CELASTRACE^ 



623 



1. Schaeflferia frutescens, Jacq. Yellow "Wood. Box Wood. 



Leaves bright yellow-green, 2'-2^' long, ^'-1' wide, with thick revolute margins, 

 appearing in Florida in April and persistent on the branches until the spring of the fol- 

 lowing year; their petioles short and broad. Flowers opening in spring on branchlets 

 of the year, ^' across, the staminate generally 3 or 5 together on pedicels rarely more 

 than y long, the pistillate solitary or 2 or 3 together on pedicels rather longer than 

 the petioles. Fruit ripening in Florida in November, slightly grooved, compressed, 

 bright scarlet, with an acrid disagreeable flavor. 



A glabrous tree, 35-40 high, with a trunk sometimes 8^-10' in diameter, erect 

 branches, and slender many-angled branchlets pale greenish yellow during their first 

 season, becoming light gray during the second year and then conspicuously marked 



by the remains of the persistent wart-like clusters of bud-scales; or often a tall or 

 low shrub. Bark of the trunk rarely more than J^' thick, pale brown faintly tinged 

 with red, the surface divided by long shallow fissures, and ultimately separating into 

 long narrow- scales. Wood heavy, close-grained, bright clear yellow, with thick 

 rather lighter colored sapwood; sometimes used as a substitute for boxwood in wood 

 engraving. 



Distribution. Metacombe Key eastward along the keys, in the neighborhood of 

 the Caloosa River, and sparingly on the reef keys, Florida; on the Bahama Islands, 

 and widely distributed through the West Indies to Venezuela. 



4. CANOTIA, Torr. 



A glabrous leafless tree, with light brown deeply furrowed bark, stout terete alter- 

 nate branches terminating in rigid spines, pale green and striate, their bases and 

 those of the peduncles surrounded by black triangular persistent cushion-like pro- 

 cesses minutely papillose on the surface. Flowers perfect, on slender spreading 

 pedicels joined below the middle, 3-7 together, in short-stemmed fascicles or corymbs 

 near the ends of the branches, from the axils of minute ovate subulate bracts; calyx 

 5-lobed, minute, persistent, much shorter than the oblong obtuse white hypogynous 

 petals imbricated in the bud, reflexed at maturity above the middle, deciduous; sta- 

 mens 5, hypogynous, opposite the lobes of the calyx; filaments awl-shaped, rather 

 shorter than the petals, persistent on the fruit; anthers oblong, cordate, introrse, 



