Trees or shrubs, with stellate pubescence, slender terete pithy branchlets, without a terminal bud, axillary buds with imbricated accrescent scales, and fibrous roots. Leaves involute in the bud, thin, elliptic, oblong-ovate or oblong-ovoid, denticulate, deciduous. Flowers opening in early spring, on slender elongated drooping ebracteolate pedicels from the axils of foliaceous acuminate or acute caducous bracts, in fascicles or short racemes from the axils of leaves of the previous year; calyx-tube obconic, adherent to the whole surface of the ovary, the limb short, 4-toothed, with minute triangular teeth, open in the bud; corolla epigynous, campanulate, 4-lobed, or divided nearly to the base, the lobes convolute or imbricated in the bud, thin and white or rarely tinged with rose; stamens 8—16; filaments elongated, shorter than the corolla, slightly attached at base, or sometimes free, flattened below; anthers oblong, adnate or free at the very base; ovary 2 or 4-celled, gradually contracted into an elongate glabrous or tomentose style stigmatic at apex; ovules 4 in each cell, attached by elongated funiculi at the middle of the axis, the 2 upper ascending, the 2 lower pendulous; raphe dorsal; micropyle inferior and superior. Fruit ripening in the autumn, elongated, oblong or obovoid and gradually narrowed at base; skin tough, separable, light green and lustrous, turning reddish brown late in the autumn; exocarp indehiscent, thick, becoming dry and corky at maturity, produced into 2 or 4 broad thin wings cuneate at base and rounded at apex; stone bony, cylindric, obovoid or ellipsoid, gradually narrowed at base into a slender stipe inclosed in the wings, narrowed above and terminating in the enlarged style protruding above the wings, usually obscurely and irregularly 8-angled or sulcate, 1—4-celled. Seed solitary in each cell, elongated, cylindric; seed-coat thin, light brown, lustrous, adherent to the walls of the stone, the delicate inner coat attached to the copious fleshy albumen; embryo terete, axile, erect; cotyledons oblong, as long as the elongated radicle turned toward the minute hilum.
Halesia is confined to the southeastern United States.
The generic name is in honor of Stephen Hales (1677—1761), an English clergyman, author of “Vegetable Staticks.”
CONSPECTUS OF THE SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
Fruit 4-winged; flowers fascicled; corolla slightly lobed. Fruit oblong to slightly obovoid. Flowers hardly more than ½′ long; fruit 1½′ in length.1. [H. carolina] (A, C). Flowers 2′ long; fruit up to 2′ in length.2. [H. monticola] (A). Fruit clavate; flowers usually not more than ¼′ long.3. [H. parviflora] (C). Fruit 2-winged; flowers often racemose; corolla divided nearly to the base.4. [H. diptera] (C).
1. [Halesia carolina] L.
Mohrodendron carolinum Britt.
Leaves elliptic to oblong-obovate, abruptly acuminate and long-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and rounded or cuneate at base, and dentate with small remote callous teeth, slightly pubescent or covered below when they unfold with thick hoary tomentum and densely stellate-pubescent above (var. mollis Perkins), and at maturity dark yellow-green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale and glabrous or slightly villose below on the slender yellow midrib and primary veins, 3′—4′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, and on leading shoots up to 6′—7′ in length; turning yellow in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, glabrous, pubescent or tomentose, early in the season, becoming nearly glabrous, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers about ½′ long, on glabrous or densely or slightly villose pedicels ½′—¾′ in length, from the axils of ovate caducous serrate glabrous or pubescent bracts rounded at apex, in crowded fascicles; calyx obconic, glabrous, slightly pubescent or hoary-tomentose (var. mollis Lange), the lobes ciliate; corolla narrowed below into a short tube, ¾′ across, sometimes faintly tinged with rose, rarely divided nearly to the base (var. dialypetala Schn.); stamens 10—16; filaments villose with occasional white hairs; ovary 4-celled. Fruit oblong to oblong-obovate, 4-winged, 1½′ long, ½′—¾′ in diameter; stone ellipsoid to slightly obovoid, narrowed below into a short stipe and above into the slender apex terminating in the elongated persistent style, slightly angled, ½′—⅝′ long, usually 1-seeded by abortion; seed rounded at the narrow ends, ¼′—⅓′ long.
A round-headed tree, rarely 40° high, with a short trunk often divided near the ground into several spreading stems, and 12′—18′ in diameter, small branches, and slender branchlets glabrous or densely pubescent early in the season, becoming slightly pubescent or nearly glabrous and orange-brown, and marked by large obcordate leaf-scars during their first winter and dark red-brown the following year; more often a shrub with wide-spreading stems. Winter-buds ellipsoid to ovoid, ⅛′ long, with thick broad-ovate dark red acute puberulous scales rounded on the back, those of the inner rows becoming strap-shaped, bright yellow and sometimes ½′ long. Bark of the trunk ½′ thick, slightly ridged, reddish brown, separating into thin closely appressed scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown with thick lighter-colored sapwood.