458 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 



keep them for a time in stored grain, chaff, furs, or dry hay until sufficiently soft. 

 The mesocarp looks then quite like the yolk of a hard-boiled egg; it is sweet and 

 agreeable at first, but soon becomes somewhat repugnant on account of a peculiar 

 fatty taste, due to the latex that impregnates it. 



The wood is whitish, compact, and durable; it is used by the Peruvians, accord- 

 ing to the same authors, as a building material, which seems to indicate that the 

 occurrence of the tree is not limited to gardens and orchards. 



Lucuma jenmanii IMttier, sp. nov. 



A tree. Branehlefs thick, glabrous. Internodes very short. Terminal buds and 

 new growth more or less hairy-tomentose. 



Leaves rather large and long-petiolate. Petioles 3 to 5 cm. long, terete, canali- 

 culate, hairy or glabrescent. Leaf blades 20 to 30 cm. long, 7 to 9 cm. broad, obovate, 

 cuneate-rounded at base, rounded, obtuse or shortly acuminate at tip, glabrous and 

 almost shiny above, with the costa impressed and the primary veins slightly promi- 

 nent, glabrous, opaque, with both costa and veins quite prominent and the inter- 

 venal spaces finely reticulate beneath; margin entire, slightly revolute; primary 

 veins about 20 on each side. 



Flowers sessile, in clusters of 2 to 5 (?) in the defoliate axils of the former season's 

 growth, or in the axils of the upper leaves, and completely covering the branchlets. 

 Basal bractlets very small, ovate, ferruginose-tomentose. Sepals 4, imbricate, free 

 or more or less adnate at the base, 8 to 11 mm. long and broad, broad or slightly 

 attenuate at the base, rounded or obtusely acuminate at the tip, coriaceous and more 

 or less ecarious on the margin, silky hairy outside. Corolla broadly tubular, about 

 14 mm. long, 4-lobate, glabrous or subglabrous, ciliate on the margin of the lobes; 

 tube about 10 mm. long; lobes short (3 mm. long, 4 mm. broad), broadly ovate- 

 rounded , slightly contracted at the base. Staminodes alternating with the lobes of the 

 corolla, about 2 mm. long, ovate-lanceolate and abruptly contracted into a rounded, 

 papillose point; margin of the lower part of the staminode sometimes sparsely pro- 

 vided with stiff, erect hairs. Stamens glabrous; filaments about 9 mm. long, but 

 adnate to the corolla for two-thirds of their length; anthers elongate-elliptic, 22 mm. 

 long. Pistil 13 to 14 mm. long; ovary depressed -globose, 4-celled, densely covered 

 with stiff gray hairs; style about 11 mm. long, glabrous, divided at the tip into 2 lobes, 

 each of these again obscurely bilobulate. 



Fruit not known. 



Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 619294, collected at Demerara, British 

 Guiana, by Jenman (no. 4107). 



NOTES ON SPECIES OF SIDEROXYLON. 



The genus Sideroxylon was established by Dillenius, the type, S. 

 inerme L., being a tree of the Cape Colony in South Africa. a The 

 first generic definition given by Limueus in his Genera b was correct- 

 as to the corolla and the staminodes, but erroneously gave the fruit 

 as 4-seeded, a mistake that was apparently soon discovered, since it 

 is not repeated in the 1 748 edition of the Systcma. Time after time 

 unfortunate additions increased the genus and caused the original 

 definition to be repeatedly altered. These additions not only 

 included several Bumelias and a few other species belonging to 

 closely related genera of the Sapotaceae, but also a Scleroxylon 



a Dill. Hort. Elth. 2: 357. 1732. b Gen. PI. no. 2G4. 1737. 



