PITTIER — PLANTS FROM COLOMBIA AND CENTRAL AMERICA. 447 



It is not known whether this tree really growa wild, it being always seen around 

 houses or in cultivated places, where it is tolerated on account of its fruits, character- 

 ized by Mr. G. N. Collins, of the Department of Agriculture, as "highly aromatic and 

 delicious." This fruit has been known and prized by the natives for a long period 

 under the name of olosapo, used both in Nicoya and Nicaragua, and probably derived 

 from the Nahuatl olozapotl, a round zapote. In Nicoya it is also known under the name 

 of zapotillo a or small zapote. 



STERCULIACEAE. 



AN OLD AND A NEW SPECIES OF STERCULIA. 



Sterculia carthagenensis Cav. Monad. Diss. 6: 353. 1790. 



Plate 89. Figures 70-76. 



A portly tree with a straight trunk 25 to 30 meters high and a flat, densely leafy 

 crown. Limbs horizontal and divaricate. 



Leaves large, long-petiolate, deeply cordate, palmatilo- 

 bate. Petioles 10 to 13 cm. long, subsulcate and more or 

 less shaggy-hairy. Leaf blade 3 to 5-lobate, 10 to 15 cm. 

 long, 18 to 24 cm. broad, more or less smooth and shiny 

 above except at the base of the five main nerves, sparsely 

 to densely felted beneath with short penicillate hairs; 

 middle lobe ovate, slightly con- 

 tracted at base, subacute; lateral 

 lobes usually overlapping each 

 other at the inner side. 



Fig. 73.— Sterculia carthagen- 

 ensis, androphorum and 

 parts, a, a', Whole andro- 

 phorum (Guatemala, Don- 

 iicll Smith, 2545; b, staminal 

 tube of same with a few 

 stamens; c, staminal tube 

 (Santa Marta, Colombia, 

 II. II. Smith 1889) with 

 glandulose filaments. 

 Scale 3. 



Fia. 71.— Sterculia carthagenensis, co- 

 rolla of male flower, spread out. 

 Specimen from Santa Marta, Co- 

 lombia. Natural size. 



Fig. 72.— Sterculia car- 

 thagenensis, andro- 

 phorumof male flow- 

 er. Specimen from 

 Santa Marta, Colom- 

 bia. Scale 3. 



Panicles axillary at the end of the branchlets, large, racemose, unisexual, or bearing 

 both male and hermaphrodite flowers; main rachis and ramifications densely covered 

 with penicillate hairs, the former 25 cm. long and above. Bracts and bractlets early 

 deciduous, small and densely hairy. Pedicels of mature flowers hairy, 1 to 2 cm. 

 long. Calyx of male flowers rather large (1.5 to 1.8 mm. in diameter), about 18 mm. 

 long, broadly campanulate, dirty yellow and diversely tinged with purple spots and 

 lines, thickly covered outside with a filmy layer of very thin, multicellular filaments, 

 mixed with purple or colorless penicillate hairs (fig. 76, a); the bottom inside showing 

 a flat, golden yellow, glandular-appearing zone, about 7 mm. in diameter, sending 

 5 dark parallel nerves into each lobe; interlobular sinuses usually marked at the angle 

 by a large black spot; lobes broadly triangular, 7 to 8 mm. long and broad at the base, 

 obtuse or more or less acuminate. Androphorum 10 to 12 mm. long, inflexed, sparsely 

 covered with thick, obtuse, multicellular hairs for its whole length or these mixed at 

 the upper part with longer glandular hairs (fig. 76, ft); staminal tube ovate, hardly 

 thicker than the androphorum and about 1.3 mm. long, minutely covered with fine, 



a See H. Pittier, Ensayo sobre las plantas usuales de Costa Rica (1908), p. 

 where this tree is given as the Mexican Couepia kunthiana Benth. 



142, 



