Part 105

A tree, 12°—15° high, with a straight trunk 6′—7′ in diameter, stout rigid spreading branches forming a compact regular round-topped head, and slightly many-angled branchlets yellow-green or light orange-colored and coated with short soft pale ferrugineous pubescence when they first appear, terete, darker and sometimes reddish brown and marked in their second year by orbicular depressed conspicuous leaf-scars and by many scattered pale lenticels, becoming glabrous and red-brown or ashy gray the following season. Winter-buds axillary, minute, nearly globose, immersed in the bark. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, blue-gray, and usually more or less marked by pale or nearly white blotches. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, rich brown, beautifully marked by darker medullary rays.

Distribution. Florida, dry coral soil in the immediate neighborhood of the shore, Gasparilla Island, on the west coast to the southern keys, and to the borders of the Everglades; rare but most abundant and of its largest size in Florida on the Marquesas Keys; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba and Jamaica.

LV. MYRSINACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, alternate entire coriaceous punctate leaves, without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect or dimorphous; calyx persistent under the fruit; corolla, without staminodia, glandular-punctate; stamens inserted on the corolla, as many as and opposite its lobes; ovary 1-celled, with an undivided style and a minute terminal stigma; ovules peltate, immersed in the fleshy central placenta, amphitropous. Fruit a drupe. Seed solitary, globose, with copious cartilaginous or corneous albumen; seed-coat membranaceous.

A tropical family of thirty genera, with two arborescent species reaching the shores of southern Florida.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Flowers perfect in terminal panicles; anthers on short broad filaments; style elongated. 1. Ardisia. Flowers dimorphous in small axillary clusters; anthers sessile; stigma sessile or in one form of the staminate flower terminal on a slender style. 2. Rapanea.

1. ARDISIA Sw.

Glabrous trees or shrubs, with leaves punctate below with immersed resinous dots. Flowers resinous-punctate, pedicellate, the pedicels bibracteolate at base or ebracteolate, in terminal or rarely axillary branched panicles, with minute scarious deciduous or caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx free, 5 or rarely 4-lobed or parted, the divisions contorted or imbricated in the bud; corolla 5 or rarely 4—6-parted, the divisions extrorsely or sinistrorsely contorted in the bud, short or elongated, white or rose color; stamens exserted; filaments short or nearly obsolete, free, inserted on the throat of the corolla; anthers usually sagittate-lanceolate, attached on the back just above the base, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally sometimes nearly to the base; ovary globose; ovules numerous, immersed in the globose resinous-punctate placenta. Fruit globose, with thin usually dry flesh and a 1-seeded stone with a usually crustaceous or bony shell. Seed concave or more or less lobed at base, resinous-punctate; hilum basilar, concave, conspicuous; embryo cylindric, transverse; cotyledons flat on the inner face, rounded on the back, shorter than the slender radicle.

Ardisia with about two hundred species inhabits tropical and subtropical regions of the two hemispheres. The genus has few useful properties, but a number of species are cultivated for the beauty of their handsome evergreen foliage and bright-colored fruits.

The generic name is from ἀρδις, in reference to the pointed anthers.

1. Ardisia paniculata Nutt. Marlberry. Cherry.

_Icacorea paniculata_ Sudw.

Leaves ovate to oblong-lanceolate or lanceolate-obovate, acute or rounded at the narrow apex, cuneate and gradually contracted at base, entire, with thickened and slightly revolute margins, thick and coriaceous, glabrous, marked by minute scattered dark dots, dark yellow-green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 3′—6′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with a broad midrib yellow and conspicuous on the under side, slender primary veins and reticulate veinlets; appearing in the summer or early autumn and falling before the appearance of the flowers the following year; petioles stout, grooved, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers fragrant, usually opening in November or occasionally as early as July, ¼′ in diameter, on slender elongated pedicels without bractlets, from the axils of linear acute caducous bracts, in terminal rusty brown puberulous panicles 3′—4′ long and broad, their lower branches often from the axils of upper leaves; calyx ovoid, divided nearly to the base into 5 ovate acute lobes scarious and ciliate on the margins and marked on the back with dark lines; corolla 5-parted, with oblong rounded divisions sinistrorsely overlapping, or with 1 lobe wholly outside and 1 inside in the bud, conspicuously marked with red spots on the inner surface near the base, becoming reflexed; stamens, with short broad filaments, contracted by a geniculate fold in the middle, and large orange-colored anthers longer than the filaments, their cells opening almost to the base; ovary globose, glandular, gradually contracted into a long slender style ending in a simple stigma. Fruit ripening in early spring, globose, ¼′ in diameter, tipped with the remnants of the style, and roughened by resinous glands, dark brown at first when fully grown, ultimately becoming black and lustrous; stone brown, thin-walled, crustaceous; seed conspicuously lobed at base, bright red-brown, about ⅛′ in diameter.

A slender tree, in Florida rarely more than 20° high, with a short trunk 4′—5′ in diameter, numerous thin upright branches forming a narrow head, and stout terete often contorted branchlets, rusty brown or dark orange-colored and slightly puberulous when they first appear, becoming in their second year dark brown or ashy gray, and marked by many minute circular lenticels and by thin nearly orbicular flat leaf-scars displaying in the centre a group of fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds rusty brown; terminal slender, acuminate, ⅛′—¼′ long; axillary globose, minute, nearly immersed in the bark. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, light gray or nearly white, roughened by minute lenticels, and separating into large thin papery plates. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, rich brown beautifully marked by darker medullary rays, with thick lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, from Mosquito Inlet to the southern keys on the east coast, and from the shores of the Caloosahatchee River to Cape Romano on the west coast; usually a shrub, occasionally arborescent on the shores of Bay Biscayne and on some of the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands, in Cuba, and southern Mexico.

2. RAPANEA Aubl.

Trees or shrubs, with watery juices and terete branchlets. Leaves alternate, entire or rarely dentate, usually distinctly lepidote, persistent, without stipules. Flowers perfect or unisexual by abortion, minute, 4 or 5, or rarely 6 or 7-merous, sessile or pedicellate, in small axillary sessile or pedunculate fascicles, their bracts deciduous; calyx free, persistent, the sepals imbricate-valvate in the bud, ciliate, usually glandular-punctate; corolla hypogynous, the lobes more or less connate at base, ovate or elliptic, spreading or recurved, glandular-punctate, papillate on the margins, imbricate or rarely convolute in the bud; stamens inserted on the base of the corolla opposite its lobes; filaments 0; anthers short, connate to the corolla, acuminate and papillate at apex, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary globose or ellipsoidal, 1-celled; stigma capitate, irregularly lobed; ovules few, peltate, immersed in one series near the middle of the free fleshy globose placenta. Fruit dry or fleshy, seed filling the cavity of the fruit, globose, intruded at base; testa thin; albumen copious, corneous, rarely slightly ruminate; embryo cylindric, elongated, transverse, usually curved; cotyledons small, radicle elongated.

Rapanea, with nearly one hundred and fifty species, is widely distributed through the tropical and subtropical regions of the two hemispheres, one species reaching southern Florida.

The generic name is formed from the native name of _Rapanea guianensis_ in British Guiana.

1. Rapanea guianensis Aubl.

Leaves crowded at the end of the branches, oblong-obovate, obtuse or retuse at apex, gradually narrowed and contracted at base, coriaceous, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, 2¾′—3½′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with thickened revolute margins, a thick midrib and obscure veins; petioles stout, narrowly wing-margined, ¼′—⅓′ in length. Flowers in November, minute, short-pedicellate in short pedunculate clusters usually 5, rarely 4-merous, white more or less marked with purple, about ⅙′ in diameter; calyx divided to the middle, the lobes broad-ovate, acute or rounded at apex, slightly ciliate, persistent under the fruit; corolla 2 or 3 times longer than the calyx, the lobes spreading, narrowed and rounded at apex, slightly ciliate on the margins; staminate flowers dimorphous; anthers sagittate-apiculate, inserted below the middle of the petals; ovary in one form crowned by a minute discoid sessile stigma and probably abortive, in the other form gradually narrowed into a slender style, terminating in an oblique stigma and fertile; pistillate flowers, anthers smaller and rudimentary; ovary crowned by a large nearly sessile irregularly lobed papillate stigma deciduous from the fruit. Fruit in clusters crowded on the elongated somewhat thickened spur-like peduncle of the flower-cluster covered with imbricated persistent bracts, dark blue or nearly black, tipped with the persistent style, ⅙′—⅕′ in diameter; exocarp thin and fleshy; endocarp crustaceous, white.

A tree, in Florida occasionally 18°—20° high, with a tall usually more or less crooked trunk 2′—3′ in diameter, small ascending branches forming an open irregular head, and slender gray or light red-brown branchlets roughened for a year or two by the persistent spur-like peduncles of the fallen fruit and later marked by circular scars in the axils of the small transverse leaf-scars; more often a shrub. Bark of the trunk thin, close, pale gray.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Indian River on the east coast and Palmetto, Manatee County, on the west coast, southward to the southern keys; common; on the Bahama Islands, Cuba, Porto Rico, Jamaica and Trinidad, to southern Brazil, and to Mexico and Bolivia.

LVI. SAPOTACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with milky juice. Leaves alternate, simple, entire, pinnately veined, mostly coriaceous, petiolate, without stipules. Flowers perfect, regular, small, in axillary clusters; calyx of 5-8 sepals imbricated in the bud, persistent under the fruit; corolla hypogynous, 5—8-cleft, the divisions imbricated in the bud, often with as many or twice as many internal appendages borne on its throat; disk 0; fertile stamens as many as and opposite the divisions of the corolla and inserted on its short tube, often with sterile filaments (_staminodia_) alternate with them; anthers generally extrorse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistil of united carpels; ovary sessile, usually 5-celled; style simple; ovules solitary in each cell, attached to an axile placenta, ascending, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle inferior. Fruit baccate, bearing at apex the remnant of the style, usually 1-celled and 1-seeded. Seed with or without albumen; embryo large; radicle terete, inferior.

This family with fifty genera is chiefly tropical and subtropical, with only Bumelia extending in North America into temperate regions. Some of the species produce valuable timber or edible and agreeable fruits. From _Palaquium gutta_ Burkh., of the Malay Peninsula, gutta-percha is obtained. Five genera are represented by trees in the flora of the United States.

CONSPECTUS OF THE GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Calyx of 5 sepals in a single series. Staminodia 1 in each sinus of the corolla. Appendages of the corolla 0; staminodia slender, scale-like. 1. Sideroxylum. Appendages of the corolla present; staminodia petaloid. Staminodia linear, fimbriate; seeds, with copious albumen. 2. Dipholis. Staminodia petaloid, entire or denticulate; seeds, without albumen. 3. Bumelia. Staminodia and appendages of the corolla 0; leaves covered below with lustrous copper-colored or golden pubescence. 4. Chrysophyllum. Calyx of 6—8 sepals in 2 series; corolla 6—8-lobed, with 2 appendages in each sinus inside of a scale-like or petaloid staminodia. 5. Mimusops.

1. SIDEROXYLUM L.

Trees, with terete branchlets, naked buds, and long-petiolate persistent leaves, the veins remote and connected by reticulate veinlets. Flowers minute, on ebracteolate pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, in crowded many-flowered axillary fascicles; calyx 5-parted, the divisions in one series, nearly equal, corolla furnished with 5 or 6 staminodia, and 5 or rarely 6-lobed; filaments slender, elongated, bent outward at the apex; anthers oblong, the cells at first extrorse, sometimes becoming sublateral; staminodia linear, scale-like; ovary contracted into a subulate style tipped with a minute slightly 5-lobed stigma. Fruit dry, 1-seeded, oblong, with thin coriaceous flesh. Seed obovoid or oblong; seed-coat lustrous, light brown, folded on the inner face into 2 obscure lobes rounded at apex; hilum elevated, subbasilar or lateral, oblong or linear; embryo erect in thick fleshy albumen; radicle much shorter than the oblong fleshy cotyledons.

Sideroxylum with a hundred species is widely distributed through the tropics of the two hemispheres, and occurs also with a few species in Australia, Madeira, southern Africa, New Zealand, and Norfolk Island, a single species reaching the shores of southern Florida. Some of the species are large and valuable timber-trees, producing hard handsome durable wood.

The generic name, from σίδηρος and ξύλον, is in reference to the hardness of the wood.

1. Sideroxylum fœtidissimum Jacq. Mastic.

_Sideroxylum Mastichodendron_ Jacq.

Leaves mostly clustered near the end of the branches, appearing irregularly from early spring until autumn, oval, acute or rounded and slightly emarginate at apex, and gradually narrowed at base, with thickened cartilaginous slightly involute margins, silky-canescent beneath when they unfold, and at maturity thin and firm, glabrous, bright green and lustrous above, lustrous and yellow-green below, 3′—5′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, with a broad pale conspicuous midrib deeply impressed on the upper side and inconspicuous primary veins arcuate near the margins; petioles slender, 1′—1½′ in length. Flowers usually appearing in Florida in the autumn and also in early spring and during the summer on stout orange-colored puberulous pedicels from the axils of minute acute scarious bracts usually deciduous before the opening of the flower-buds, from the axils of young leaves or on the branches of the previous year from leafless nodes; calyx yellow-green, puberulous on the outer surface and deeply divided into broad-ovate rounded lobes rather shorter than the oblong-ovate rounded divisions of the light yellow corolla; staminodia lanceolate, nearly entire, tipped with a subulate point and much shorter than the stamens; ovary oblong-ovoid, glabrous, gradually contracted into an elongated style stigmatic at apex. Fruit ripening in March and April on a much thickened woody stem erect or nearly at right angles to the branch, 1′ long, separating from the calyx in falling, with tough yellow skin, and thick juicy flesh of a pleasant subacid flavor; seed obovoid, rounded above, narrowed at base, ½′ long and ⅓′ wide.

A tree, in Florida 60°—70° high, with a massive straight trunk 3°—4° in diameter, stout upright branches forming a dense irregular head, and thick terete branchlets orange-colored and slightly puberulous when they first appear, becoming glabrous, brown more or less tinged with red, and marked by the conspicuous nearly orbicular leaf-scars displaying 3 large fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and conspicuously roughened by the thickened persistent bases of the fruit stalks. Bark of the trunk ⅓′—½′ thick, dark gray to light brown tinged with red and broken into thick plate-like scales separating into thin layers. Wood heavy, hard, strong, bright orange-colored, with thick yellow sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual growth; in Florida used in boat-building.

Distribution. Florida, Cape Canaveral and Cape Romano to the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands and many of the Antilles.

2. DIPHOLIS A. DC.

Trees or shrubs, with naked buds, and persistent leaves, the slender veins arcuate and united near the margins. Flowers minute, on clavate ebracteolate pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, in the axils of existing leaves or from the leafless nodes of previous years; calyx ovoid, deeply 5-lobed, the lobes nearly equal, ovate, rounded at apex; corolla campanulate, white, 5-lobed, the spreading lobes furnished on each side at the base with a linear or subulate appendage; stamens exserted; filaments filiform; anthers oblong-sagittate, extrorse; staminodia 5, petaloid, ovate, acute, fimbriately cut on the margins, oblique, keeled on the back, inserted in the same rank and alternate with the stamens; ovary oblong or narrow-ovoid, gradually contracted into a slender style shorter than the corolla and stigmatic at the apiculate apex. Fruit oblong-ovoid, with thin dry flesh. Seed ovoid; seed-coat thick, coriaceous and lustrous; hilum oblong, basilar or slightly lateral; embryo erect in thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons ovate, flat, much longer than the short radicle turned toward the hilum.

Dipholis with three species is confined to the West Indies and southern Florida.

The generic name, from δίς and φολίς, relates to the appendages of the corolla.

1. Dipholis salicifolia A. DC. Bustic. Cassada.

Leaves oblong-lanceolate or narrow-obovate, acute, acuminate, or rounded at apex, gradually contracted at base, with slightly thickened cartilaginous wavy margins, thickly coated when they unfold with lustrous rufous pubescence, and at maturity thin and firm, dark green and lustrous above, pale yellow-green below, 3′—5′ long, ½′—1½′ wide, and glabrous, or slightly puberulous on the lower side of the narrow pale midrib, with inconspicuous veins and reticulate veinlets; appearing in Florida in the spring and remaining on the branches between one and two years; petioles slender, ½′—1′ in length. Flowers opening during March and April, ⅛′ long, on thick pedicels ¼′ in length from the axils of minute ovate acute scarious bracts, and coated with rufous pubescence, in dense many-flowered fascicles crowded on branchlets of the year or of the previous year for a distance of 8′—12′; calyx half the length of the corolla, coated on the outer surface with rusty silky pubescence; appendages of the corolla as long as the oval acute irregularly toothed staminodia; ovary narrow-ovoid, glabrous, gradually contracted into a slender style shorter than the corolla and stigmatic at apex. Fruit solitary or rarely clustered, ripening in the autumn, short-oblong to subglobose, black, ¼′ in length; seed pale brown, about 3/16′ in length.

A tree, in Florida sometimes 40°—50° high, with a straight trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, small upright branches forming a narrow graceful head, and slender branchlets coated with rufous pubescence when they first appear, becoming ashy gray or light brown tinged with red and marked by numerous circular pale lenticels and by small elevated orbicular leaf-scars displaying near the centre a compact cluster of fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Bark of the trunk about ⅓′ thick and broken into thick square plate-like brown scales tinged with red. Wood very heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, close-grained, dark brown or red, with thin sapwood of 4 or 5 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Florida, rich hummock soil, shores of Bay Biscayne and on the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on several of the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands and on many of the Antilles.

3. BUMELIA Sw.

Small trees or shrubs, with terete usually spinescent branchlets, scaly buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves often fascicled on spur-like lateral branchlets, conduplicate in the bud, coriaceous or thin, short-petiolate, obovate and obtuse or elliptic, silky-pubescent or tomentose below, or nearly glabrous, with rather inconspicuous veins arcuate near the entire margins and conspicuous reticulate veinlets, deciduous or persistent. Flowers minute, on slender clavate ebracteolate pedicels from the axils of lanceolate acute scarious deciduous bracts, in many-flowered crowded fascicles in the axils of existing leaves or from the leafless nodes of previous years; calyx ovoid to subcampanulate, 5-lobed, the lobes in one series, imbricated in the bud, ovate or oblong, rounded at apex, nearly equal; corolla campanulate, white, with 5 spreading broad-ovate lobes rounded at apex and furnished on each side at base with a minute acute ovate or lanceolate appendage; stamens 5; filaments filiform; anthers ovoid-sagittate, attached on the back below the middle, the cells opening by subextrorse slits; staminodia petal-like, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, entire or obscurely denticulate, flattened or keeled on the back, sometimes furnished at base with a pair of minute scales; ovary hirsute, ovoid to ovoid-conic, gradually or abruptly contracted into a slender short or elongated simple style stigmatic at the acute apex. Fruit oblong-obovoid or globose, black, solitary or in 2 or 3-fruited clusters; flesh thin and dry or succulent. Seed ovoid or oblong, apiculate or rounded at apex, without albumen; seed-coat thick, crustaceous, light brown, smooth and shining, folded more or less conspicuously on the back into 2 lobes rounded at apex; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons thick and fleshy, hemispheric, usually consolidated; radicle short, turned toward the basilar or subbasilar orbicular or elliptic hilum.

Bumelia, with about twenty-five species is confined to the New World, where it is distributed from the southern United States through the West Indies to Mexico, Central America, and Brazil. Of the twelve species in the United States which have been distinguished five are small trees.

Bumelia produces hard heavy strong wood, that of the North American species containing bands of numerous large open ducts defining the layers of annual growth and connected by conspicuous branched groups of similar ducts, presenting in cross-section a reticulate appearance.

The generic name is from βουµελία, a classical name of the Ash-tree.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.