GENUS I. 



SAPODILLA FAMILY. 



719 



Family 9. SAPOTACEAE Reichenb. Consp. 135. 1828. 

 SAPODILLA FAMILY. 



Shrubs or trees, mostly with a milky juice. Leaves alternate, simple, entire, 

 pinnately-veined, mostly coriaceous and exstipulate. Flowers small, regular and 

 perfect, in axillary clusters. Calyx inferior, polysepalous ; segments usually 4-7, 

 persistent, much imbricated. Corolla gamopetalous, the tube campanulate or 

 urceolate, 4-7-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, sometimes with as many 

 or twice as many lobe-like appendages borne on the throat. Stamens as many 

 as the proper lobes of the corolla and inserted on its tube; staminodia usually 

 present, alternate with the corolla-lobes ; filaments mostly short, subulate ; anthers 

 attached by their bases to the filaments, or versatile, 2-celled, the sacs longitudinally 

 dehiscent. Ovary superior, 2-5-celled, or rarely many-celled ; ovules solitary in 

 each cavity, anatropous or amphitropous ; style conic or subulate ; stigma simple. 

 Fruit a fleshy berry, commonly i-celled and i-seeded, sometimes several-seeded. 

 Seed large, the testa bony or crustaceous ; embryo straight ; endosperm fleshy, or 

 none ; cotyledons thick. 



About 35 genera and 425 species, mostly of tropical regions in both the Old World and the New. 

 Cesides the following, 4 other genera occur in south Florida. 



i. BUMELIA Sw. Prodr. 49. 1788. 



Shrubs or trees, often spiny, with very hard wood, alternate coriaceous or membranous 

 leaves, sometimes clustered on short spurs or at the nodes, and small pedicelled white or 

 greenish flowers, fascicled in the axils. Calyx very deeply 5-parted, the segments much 

 imbricated, unequal. Corolla 5-lobed, with a pair of lobe-like appendages at each sinus, its 

 tube short. Stamens 5, inserted near the base of the corolla-tube ; filaments filiform ; anthers 

 sagittate. Staminodia 5, petaloid, alternate with the stamens. Ovary s-celled; style filiform. 

 Berry globose or ellipsoid, small, the pericarp fleshy ; enclosing a single erect seed. Seed 

 shining, the hilum at the base. [Greek, ox [large] ash.] 



About 35 species, natives of America. Besides the following, some 10 others occur in the 

 southern and southwestern United States. Type species : Bumelia retiisa Sw. 



Foliage, pedicels and calyx glabrous or very nearly so. 

 Foliage, pedicels and calyx tomentose-pubescent. 



1 . B. lycioides. 



2. B, lamtginosa. 



i. Bumelia lycioides (L.) Pers. Southern or Carolina Buckthorn. Fig. 3305. 



Sideroxylon lycioides L. Sp. PI. Edv 2, 279. 1762. 

 Bumelia lycioides Pers. Syn. i : 237. 1805. 



A shrub or small tree with maximum height of 

 about 40 and trunk diameter of about 6'. the bark 

 gray, the twigs commonly spiny. Leaves rather 

 firm, tardily deciduous, glabrous on both sides; 

 finely reticulate-veined, oblong, elliptic, or oblanceo- 

 late, acute or acuminate at both ends, rarely obtuse 

 at the apex, 2'-s' long, i'-ii' wide; petioles 2"-6" 

 long; flowers about ii" broad, numerous in the 

 dense axillary clusters; pedicels about the length of 

 the petioles, glabrous; calyx-segments obtuse, gla- 

 brous; staminodia ovate, boat-shaped, entire; berry 

 subglobose, black, 4"~5" long. 



In moist thickets, Virginia to Illinois and Missouri, 

 south to Florida and Texas. Wood hard, yellowish- 

 brown ; weight about 46 Ibs. per cubic foot. Bumelia. 

 Iron- or chittim-wood. Mock orange. Coma. June-Aug. 



