LIQUIDAMBAR
- Liquidambar, Linnæus, Gen. Pl. 463 (1742); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pl. i. 669 (1865); Engler u. Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iii. pt. 2, 123 (1891).
Deciduous trees belonging to the order Hamamelideæ. Leaves alternate on long shoots, crowded and almost fascicled on short shoots, long-stalked, simple, palmately lobed, glandular-serrate. Stipules two, attached to the petiole near its base, lanceolate or subulate, caducous or persisting throughout the summer.
Flowers monœcious, or in rare cases polygamous, in heads subtended at the base by caducous bracts. Staminal heads, globose or elongated, several in a raceme on an erect axis, which is subterminal; each head composed of numerous stamens, interspersed with minute scales, without corolla or calyx; filaments slender; anthers basi-fixed, oblong-obcordate, dehiscing longitudinally. Pistillate heads solitary, on long pendulous stalks, arising in the axils of the uppermost leaves, composed of numerous confluent flowers, the ovaries embedded in the axis of the inflorescence; calyces minute, united together and with the ovaries, and bearing on their summits each four or more stamens, with usually aborted anthers; corolla absent; ovary twocelled, each cell with numerous ovules; styles two, recurved, stigmatic above on their inner surface.
Fruit: a woody spherical head, composed of numerous capsules, consolidated together. Capsule with two valves, opening above to let out the seeds, each valve terminating in a beak (the hardened woody persistent style); calyx persistent, either minutely tuberculate or produced above into long spines. Perfect seeds, angled, winged above, one or two in a capsule, the remaining ovules having aborted. Most of the capsules, however, contain only numerous minute unfertile seeds without wings.
The leaves of Liquidambar resemble strongly those of certain maples; but in the latter they are always opposite, and not alternate or fascicled as in the former. Moreover, stipules or their scars are present on the petiole near its base in Liquidambar, and are absent entirely in Acer.
Three species of Liquidambar are well known, and occur in cultivation. Besides these there are apparently two species,[1] wild in China, which are imperfectly known and not introduced.
- ↑ These are:—
1. Liquidambar Rosthornii, Diels, Flora von Central China, 380 (1901), a small tree occurring in Szechwan; flowers and fruit unknown. It resembles in foliage L. orientalis.
2. Liquidambar sp., Hemsley, Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxiii. 292 (1887). Specimens, consisting of detached leaves and fruits, were sent to Kew from Hankow by Consul Alabaster. Judging from the imperfect material, this is a distinct species. Mr. E. H. Wilson has recently observed a species of Liquidambar, growing on the plain near Kiukiang, in Kiangsi, which is probably the same. Cf. Gard. Chron. xiii. 344 (1907).
