Part 83

A gnarled round-headed tree, sometimes 25°—30° high, with a short stout trunk occasionally 2½°—3° in diameter, slender pendulous branches, and branchlets conspicuously enlarged at the nodes, slightly angled, pubescent when they first appear, becoming in their second year glabrous, nearly white, and roughened by numerous small excrescences. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ⅛′ thick, separating on the surface into thin white scales. Wood dark green or yellow-brown, with thin clear yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Keys of southern Florida from Key West eastward; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.

XXV. MALPIGIACEÆ.

Trees, shrubs or vines with opposite simple entire often stipulate persistent leaves; stipules deciduous or 0. Flowers usually perfect or dimorphous, on pedicels articulate near their base from the axils of a bract and furnished below the articulation with two bractlets, in terminal racemes, corymbs or umbels; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes generally imbricated in the bud, usually glandular; petals 5, convolute in the bud, unguiculate; disk inconspicuous; stamens usually 10; filaments generally united at base; anthers short, 2-celled, introrse; ovary of 3 rarely of 2 carpels more or less united into a 3-celled ovary; styles usually 3, distinct, rarely united; stigma terminal or sublateral, inconspicuous; ovule solitary, between orthotropous and anatropous, often uncinate, ascending on the pendulous funicle; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous or samaroid; seeds without albumen, suspended from below the apex of the cell; testa thin; embryo curved or coiled, rarely straight; cotyledons often unequal; radicle short, superior.

This family of nearly sixty genera is confined to tropical and subtropical America, with one arborescent species in the United States.

1. BYRSONIMA Rich.

Trees, or shrubs often scandent, with astringent bark and leaves; stipules usually connate, rarely partly connate or free. Flowers in terminal racemes; lobes of the calyx furnished on the back with two glands; petals unguiculate, their slender claws reflexed in anthesis, the limb concave, penniveined; stamens 10, filaments short, united and bearded at base; ovary 3-celled; styles 3, distinct, oblong or subulate, gradually narrowed into the acute stigma. Fruit a 3-celled drupe; endocarp bony or woody, angled; seeds ovoid to subglobose; embryo circinate, with slender coiled cotyledons; radicle oblong.

Byrsonima with nearly one hundred species is widely distributed in tropical America from southern Florida, where one species occurs, and the Bahama Islands through the West Indies, Mexico, Brazil and Bolivia.

The generic name is from βύρς, a hide, in allusion to the use of the bark in tanning.

1. Byrsonima lucida DC.

Leaves oblong-obovate, rounded or occasionally abruptly short-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, coriaceous, glabrous, dark green and lustrous above, paler, dull and reticulate-venulose beneath, 1′—1½′ long and ¼′—½′ wide, with thickened revolute margins, a slender midrib and obscure primary veins; petioles stout, ⅛′—¼′ in length; stipules free, minute, acute, deciduous. Flowers ¼′ in diameter, appearing throughout the year on slender puberulous pedicels ¼′ to nearly ½′ long from the axils of acuminate caducous bracts a third longer than their acuminate bractlets, in terminal 5—12-flowered erect racemes ¾′—1½′ in length; calyx cup-shaped, persistent under the fruit, with short nearly triangular lobes much shorter than the white petals turning yellow, pink or rose color; styles elongated and persistent on the fruit. Fruit subglobose, greenish, about ¼′ in diameter, the flesh thin and dry; stone woody, rugose, thick-walled, lustrous on the inner surface; seed ovoid, acute, filling the cavity of the stone, pale yellow.

A small tree, rarely 20° high with a trunk 10′ in diameter, covered with pale bark, spreading branches forming a flat-topped head and slender terete pale gray branchlets; more often a many-stemmed shrub.

Distribution. Florida, in sandy soil on the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on several of the southern keys; on the Bahamas and many of the Antilles; in Florida arborescent on Long Key in the Everglades, and on Big Pine Key.

XXVI. RUTACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, abounding in a pungent or bitter aromatic volatile oil, with simple or compound usually glandular-punctate leaves, without stipules or rarely with stipular spines. Flowers regular, perfect or unisexual, in paniculate or corymbose cymes; calyx 3—5-lobed, the lobes more or less united at base, imbricated in the bud; petals 3—5, imbricated in the bud; stamens as many or twice as many as the petals; filaments distinct or united below; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistils 1—4, separate or united into a compound ovary sessile or stipitate on a glandular disk; styles mostly united; ovules usually 2 in each cell of the ovary, pendulous, anatropous or amphitropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit of 2-valved carpels, a samara, drupe or capsule. Seeds solitary or several; seed-coat bony or crustaceous, furrowed or punctate; embryo axile in fleshy albumen; radicle short, superior.

Of this large family, widely distributed over the warm and temperate parts of the earth’s surface, four genera only have arborescent representatives in the United States. _Citrus Aurantium_ L., the Bitter-sweet Orange, a native of Asia, has long been naturalized in the peninsula of Florida, where other species of this genus have escaped from cultivation and are now growing spontaneously.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Fruit of 1—5, 2-valved 1-seeded carpels; flowers diœcious or polygamous. 1. Xanthoxylum. Fruit of 3 or 4-winged indehiscent 1-seeded carpels; flowers perfect. 2. Helietta. Fruit a winged samara; flowers polygamous. 3. Ptelea. Fruit a 1-seeded drupe; flowers perfect or polygamous. 4. Amyris.

1. XANTHOXYLUM L.

Trees or shrubs, with acrid aromatic bark, pellucid aromatic-punctate fruit and foliage, scaly buds, and usually stipular spines. Leaves alternate, unequally or rarely equally pinnate; leaflets generally opposite, often oblique at the base, entire or crenulate. Flowers small, diœcious or polygamous, in axillary or terminal broad or contracted pedunculate cymes; calyx and petals hypogynous; disk small or obscure; stamens as many as the petals and alternate with them, hypogynous, effete, rudimentary or wanting in the female flower; filaments filiform or subulate; pistils 1—5, oblique, raised on the summit of a fleshy gynophore, connivent, sometimes slightly united below, rudimentary, simple or 2—5-parted in the sterile flower; ovaries 1-celled; styles short and slender, more or less united toward the summit; stigmas capitate; ovules collateral, pendulous from the inner angle of the cell. Fruit of 1—5 coriaceous or fleshy 1-seeded carpels, broad-obovoid, sessile or stipitate, ventrally dehiscent. Seed solitary oblong or globose, suspended on a slender funicle, often hanging from the carpel at maturity; seed-coat black, shining, conspicuously marked by the broad hilum; cotyledons oval or orbicular, foliaceous.

Xanthoxylum is widely distributed through tropical and extratropical regions and is most abundant in tropical America. It is represented in North America by one shrub and by four arborescent species of the southern states. The resin contained in the bark, especially in that of the roots, is a powerful stimulant and tonic occasionally used in medicine.

The generic name is from ξανθός and ξύλον.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Flowers in axillary contracted cymes; branches armed with stipular spines. 1. X. Fagara (D, E). Flowers in terminal cymes. Calyx-lobes and petals 5; leaves unequally pinnate. Leaves deciduous; branches armed with stout spines. 2. X. clava-Herculis (C). Leaves persistent; branches without spines. 3. X. flavum (D). Calyx-lobes and petals 3; leaves equally pinnate, persistent. 4. X. coriaceum (D).

1. Xanthoxylum Fagara Sarg. Wild Lime.

_Fagara Fagara_ Small.

Leaves persistent, 3′—4′ long, with a broad-winged jointed petiole, and 7—9 obovate leaflets rounded or emarginate at apex, minutely crenulate-toothed above the middle, sessile, ½′ long or less, coriaceous, glandular-punctate, bright green and lustrous, with minute hooked deciduous stipular prickles. Flowers on short pedicels from the axils of minute ovate obtuse deciduous bracts, in short axillary contracted cymes, appearing singly or in pairs from April until June, on branches of the previous year, from minute dark brown globular buds, the staminate and pistillate flowers on different trees; sepals 4, membranaceous, much shorter than the 4 ovate yellow-green petals; stamens 4, with slender exserted filaments, 0 in the pistillate flower; pistils 2, with ovate sessile ovaries gradually contracted into long slender subulate exserted styles united near apex and crowned with obliquely spreading stigmas, rudimentary in the staminate flower. Fruit ripening in September, obovoid, rusty brown and rugose, ⅛′—¼′ long; seed dark and lustrous.

A tree, occasionally 25°—30° high, with a slender often inclining trunk, fastigiate branches, and more or less zigzag slender dark gray branchlets armed with sharp hooked stipular spines; more frequently a tall or low shrub. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, the smooth light gray surface broken into small appressed persistent scales. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, brown tinged with red, with thin yellow sapwood of 10—12 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Coast and islands of southern Florida, and Texas from Matagorda Bay to the Rio Grande and in San Saba, Bandera, and Brown Counties; one of the commonest of the south Florida plants, and arborescent on the rich hummock soil of Elliott’s Key and the shores of Bay Biscayne; in Texas generally shrubby; common in northern Mexico, and widely distributed through the Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central and South America to Brazil and Peru.

2. Xanthoxylum clava-Herculis L. Prickly Ash. Toothache-tree.

_Fagara clava-Herculis_ Small.

Leaves 5′—8′ long, with a stout pubescent or glabrous spiny petiole, and 3—9 pairs of ovate or ovate-lanceolate sometimes slightly falcate subcoriaceous leaflets usually oblique at base, crenulate-serrate, sessile or short-stalked, 1′—2½′ long, green and lustrous above, paler and often somewhat pubescent below, especially when they unfold; persistent until late in the winter or until the appearance of the new leaves in the early spring. Flowers on slender pedicels ⅓′—¼′ long, from the axils of minute lanceolate deciduous bracts, in ample wide-branched cymes 4′—5′ long and 2′—3′ wide, appearing in very early spring, when the leaves are about half grown, the staminate and pistillate flowers on different individuals; sepals minute, membranaceous, persistent, barely one fourth the length of the oval green petals ⅛′—¼′ long; stamens 5, with slender filiform filaments, conspicuously exserted from the male flowers, rudimentary or wanting in the female flowers; pistils 3, rarely 2, with sessile ovaries and short styles crowned by a slightly 2-lobed stigma. Fruit ripening in May and June, in dense often nearly globose clusters; mature carpels obliquely ovoid, 1-seeded, chestnut-brown, ¼′ long, with a rugose or pitted surface; seeds hanging at maturity outside the carpels.

A round-headed tree, 25°—30°, or exceptionally 50° high, with a short trunk 12′—18′ in diameter, numerous branches spreading nearly at right angles, and stout branchlets covered when they first appear with brown pubescence, becoming glabrous and light gray in their second year, and marked by small glandular spots and by large elevated obcordate leaf-scars displaying a row of large fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and armed with stout straight or sometimes slightly curved sharp chestnut-brown spines ½′ or more long, with a flattened enlarged base; or often a low shrub. Winter-buds short, obtuse, dark brown or nearly black. Bark of the trunk barely 1/16′ thick, light gray, and roughened by corky tubercles, with ovoid dilated bases sometimes 1′ or more across and thick and rounded at apex. Wood light, soft, close-grained, and light brown, with yellow sapwood. The bark, which is collected in large quantities by negroes in the southern states, is used as a cure for toothache and in the treatment of rheumatism.

Distribution. Southeastern Virginia southward near the coast to the shores of Bay Biscayne and Bocagrande, Lee County, Florida, and westward through the Gulf states to northern Louisiana, southern Arkansas (near Arkadelphia, Clark County), and eastern Oklahoma, and through Texas to the valley of the Colorado River ranging northward to Tarrant and Dallas Counties; in the Atlantic states not abundant, and confined to the immediate neighborhood of the coast, growing in light sandy soil and often on the low bluffs of islands or on river banks; from the Gulf coast ranging farther inland, especially west of the Mississippi River; most abundant in eastern Texas, and of its largest size on the rich intervale lands of the streams flowing into the Trinity River. In western Texas a form occurs (var. _fruticosum_ Gray), with short sometimes 3-foliolate more or less pubescent leaves, with small ovate or oblong blunt and conspicuous crenulate rather coriaceous leaflets; this is the common form of western Texas, growing usually as a low shrub.

3. Xanthoxylum flavum Vahl. Satinwood.

_Fagara flava_ Kr. & Urb.

Leaves unequally pinnate, persistent, usually 6′—9′ long, with a stout glandular petiole enlarged at base, and usually 5, sometimes 3, or rarely 1 leaflet, unfolding in Florida during the month of June, and then densely covered with tomentum, and at maturity sparingly hairy on the petiole and on the midrib of the ovate-lanceolate or elliptic, obtuse, often slightly falcate leaflets, sometimes oblique at base, nearly sessile or long-stalked, 2′—3′ long, 1½′—2′ broad, entire or slightly crenulate, coriaceous, pale yellow-green and conspicuously marked by large pellucid glands. Flowers appearing in Florida in June, on a slender pubescent pedicel ¼′ or more long, in wide-spreading pubescent sessile cymes, the male and female on different trees; calyx-lobes 5, minute, acuminate, ciliate on the margins, barely one eighth of the length of the ovate greenish white petals reflexed when the flowers are fully expanded; stamens 5, with slender filaments much longer than the petals, 0 in the pistillate flower; pistils 2 or sometimes 1, with a stipitate obovate ovary and a short style with a spreading entire stigma, minute and depressed in the staminate flower. Fruit ripening in autumn and early winter and sometimes persistent until the spring of the following year; mature carpels obliquely obovoid, short-stalked, 1-seeded, pale chestnut-brown at maturity, about ⅓′ long, faintly marked by minute glands.

A round-headed tree, 30°—35° high, with a trunk 12′—18′ in diameter, and stout brittle branchlets coated at first with thick silky pubescence, becoming light gray, rugose, conspicuously marked by large triangular leaf-scars, and puberulous during their second and third years. Winter-buds narrow-acuminate, ½′ long, coated with short thick pale tomentum. Bark of the trunk ¼′ thick, with a smooth light gray surface divided by shallow furrows and broken into numerous short appressed scales. Wood very heavy, exceedingly hard, brittle, not strong, light orange-colored, with thin rather lighter colored sapwood; occasionally used in southern Florida in the manufacture of furniture, for the handles of tools, and other objects of domestic use.

Distribution. Florida, on the Marquesas Keys and on South Bahia Honda and Boca Chica Keys; on Bermuda, the Bahama Islands, San Domingo, and Porto Rico.

4. Xanthoxylum coriaceum A. Richard.

_Fagara coriacea_ Kr. & Urb.

Leaves equally pinnate, persistent, 2′—3′ long, with a stout grooved petiole, and 6—8 oblong-obovate stalked coriaceous dark yellow-green lustrous leaflets rounded or rarely emarginate at apex, 1′—1¾′ long and ⅝′—¾′ wide, with much-thickened revolute entire margins, a stout midrib, slender obscure spreading primary veins, and reticulate veinlets. Flowers yellow, appearing in March on short stout pedicels, in densely flowered terminal cymes; sepals 3, minute, united below, free above, much shorter than the 3 oval or obovate petals rounded at apex; stamens 3; filaments about as long as the petals; anthers ovoid or oval; ovary 3-celled, globose-ovoid; styles thick, 3 (_teste Urban_). Fruit: mature fruit not seen.

A glabrous tree, sometimes 18°—20° high, with a slender stem, and stout red-brown branches unarmed in Florida specimens, or in the West Indies furnished with short recurved spines; more often shrubby.

Distribution. Florida, shores of Bay Biscayne and near Fort Lauderdale, Dade County; rare; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba.

2. HELIETTA Tul.

Trees or shrubs, with slender terete branchlets. Leaves opposite, long-petiolate, trifoliolate, persistent; leaflets sessile, obovate-oblong, obtuse, entire or crenate, subcoriaceous, grandular-punctate, the terminal the largest. Flowers regular, perfect, on slender bibracteolate pedicels, in terminal or axillary panicles; calyx 3 or 4-parted, the divisions imbricated in the bud, slightly united at base, persistent; petals 3 or 4, imbricated in the bud, hypogynous, oblong, concave, glandular-punctate, reflexed at maturity; stamens as many as the petals inserted under the disk; filaments shorter than the petals, slightly flattened, glabrous; anthers ovoid, cordate at base, attached on the back below the middle; disk free, cup-shaped, erect, subcorrugated, with a sinuate margin, 4-lobed, the lobes entire or crenate and opposite the petals; ovary minute, sessile, depressed, 3 or 4-lobed, glandular-verrucose or minutely pilose, the lateral lobes slightly compressed, 4-celled; styles united into a single slender column crowned by the globose 3—4-lobed stigma; ovules collateral, anatropous. Fruit obconic, composed of 3 or 4 dry woody 1-seeded indehiscent carpels with a cartilaginous endocarp and with a prominent horizontal wing, separating at maturity. Seed linear-oblong, seed-coat crustaceous, fragile, black; cotyledons straight, obtuse.

Helietta is distributed from the valley of the lower Rio Grande in Texas to Brazil and Paraguay. Four species are recognized, one species extending across the Rio Grande into western Texas.

The generic name is in honor of Lewis Théodore Hélie (1804—1867), a distinguished French physician.

1. Helietta parvifolia Benth.

Leaves 1½′—2′ long, with a stout slightly club-shaped petiole, at first puberulent, soon becoming glabrous, and oblong or narrow-obovate leaflets rounded or sometimes slightly emarginate at apex, gradually and regularly contracted at base, entire or slightly and remotely crenulate-serrate, yellow-green and lustrous above, paler below, conspicuously marked by black glandular dots, the terminal leaflet ½′—1½′ long, sometimes ½′ wide, and nearly twice as large as the others; persistent on the branches until early spring. Flowers appearing in April and May, on slender pedicels covered at first like the petioles and calyx with short dense pubescence, with minute acuminate early deciduous bracts, in dichotymously branched subsessile panicles on branchlets of the year from the axils of the upper leaves; petals 4, white, ovate, ⅛′ long, with scattered hairs on the outer surface, and thin scabrous margins, and four or five times longer than the 4 calyx-lobes; stamens 4; ovary 4-lobed, glandular-punctate like the slender style. Fruit ripening in October, oblong, ¼′—⅓′ long, with a rigid broad-ovate sometimes slightly falcate wing rounded at apex, ½′ long, and conspicuously reticulate-veined.

A slender tree, 20°—25° high, with a trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, rather erect branches forming a small irregular head, and slender pale branchlets covered with minute wart-like excrescences, slightly puberulous when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, and marked during their second year by small inconspicuous leaf-scars; or a low shrub. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, covered with dark brown closely appressed scales separating in large irregular patches and leaving when they fall a smooth pale yellow surface. Wood hard, very heavy, close-grained, light orange-brown, with rather lighter colored sapwood.

Distribution. Often forming thickets of considerable extent and abundant near Rio Grande, Starr County, Texas; mesas south of the lower Rio Grande; of its largest size and tree-like in habit on the limestone ridges of the Sierra Madre of Nuevo Leon.

3. PTELEA L.

Small unarmed trees or shrubs, with smooth bitter bark, slender terete branchlets, without terminal buds, small depressed lateral buds covered with pale tomentum, and nearly inclosed by the narrow obcordate leaf-scars marked by the ends of 2 or 3 small fibro-vascular bundles, and thick fleshy acrid roots. Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, without stipules, long-petiolate, usually trifoliolate, the leaflets conduplicate in the bud, ovate or oblong, entire or crenulate-serrate, punctate with pellucid dots. Flowers polygamous, on slender bracteolate pedicels, in terminal or compound cymes, greenish white; calyx 4 or 5-parted; petals 4 or 5, hypogynous; stamens 3 or 4, alternate with and as long as the petals, hypogynous, much shorter in the pistillate flower with imperfect or rudimentary anthers; filaments subulate, more or less pilose, especially toward the base; anthers ovoid or cordate; pistil raised on a short gynophore, abortive and nearly sessile in the staminate flower; ovary compressed, 2—3-celled; style short; stigma 2—3-lobed; ovules superposed, amphitropous, the upper ovule only fertilized. Fruit a 2 or 3-celled broad-winged indehiscent samara surrounded by a reticulate wing or rarely wingless. Seed oblong, acute at apex, rounded at base, ascending; seed-coat smooth or slightly wrinkled, coriaceous; cotyledons ovate-oblong.

Ptelea is confined to the United States and Mexico, where four or five species are known; of these one is a small tree. The bark and foliage of Ptelea is bitter and strong-scented and possesses tonic properties.

The generic name is from πτελέα, a classical name of the Elm-tree.

1. Ptelea trifoliata L. Hop-tree. Wafer Ash.