white (var. albicans Sarg.) hairs, 1′—2½′ long and ⅓′—¾′ wide; falling irregularly during the winter; petioles slender, rusty brown or pale pubescent, ⅛′—¾′ in length. Flowers opening in summer on hairy pedicels ⅛′ in length, in 16—18-flowered fascicles; calyx ovoid, with ovate rounded lobes coated on the outer surface with ferrugineous or pale tomentum and rather shorter than the tube of the corolla; appendages of the corolla small, ovate and acute; staminodia ovate, acute, remotely and slightly denticulate, as long as the corolla-lobes; ovary abruptly contracted into a slender elongated style. Fruit on a slender drooping stalk ripening and falling in the autumn, oblong or slightly obovoid, ½′ long, with thick flesh; seed short-oblong, rounded at apex, about ¼′ in length.
A tree, often 40°—50° high, with a tall straight trunk 1°—2° in diameter, short thick rigid branches forming a narrow-oblong round-topped head, unarmed, or armed with stout rigid straight or slightly curved spines frequently developing into spinescent leafy lateral branchlets, and slender often somewhat zigzag branchlets coated with thick rufous or pale tomentum when they first appear, becoming in their first winter red-brown to ashy gray and glabrous or nearly so, and marked by occasional minute lenticels and by small semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying 2 clusters of fibro-vascular bundle-scars; of its largest size in the Texas coast region; much smaller east of the Mississippi River, and there rarely more than 20° tall. Winter-buds obtuse, ⅛′ long, covered with broad-obovate rusty-tomentose scales. Bark of the trunk ½′ thick, dark gray-brown and usually divided into narrow ridges broken into thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, rather soft, not strong, close-grained, light brown or yellow, with thick lighter colored sapwood; producing in Texas considerable quantities of clear viscid gum from the freshly cut wood.
Distribution. Southern and southeastern Georgia, western Florida southward to the neighborhood of Lake City, Columbia County and to Cedar Key, coast of Alabama and inland to Dallas County, southern Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas to the valley of the San Antonio River and over the Edwards Plateau (Kendall, Kerr and Brown Counties) to the valley of the upper Brazos River (Palo Pinto County), and northward through western Louisiana and western Arkansas to western Oklahoma (Seiling, Dewey County), and to southeastern Kansas (Cherokee County) and southern Missouri as far north as the valley of the Meramec River (near Allenton, St. Louis County), and southern Illinois (near Mound City, Pulaski County); at Calcasieu Pass, on the sandy beaches of the Louisiana coast forming thickets of plants 6°—8° high, and uninjured by salt spray; the var. albicans in eastern Texas from the valley of the lower Brazos to that of the San Antonio River and in the neighborhood of Monterey, Nuevo Leon; most distinct and of its largest size on the bottoms of the Guadalupe River, near Victoria, Victoria County, and here occasionally 70°—80° high, with a trunk 3° in diameter.
Passing into the var. rigida A. Gray, with smaller rather narrower leaves and often more spinescent branches. Brown and Uvalde Counties, Texas; in Coahua and Nuevo Leon, and in the cañons of the mountains of southern Arizona up to altitudes of at least 4000°—5000°; in Texas shrubby in habit; in Arizona forming dense thickets of slender stems often 20°—25° tall and only 2′—3′ in diameter.