2.
Symplocos tinctoria
(Linnaeus) L'Héritier, Trans. Linn. Soc. 1: 176. 1791.
Common sweetleaf, horse-sugar, wild laurel, yellow-wood
Hopea tinctoria
Linnaeus, Mant. Pl. 1: 105. 1767;
Symplocos tinctoria
var.
ashei
Harbison;
S. tinctoria
var.
pygmaea
Fernald
Shrubs or trees,
deciduous to tardily deciduous, 2-15 m.
Bark
gray tinged with pink (somewhat fissured and roughened with warty excrescences).
Branches
arching upward; branchlets brown.
Winter buds
8-12 mm; scales deltate, ciliate, apex acute, glabrous or pilose.
Leaves:
petiole 8-12 mm; blade elliptic to oblong or oblanceolate, 5.5-12(-15) × 2-6(-7.5) cm, subcoriaceous, base acute, margins usually obscurely crenulate-serrulate, sometimes nearly entire, surfaces abaxially whitish green, pubescent, adaxially green, glabrous or pubescent, midvein raised to prominent adaxially.
Inflorescences
axillary fascicles, from leaf axils of previous year, 6-14-flowered.
Flowers
enclosed in bud by orange-colored scales, appearing before leaves; corolla yellow to creamy white, lobes 6-8 mm; anthers orange; ovary incompletely 3-locular; ovules 2 per carpel; disc glabrous; style 5-6 mm.
Drupes
dark orange to brown, cylindric-ellipsoid, 10-14 mm, glabrous.
Seeds
ovoid.
2
n
= 28.
Flowering early Mar-May. Moist mixed-deciduous hardwoods to dry pine-oak woods, rocky summits or ravines, hammocks, maritime forests, moist to wet pine barrens and flatwoods, streamheads and baygalls, creek swamps and bottomlands; 0-1400 m; Ala., Ark., Del., Fla., Ga., La., Md., Miss., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va.
Symplocos tinctoria
exhibits variation in stature, leaf size, and indument that has been used to recognize infraspecific taxa: var.
tinctoria
represented the tardily deciduous, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, large-leafed populations that are common in the Atlantic coastal plain; var.
ashei
was described to accommodate the early-deciduous, pubescent populations centered in the southern Appalachians; and var.
pygmaea
was described as a small-leafed dwarf form thought to be restricted to southeastern Virginia. In recognizing no infraspecific taxa we here follow J. W. Hardin (1966), who showed that all of the above features vary randomly throughout the range or show clinal variation with intermediate populations.
According to C. E. Wood Jr. and R. B. Channell (1960), A. Brand (1901) considered
Symplocos tinctoria
to be near
S. japonica
A. de Candolle and
S. setchuensis
Brand (both =
S. theifolia
D. Don) as the only American species of the otherwise Asian subgenus
Hopea
(Linnaeus) C. B. Clarke, whereas H. Handel-Mazzetti and E. Peter-Stibal (1943) excluded
S. tinctoria
from that subgenus and suggested that its relations be sought among the New World species. Among the species sampled for DNA sequence data,
S. wikstroemiifolia
Hayata, distributed from southern China to peninsular Malaysia, is unequivocally placed as sister to
S. tinctoria
, and this clade is sister to an exclusively New World clade (Wang Y. et al. 2004; P. W. Fritsch et al. 2006). The entire group is recognized as [subgenus
Symplocos
] sect.
Barberina
A. de Candolle (P. W. Fritsch et al. 2008).
The leaves of this species are somewhat sweet tasting and sought after by cattle, horses, and browsers such as white-tailed deer. The leaves and bark are a source of yellow dye and the bitter aromatic roots have been used as a tonic (C. S. Sargent 1922).
SELECTED REFERENCE Hardin, J. W. 1966. An analysis of variation in
Symplocos tinctoria
. J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc. 82: 6-12.
