Leaves oblong-cuneate to obovate, rounded and often retuse at apex and cuneate at base, covered below when they unfold with thick pale tomentum and above with scattered long white hairs, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous, glabrous or puberulous on the upper surface, paler and pubescent on the lower surface, ¾′—1½′ long and nearly 1′ wide, with a broad midrib and about 4 pairs of arcuate primary veins and reticulate veinlets; unfolding in February and March, and falling during the following winter without change of color; petioles short, thick, and hairy. Flowers appearing in early spring when the leaves are about one third grown, on branches of the previous year; staminate on slender drooping pedicels furnished near the middle with minute caducous bractlets, in 1—3-flowered crowded pubescent fascicles; pistillate on stouter club-shaped pedicels, solitary or rarely in pairs; calyx of the staminate flower ⅛′ long and deeply divided into 5 ovate or lanceolate silky-tomentose lobes recurved after the opening of the flower, and much shorter than the corolla ⅛′ long, creamy white, and slightly contracted below the 5 short spreading rounded lobes ciliate on the margins; stamens, with glabrous filaments shorter than the corolla, and linear-lanceolate anthers opening at apex only by short slits; pistillate flowers without rudimentary stamens, ⅓′ long, with oblong acute silky-tomentose calyx-lobes half the length of the pubescent corolla nearly ½′ across the short spreading lobes; ovary ovoid, pubescent like the young fruit, ultimately 8-celled. Fruit ripening in August, subglobose, ½′—1′ in diameter, and 3—8-seeded, surrounded at base by the large thickened leathery calyx sometimes 1′ in diameter, with oblong pubescent reflexed lobes, the thick tough black skin inclosing thin sweet insipid juicy dark flesh; seeds triangular, rounded on the back, narrowed and flattened at the pointed apex, ⅓′ long, about ⅛′ thick, with a bony lustrous light red pitted coat.
An intricately branched tree, occasionally 40°—50° high, with a trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, dividing at some distance above the ground into a number of stout upright branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender terete slightly zigzag branchlets, coated at first with pale or rufous tomentum, ashy gray, glabrous or puberulous during their first winter, later becoming brown and marked by minute pale lenticels and by small elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying a lunate row of fibro-vascular bundle-scars; often much smaller, and toward the northern and western limits of its range a low many-stemmed shrub. Winter-buds obtuse, barely more than 1/16′ long, with broad-ovate scales rounded on the back and coated with rufous tomentum. Bark of the trunk smooth, light gray slightly tinged with red, the outer layer falling away in large irregularly shaped patches displaying the smooth gray inner bark. Wood heavy, with black heartwood often streaked with yellow and clear bright yellow sapwood; used in turnery and for the handles of tools. The fruit, which is exceedingly austere until it is fully ripe, stains black, and is sometimes used by Mexicans in the valley of the Rio Grande to dye sheepskins.
Distribution. Southwestern Texas, Matagorda County (neighborhood of Matagorda and Bay City) to the lower Rio Grande, and northward to San Saba, Lampasas and Bexar Counties; in Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas; possibly in southern Lower California; abundant in western and southern Texas: in the neighborhood of the coast on the borders of prairies in rich moist soil; westward on dry rocky mesas and in isolated cañons; very common and of its largest size in the region between the Sierra Madre and the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.
LVIII. STYRACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with stellate pubescence or lepidote, watery juice, and scaly buds. Leaves alternate, simple, penniveined, without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect; calyx more or less adnate to the tube of the corolla; disk 0; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary superior or partly superior, crowned with a simple style; ovules anatropous. Fruit drupaceous, with thin dry flesh, and a thick-walled 1-seeded bony stone. Seeds, with albumen.
The Storax family is confined to North and South America, the Mediterranean region, eastern Asia and the Malay Archipelago. Of the six genera of this family two are represented in the flora of North America.
CONSPECTUS OF THE GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Calyx adherent to the whole surface of the ovary; corolla 4-lobed. Fruit oblong-obovoid, 2 or 4-celled and 2 or 4-winged.1. [Halesia.] Calyx adherent to the base only of the ovary; corolla usually 5-parted. Fruit subglobose, 1-celled.2. [Styrax.]