TERN STRCEMIACE-dS.
45
GORDONIA ALTAMAHA.
Franklinia.
Flowers subsessile; filaments distinct. Capsule globose, septicidally 5-valved fromthe base to the middle; seeds destitute of wings. Leaves membranaceous, deciduous.
Gordonia Alta mah a, Sargent, Garden and Forest, ii.616.
Fra nklini a Altamaha, Marshall, Arbust . Am. 49. — Bar-tram, Trav. 16, 467. — Rafinesque , Atlant. Jour. 79, f.
G. pubescens, L’Heritier, Stirp. Nov. 166. — Lamarck , Diet.
ii. 770. — Cavanilles , Diss. ii. 308, t. 162. — Willdenow ,Spec. iii. 841. — Michaux, FI. Bor.-Am. ii. 42. — Ventenat,Jard. Malm. 1.1. — Nouveau Duhamel, ii. 237.—Des-fontaines, Hist. Arb. i. 484. — Michaux f. Hist. Arb. Am.
iii. 135, t. 2. — Pursh, FI. Am. Sept. ii. 451. — Nuttall,Gen. ii. 84. — Loiseleur, Herb. Amat. iv. t. 236. — Elliott,Sk. ii. 171. — De Candolle , Prodr. i. 528. — Don, Gen.Syst. i. 573. — Audubon, Birds, t. 185. — Spach, Hist.
Veg. iv. 80. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. i. 380, f. 94. — Torrey& Gray, FI. N. Am. i. 223. — Gray, Gen. 111. ii. 102, t.141, f. 11-14,1.142. — Choisy, Mem. Ternst. et Camel.51. — Chapman, FI. 60. — Goodale & Sprague, WildFlowers, 193, t. 47. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10 thCensus U. S. ix. 25.
G. Franklini, L’Heritier, Stirp. Nov. 156.—Willdenow ,Spec. iii. 841. — Nouveau Duhamel, ii. 237. — Desfon-taines, Hist. Arb. i. 484. — Poiret, Lam. Diet. Suppl. ii.816.
Michauxia sessilis, Salisbury, Prodr. 386.
Lacathea florida, Salisbury, Farad. Bond. t. 56. — Colla,Hart. Ripjul. Appx. i. 134.
A tree or shrub, “ fifteen or twenty feet high branching alternately,” 1 with stout slightly angledbranchlets covered with dark red-brown bark, dotted with minute pale wart-like excrescences and con-spicuously marked with large prominent leaf-scars. The scales of the stout acuminate winter-buds arecovered with a thick pale silky tomentum. The leaves are ohovate-oblong, rounded or pointed at theapex, and gradually and regularly narrowed at the base into a short grooved petiole; they are sharply ser-rate usually above the middle only, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, and pale on the lower,and turn scarlet in the autumn before falling; they are five or six inches long and two inches broad.The flowers, which in Philadelphia begin to appear about the middle of September, continue to openuntil the buds are destroyed by frost. They are borne on short stout peduncles, at first pubescent, andfinally glabrous, produced from the axils of the upper leaves, and marked with the broad conspicuousscars of the two minute lateral subfloral bracts, which are pubescent and early-deciduous. The sepals arenearly circular, half an inch long, with ciliolate marg ins , and are covered on the outer surface with shortpale hairs. The white membranaceous petals, which before the expansion of the flower form a largespherical bud, are obovate with more or less crenulate margins; they are an inch or an inch and a halflong by an inch broad, and are densely coated with fine pubescence on the outer surface. The anthersare yellow. The ovary is conspicuously ridged, pubescent, truncate, and crowned with the slender decid-uous style which nearly equals the stamens in length. The seeds, six or eight, or by abortion fewer ineach cell of the woody capsule, are closely packed together on the whole length of the thick axile pla-centa ; they are nearly half an inch long and angled by mutual pressure. The embryo is not known. 2
Gordonia Altamaha is not now known to grow anywhere naturally. It was discovered by John Bartram in 1765, during one of his journeys through the southern states, near Fort Barrington on theAltamaha River in Georgia , occupying with Pinckneya puhens an area of two or three acres. William Bartram , who had accompanied his father during the journey of 1765, revisited the Altamaha Rivereight years later, and again in 1778, and collected roots and seeds of the beautiful flowering tree whichhad so impressed his father and himself that they had thought it worthy of the name of Franklinia,
2 I have never seen the bark of an old plant of Franklinia, orbeen able to examine its wood.