Fig. 783
Leaveselliptic to obovate or oval, rounded, acute, or short-pointed at apex, cuneate or rounded at base, and finely serrate with slender apiculate straight or incurved teeth, covered below and on the wings of the petiole with thick ferrugineous tomentum when they unfold and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and very lustrous above, pale and dull below,usually about 3′ long and ¾′—1½′ wide, with a stout yellow midrib, numerous slender primary veins, and reticulate veinlets more or less covered below throughout the season with rufous tomentum also occasionally found on the upper side of the midrib; petioles stout, grooved, ½′—¾′ long, and margined with broad or narrow wings.Flowers¼′ in diameter, in sessile 3—5 but usually 4-rayed thick-stemmed ferrugineo-pubescent flat corymbs often 5′—6′ in diameter, with minute subulate bracts and bractlets; corolla creamy white, with orbicular or oblong rounded lobes.Fruitripening in October, in few-fruited drooping red-stemmed clusters, short-oblong or slightly obovoid, bright blue covered with a glaucous bloom, and ½′—⅔′ long; stone ½′ long and about ⅓′ wide.
A tree, often 40° high, with a trunk 12′—18′ in diameter, short thick branches forming an open irregular head, and stout branchlets marked by numerous small red-brown or orange lenticels, when they first appear more or less coated with ferrugineous tomentum, ashy gray during their first winter, and dark dull red-brown in their second season.Winter-budsferrugineo-tomentose, those containing flower-bearing branchlets broad-ovoid, full and rounded at base, short-pointed and obtuse at apex, compressed, often ½′ long and ⅓′ wide, and rather larger than those containing sterile branchlets.Barkof the trunk ¼′—½′ thick, separating into narrow rounded ridges divided by numerous cross fissures, and roughened by small plate-like dark brown scales tinged with red.Woodbad-smelling.
Distribution.Dry upland woods and the margins of river-bottom lands; southwestern Virginia and southern Indiana and Illinois to Hernando County, Florida, and through the Gulf States to the valleys of the upper Guadalupe River and of Clear Creek, Brown County, Texas, and to eastern and southwestern Oklahoma (on the Wichita Mountains, Comanche County), eastern Kansas and Central Missouri; most abundant and of its largest size in southern Arkansas, western Louisiana, and eastern Texas.
Occasionally cultivated in the eastern states, and hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
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