462 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL, HERBARIUM. 



Fruit pedunculate, ovoid, acuminate, 3 to 4 cm. long, 2 to 2.5 cm. in diameter, 

 apiculate, smooth; peduncles I to 1.5 cm. long, thick, stiff. Seed 1, ovoid, 2.3 to 

 2.8 cm. long, 1.5 to 1.8 cm. in diameter, brown, smooth but not glossy; umbilical 

 area ovate-elliptic, whitish, bordered with a deeper groove, the hylum brownish, 

 ovate, isolated toward the lower end of the area. 



Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 578318, collected at La Laguna de 

 Santa Tecla, Salvador, altitude about 800 meters, in flower, February 6, 1907, by 

 H. Pittier (no. 1917). A medium-sized tree. 

 Salvador: Type specimen . 



Guatemala: Amatitlan, alt. 1,300 meters, Donnell Smith 

 2508, flowers, May, 1892; Gualan (Zacapa), 122 meters above 

 sea level, Kdkrman 5023, fruit (TJ. S. Nat. Herb. no. 578624); 

 between Nenton and Candelaria (Huehuetenango), Cook 

 62, flowers, June 1, 1906 (Nat. Herb. no. 574416); around 

 La Antigua (Zacatepequez), alt, 1,480 meters, Cook, 1905, 

 fruits in market (Nat. Herb. Seed Coll. no. 2713). 



Spanish: Tempisque (Guatemala, Salvador. The name 

 originally belonged to one of the dialects of Oaxaca or south- 

 ern Mexico). Nahuatl: Saquaia (Nahuizalco, Salvador). 

 Kakehiquel: kobak (Guatemala). 



This species is quite distinct from S. maslichodendron 

 Jacq., a native from the Bahama Islands, Porto Rico, and 

 Florida, with which it has been repeatedly confused. The 

 petioles of the leaves are on the average much longer, the 

 flowers much larger, the staminodes far from reaching half 

 the length of the lobes of the corolla and not subulate nor 

 acute, but rounded-squamose. The fruits and seeds are 

 also about three times as large, the former acuminate and 

 not rounded at tip. A special character that is wanting in 

 S. rnastichodendron, although it is mentioned by Urban, « is 

 the conical fistule or pouch at the base of the lamina. In 

 Donnell Smith's specimens a small spine is always present 

 at the mouth of the pouch on either side of the main nerve; 

 in the other specimens it is mostly lacking, but the pouch 

 is always well developed.^ 

 Sideroxylon capiri (Moc. & Sess.) Pittier. 



Plate 96, d. Figure 89. 

 Lucumat capiri A. DC. in DC. Prodr. 8: 173. 1844. 

 Sideroxylon mexicanum Hemsl. Biol. Centr. Amer. Bot, 2: 

 296. 1886. 



Fig. 88.— Sideroxylon tem- 

 pisque, leaf. Scale J. 



«Symb. Antill. 5: 132. The author probably refers to the Guadeloupe form 

 (Dms 2915), which is certainly a distinct species. 



* I am indebted to Mr. Juan J. Rodriguez, of Guatemala City, a zealous zoological 

 investigator and a keen observer, for further information in regard to the tempixque 

 and other Guatemalan fruit trees. He describes the former as a' * * * "fine 

 looking tree, with dense hard wood. This, however, is not used to any extent, the 

 natives refraining from cutting down the trees for the sake of the fruit, even though 

 this is not very highly esteemed and is more or less sticky. In former times the 

 seeds were commonly used by boys and girls to play the juego do los cinco, but later 

 they were replaced by imported marbles; and then the old game was altogether 

 forsaken for the modern patitos and others. The larvae of Callichroma formosa, a 

 Cerambycid very conspicuous by its beautiful colors and roselike smell, feed on the 

 tempixque. Beside the latter we have also a tempixquillo that appears to belong to 

 the same genus, the fruits of which arc smaller, sweeter, and not so sticky * * *." 



