PITTIER PLANTS PROM COLOMBIA AND CENTRAL AMERICA. 463 



Sideroxylon petiolure A. Gray, Proc. Amer. Acad. 22: 434. 1887. 



Achras capiri Moc. & Sess. PI. Nov. Hist. ed. 2. 48. 1893; Fl. Mex. ed. 2. 84. 1894. 



A tree over 15 meters high, with numerous, alternating and spreading limbs. Older 

 parts of the branchlots defoliate, glabrous, with a reddish brown bark; new growth 

 leaf-bearing, ferruginose-tomentose. 



Leaves thick, long-petiolate, crowded at the end of the branchlets, more or less 

 covered at first with a ferruginose, furfuraceous down, then glabrous or nearly so. 

 Petioles 3 to 7.5 cm. long, canaliculate. Leaf blades 7 to 15 cm. long, 4 to 7.5 cm. 

 broad, varying in shape from ovate to elliptic-lanceolate, abruptly acuminate at the 

 base, rounded or acuminate but nearly always apiculate at tip, deep green above, 

 paler beneath; margin wavy, provided all around with a whitish, torulose border; 

 costa canaliculate above, prominent beneath; primary veins 14 or 15, slightly promi- 

 nent on both faces. 



Floral clusters with 14 flowers or less, the pedicels sometimes intermingled with 

 email, obtuse bracts (or undeveloped floral buds?). Pedicels of opened flowers about 

 11 mm. long, slender, tomentose or pubescent. Calyx 5-phyllous, 4 mm. long, sepals 

 suborbicular, obtuse at tip, the exterior ones thick and quite pubescent outside, the 

 interior ones a little smaller and scarious on the margin. Corolla spreading (13 mm. 

 in diameter, pale yellow, 5 (seldom 6)-lobate; tube very 

 short (less than 1 mm.); lobes ovate-oblong, concave, 

 auriculate at the base, rounded at tip, about 5 mm. long, 

 hairy-furfuraceous on the back in the bud, glabrous or 

 pubescent later. Staminodes 1.5 to 2 mm. long, irregularly 

 denticulate, mostly subulate. Stamens shorter than the 

 corolla; free part of the filaments 3 to 3.5 mm. long, 

 geniculate and subulate; anthers ovate-acuminate, cordate 

 at base, 2.5 to 3 mm. long, the connective bicuspidate at 

 the tip. Pistil glabrous, 4.5 mm. long; ovary ovoid-elliptic, 

 5 (seldom 6)-celled; style obtuse. 



Fruit variable in shape but mostly ovoid-acuminate, 3 to Fig. 89.— Sideroxylon capiri, 



3.5 cm. long and at least 2 cm. in diameter when fresh; floral <k>tails - <*> Corolla 



peduncles nearly 1 cm. long; calyx persistent, as is the l0be wlth ^""T'J'' 8ta " 

 4.I.- i j *. i * *u • x j j j^i_ i , • mens; c, staminodes; d, 



tmckened style, at the pointed end of the drupe; skm and pistil. Scale 3. 



sarcocarp yellow, the former quite smooth. Seeds elongate- 

 ovoid, about 2.5 cm. long; umbilical area ovate-acuminate, surrounded by a torulose 

 swelling of the base of the seed. 



Mexico: Jiirgensen no. 212 in the Kew Herbarium, without precise locality (type 

 of S. mexicanum Hemsl.) ; warm zone of Michoacan (Achras capiri Moc. & Sess., Lucuma 

 capiri A. DC), where it has been collected more recently in the mountains of the 

 center of the State, at Ario, by N. Leon (Museo nacional, Mexico, no. 6; United States 

 National Herbarium no. 347010, labeled S. mexicanum); barranca near Guadalajara 

 (Jalisco), Palmer, flowers and fruits, June, 1886 (Palmer 131, 135, 136, Gray's types). 



There is no doubt left in my mind as to the taxonomic identity of the four species 

 as given above. Mocino & Sesse's descriptions agree closely with our specimens, 

 except in the shape of the fruit. This is given as "subglobose" and in the Caiques 

 et Dessins de la Flore mexicaine, plate 749, it appears as a globose-depressed apple. 

 But the seed is given a figure more in accordance with our present knowledge, and, as 

 there is a necessary correlation in the shape of the two parte, it is hardly conceivable 

 that an ovoid stone would find a place in the axis of a depressed-globose fruit; so we 

 may assume that the sketch of the latter was drawn from memory or based upon 

 inaccurate information. All other details in the description and drawings point to a 

 Sideroxylon, not far removed from S. tempisque from Gautemala, and it is not likely 

 hat the.analogy would fail in the form of the fruit only. 



