Trees, with bipinnate leaves, and showy white dioecious or polygamous flowers in terminal racemes. Calyx tubular, 5-lobed, the lobes narrow, nearly equal. Petals 5 (rarely 4), oblong or oval, nearly equal, imbricated, inserted at the top of the calyx-tube. Stamens 10, distinct, shorter than the petals and inserted with them; filaments pubescent; anthers all alike, longitudinally dehiscent. Ovary rudimentary, or none in the staminate flowers, sessile and many-ovuled in the pistillate and polygamous ones; style straight. Pod oblong, thick, large, coriaceous, flat, pulpy between the seeds, 2-valved. [Greek, naked-branch.]

A monotypic genus of eastern North America.

1. Gymnocladus Dioica (L.) Koch. Kentucky Coffee-Tree

Fig. 2447

Guilandina dioica L. Sp. Pl. 381. 1753. Gymnocladus canadensis Lam. Encycl. 1: 733.

1783. Gymnocladus dioicus Koch, Dendrol. 1: 5. 1869.

A large forest tree, with rough bark, maximum height about 100°, and trunk diameter of 30. Leaves large, bipinnate, petioled; pinnae 5-9, odd or evenly pinnate; leaflets 7-15 (or the lowest pair of pinnae of but a single leaflet), ovate, acute or acuminate at the apex, rounded at the base, glabrous, or pubescent on the veins beneath, ciliate on the margins, 1'-3' long; racemes many-flowered, elongated; flowers nearly white, slender-pedicelled, 8"-9" long; pod 5'-10' long, about 1 1/4'-1 3/4' wide, the valves thick and coriaceous.

Rich woods, southern Ontario and New York to Pennsylvania, Tennessee, South Dakota, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Wood soft, strong, light reddish-brown; weight per cubic foot 43 lbs. The fruit called Coffee-nut. May-June. Kentucky mahogany. Chicot. American coffee-bean. Nickar-tree.