76 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
Panicle 20 to 30cm. long, lax, few branched, the rachis densely pubescent. Flowers 
white, borne on articulate, hispid-pubescent pedicels 1.5 to 2.5 mm. long, these pro- 
vided at the base with several diminutive bractlets. Calyx lobes smooth, broadly 
ovate, more or less acute at the tip, about 1 mm. long and broad. Petals lanceolate- 
acute, 3.5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. broad near the base, reflexed and strongly revolute on 
the margin. Stamens seldom over 1.5 mm. long; filaments broader at the base; 
anthers about 0.5 mm. long. Disk thick, 
the margin obscurely 10-crenate or sulcate. 
Ovary subglobose, sparsely hairy, ending 
always in 4 more or less reflexed, glabrous 
styles, with a total height of 1.5 to 2.6 mm. 
Drupe ovoid, hairy-pubescent in its young 
state; the mature fruit not known. 
Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, 
FIG. 82,—Floral details of Spondias nigrescens. a, 20- 861287, collected in the forests of Nicoya, 
Floral bud; 8, open flower; c, sepal; d, petal;e, Costa Rica, May, 1900, by A. Tonduz (Inst. 
stamens; /, gynoecium. All scale 6. Fis. Geogr. Costa Rica, no. 13925), The 
specimens bear flowers and young fruits. 
Of the genus Spondias three species, or perhaps only two, have been known hitherto 
in Central America, one or two of them (S. purpurea, S. dulcis) in a state of semiculti- 
vation; the other (S. lutea) a large forest tree, which is certainly indigenous, notwith- 
standing Seemann’s assertion of its having been introduced in Panama. The discovery 
by Mr. Tonduz of a second native species is highly interesting. 
SAPOTACEAE. 
ZAPOTES AND ZAPOTILLOS. 
In a recent paper! Mr. O. F. Cook has shown that the binomial 
Achras zapota of the first edition of Linnseus’s Species Plantarum is 
based upon the type of Plumier’s Sapota; in other words, on the tree 
known over most of its area in Central and South America as 
“nfispero,” in Mexico and Guatemala, as “chicozapote,” or errone- 
ously as “zapote chico,”’ and in the British West Indies as “sapodilla.”’ 
Mr. Cook agrees in this with the European botanists and any further 
reference would be uncalled for but for the fact that, owing to a mis- 
identification of Plumier’s plate, the name Sapota zapotilla Coville 
was substituted in 1905 and has since been used by the, American 
botanists who have dealt with that well-known fruit tree of the - 
Tropics. 
On the other hand, the naming of an allied species, the zapote tree, 
also important economically, has resulted in an unfortunate imbroglio. 
Originally placed in the genus Sideroxylum by Jacquin (1760), then in 
Achras by Linneus (1762), and used to resuscitate Plumier’s genus 
Sapota in 1768, it was transferred to Lucuma by Gaertner in 1807 and 
to Vitellaria by Radlkofer in 1882, while Pierre created successively 
for it the two names Calospermum and Calocarpum in 1890 and 1904, 
1 Nomenclature of the Sapote and Sapodilla, Contr. U. 8. Nat. Herb. 16: 279-282. 
1913. Also Journ. Washington Acad. Sci. 3:158-160. 1913. 
