RTTBT A O W ffl .
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primary veins nearly parallel with the sides of the leaf, and stout grooved glabrous or puberulouspetioles from one half to three quarters of an inch in length. The stipules are minute, nearly triangu-lar, deciduous, or persistent during the winter. The flower-heads are panicled and from an inch to aninch and a half in diameter. The creamy white flowers, which open from the middle of May in Florida and Texas to the middle of August in the Atlantic states and Canada , and on the mountains ofCalifornia , are very fragrant. The calyx is usually four but occasionally five-lobed, with short roundedlobes, and is slightly villose toward the base. The corolla is tubular funnel-form, puberulous on theinner face, and glandular or eglandular. The anthers are nearly sessile, included, and discharge theirpollen before the flowers open. 1 The disk is thin and obscure, and the style is elongated, with an entirestigma. The heads of fruit, which ripen late in the autumn, are from five eighths to three quarters ofan inch in diameter, green tinged with red, and ultimately dark red-brown.
Cephalanthus occidentalis grows in swamps and the low wet borders of ponds and streams, andranges from New Brunswick to Ontario 2 and eastern Nebraska 3 and Kansas , 4 and southward to Florida ,Texas , New Mexico , and Arizona . It is also widely distributed in California , 5 and grows in Mexico 6and Cuba . 7
The bark of Cephalanthus occidentalis contains tannin, and, although its medical virtues areproblematical, it has been often used in the treatment of fevers 8 and in homoeopathic practice. 9
The earliest account of Cephalanthus occidentalis was published by Plukenet in 1691. 10 Accord-ing to Aiton it was cultivated in England by Philip Miller in 1735. 11
1 Cross fertilization of the flowers of Cephalanthus occidentalis issecured by the early maturity of the anthers. These dischargetheir pollen before the buds open in a conical mass on the imma-ture stigma, which later is carried by the lengthening of the styleto a point high above the flowers where it must come in contactwith insects which are attracted in great numbers to the flower-heads by their fragrance and by the abundant nectar in the bottomof the corollas, and which carry the pollen masses from the imma-ture stigma of one flower to the mature stigma of another. (SeeRobertson, Bot. Gazette, xvi. 65. — Blanchan, Nature’s Garden,251, t.)
Meehan believed that the early discharge of the pollen on to thestigma resulted in self-fertilization, hut his own observations donot appear to support his theory, as he found that only one in fiveflowers of a head were fertilized, a fact which Robertson takesns presumptive evidence against self-fertilization. (See Meehan,Proc. Phil. Acad. 1887, 327 [ Contributions to the Life History ofPlants ].)
2 Provancher, Fiore Canadienne, i. 291. — Brunet, Cat . Veg. Lig.Can. 34. — Macoun, Cat . Can. PI. 199.
8 Bessey, Bull. Exper. Stat. Nebraska , iv. art. iv. 22.
4 Hitchcock , FI. Kansas , plate xvi.
6 Gray, Brewer Watson Bot. Cal. i. 282. — Eastwood, Bull.Sierra Club, iv. 58.
6 Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. ii. 6.
In southern Arizona and in Mexico the leaves of Cephalanthus
occidentalis are often much narrower than those usually producedby northern plants, although the leaves vary greatly everywhere ondifferent individuals. The narrow-leaved Mexican form is
Cephalanthus occidentalis, var. salicifolius, Gray, Syn. FI. N. Am.i. pt. ii. 29 (1884).
Cephalanthus salicifolius, Humboldt & Bonpland , PI. JEquin. ii.
63, t. 98 (1809). — Humboldt , Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et
Spec. iii. 381. — Kunth , Syn. PI. JEquin. iii. 39. — De Candolle ,
Prodr. iii. 539. — Dietrich, Syn. i. 452. —.Hemsley, l. c.
7 Grisebach, Cat . PI. Cuba , 139.
8 Rafinesque , Med. FI. 100, t. 20. — Griffith. Med. Bot. 356. —Johnson, Man. Med. Bot. N. Am. 168.— U. S. Dispens. ed. 16,1750. —Parke, Davis & Co., Organic Mat. Med. 37.
9 Millspaugh, Am. Med. PI. in Homoeopathic Remedies, i. 76,t. 76.
10 Arbor Americana triphylla,fructu Platani quodammodo cemulante,Plukenet , Phyt. t. 77, f. 4 ; Almagest. Bot. 47.
Scabiosa dendroides Americana, ternis foliis circa caulem ambien-tibus, Jloribus ochroleucis, Plunkenet, Almagest. Bot. 336.
Platanocephalus tini foliis ex adverso ternis, Vaillant, Mem. Acad.Sci. Paris, 1722, 191.
Cephalanthus foliis ternis, Linnseus, Hort. Cliff. 73. — Royen, FI.Leyd. Prodr. 187.
Cephalanthus foliis oppositis Sf ternis, Clayton, FI. Virgin. 15.
Cephalanthus, Duhamel, Traite des Arbres, i. 145.
11 Hort. Kew. i. 132. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 1061, f. 828, 829.