SAFFORD—CLASSIFICATION OF ANNONA, O7 
A. montana Macfad. must stand, according to the rules of priority. The fol- 
lowing description of the aratici ponhé, upon which Martius bases his Anona 
marcgravii, applies almost equally as well to the wild soursop of Jamaica and 
Porto Rico. The chief difference seems to be in the greater size of the leaves 
of the South American tree. 
“A tree with the trunk, form of the branches, and color of the bark resem- 
bling those of an orange, but with different leaves, flowers, and fruit. Its 
leaves are about 4 foot long, alternate, above deep green and glossy, beneath 
pale green, thick, solid to the touch, scarcely 2 digits broad, shaped like the 
human tongue, and acuminate at the apex. The flower is large and con- 
spicuous, exceeding the flower of a Fritillaria, entirely yellow, with 3 outer 
cordiform petals 14 digits long, thick as orange peel and standing erect. These 
contain within them 3 other smaller petals half as thick, overlapping in such 
a way as to form a sort of hollow globe as large as a walnut. The stamen 
[andreecium] is round and yellow, as large as a hazelnut with a small rounded 
apex [gynecium]; both the stamen and the apex are furnished with tiny tu- 
bercles [the stamen connectives and stigmas] which resemble the pores in the 
flesh of a man when chilled [goose flesh.] 
“The flower, as I have said, is entirely yellow, with a sweet but sickening 
odor. It blossoms principally in the months of September, October, and No- 
vember. The flower is deciduous; for many open day by day, and after a 
few hours fall of their own accord, making a noise in dropping, as though the 
tree had been struck by somebody with a stick, for the flower is heavy and 
large. The flower is followed by a fruit which ripens chiefly in December 
and January. 
“Tt cannot be eaten, however, unless it drops off of its own accord, for then 
it is soft like pap. It is of a turbinate shape [conoid] 4 or 5 digits long, and 
7 or 8 digits in circumference where the peduncle is attached. On the outside 
the color is green and white mixed, or uniform pale green, and it looks as if 
the skin were composed of scales, for it is marked by green lines into pale 
greenish areoles [squame], each areole having a small tubercle in the middle, 
brown, so that it looks like a pine cone, When it falls it is soft so that it 
can be peeled with the fingers like old putrid cheese. It contains a yellowish 
flesh or pulp composed of pyramidal segments, intermixed with fibrous par- 
ticles and many kernels or seeds. The odor of the pulp may not unfittingly 
be compared to fermenting bread dough, to which some honey has been added. 
The taste is sweetish subacid and somewhat bitter, unpleasant to me, but with 
an agreeable odor. At the place where the peduncle is inserted the fruit con- 
tains within it a lump of harder flesh shaped like a suppository which can be 
pulled out. This is eaten and is offered at the table as a most choice tidbit. 
The seeds of the fruit are oval in shape, the size of a faba, smooth and hard, 
of a golden yellow color and glossy, inclosed when fresh in a kind of white 
pellicle. The inside kernel is composed of a white hard substance with a 
taste not unlike that of the root of Helenium, or bitterish sweet.” 
The fruit of this species varies considerably in the development of the 
prickles on the surface and in its general form, which, in the original descrip- 
tion of Marcgrave, is called turbinate, but which in the accompanying figure 
is ovate-oblong and by Martius is described as globose-ovate with the pro- 
tuberances on the subrhomboid areoles at length obliterated. Its very close 
affinity to A. montana Macfad. and A. sphaerocarpa Splitg. has already been 
mentioned. 
Considerable variation in the form of the leaf occurs, and the writer was at 
first inclined to separate those specimens in which the leaf blades were rounded 
