COOK—-NOMENCLATURE OF SAPOTE AND SAPODILLA, 279 
the whole inner face covered by an enormous hilum. The seeds of 
the sapodilla are many times smaller, strongly compressed, and with a 
relatively short, narrow hilum. These differences are really more 
significant than those that are usually enumerated as botanical char- 
acters, such as the greater number of carpels in the sapodilla and the 
more numerous sepals in the sapote. Such characters are subject 
to much variation in this group of plants. 
The sapodilla tree not only produces a delicious fruit (now being 
grown in Florida) and a valuable wood, but is the source of chicle 
gum, which has become an important article of commerce. The 
sapote is of no commercial importance, though the fruit is used exten- 
sively for food by the native populations of Central American regions 
and the West Indies. The sapote ascends into the plateau regions 
of Central America, while the sapodilla is largely confined to regions 
of low elevation. 
PLUMIER’S ACCOUNT OF THE SAPODILLA. 
The taxonomic complications in this group began with Plumier, 
the first botanist to attempt a formal generic description of either of 
the fruits in question. Plumier used the word “sapote” in its 
_ latinized form ‘“‘Sapota” as a generic name for the sapodilla and not 
for what we now call the “sapote.” As that author traveled widely 
in the West Indies it may be argued that he must have known both 
fruits, but whether so or not there at least is nothing to show that he 
had anything but the sapodilla in mind in preparing the description 
and figures on which his genus was based. (PI. 100.) 
The seed and fruit represented in Plumier’s plate are unmistakably 
those of the sapodilla. The calyx is shown with only 5 or 6 divisions, 
not 10 or 12 as in the sapote. The seed is of the proper size and 
shape, with a curved spine near the middle and with a narrow bidentate 
base. The fruit is a symmetrical rounded oval, as in many sapo- 
dillas, instead of being unsymmetrical and somewhat pointed at the 
end as in the true sapotes. Though not closely approaching the form 
of the sapote, the different kinds of sapodilla show a wide variation. 
Some are even narrower and more elliptical than in Plumier’s figure, 
while others are broadly rounded or flattened. (Pl. 101.) 
The most misleading feature in Plumier’s plate is the indication 
of 5 dissepiments in the fruit, for there are 10 or 12 carpels in the 
sapodilla; but, on the other hand, only a few of the divisions remain 
conspicuous, that is, those that contain partially developed seeds. 
Moreover, no such obvious radiating figure appears in the ripe 
fruit of the sapote, where the enormous size of the seeds results in 
much more extensive distortion. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE 100.—Reproduction of plate 4 of Plumier’s Nova Plantarum Americanarum 
Genera with text (p. 43). Figures original size. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE 101.—Three forms of sapodilla fruit found together in the market of Guatemai 
City, April, 1902. Natural size. 
95623°—13——2 
