SAPINDACE^ 



651 



the lowest pair smaller than the others; rarely reduced to a single leaflet. Flo"wers 

 usually produced 3 together on short pedicels, in terminal panicles 7-10' in length, 

 with angulate peduncles and branches, appearing in Florida in November ; calyx- 

 lobes rounded, concave, ciliate on the margins, the 2 outer rather smaller than those 

 of the inner rank; petals without scales, white, ovate, short-clawed, rounded at the 

 apex and covered, especially toward their base, with long scattered hairs; stamens 

 included or slightly exserted, with hairy filaments broadened at the base. Fruit 

 ripening in spring or in early summer, globose, |' |' in diameter, with thin orange- 

 brown semitranslucent flesh; seeds obovate, black, ^' in diameter. 



A tree, sometimes 25-30 high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 10'-12' in diameter, 

 erect branches and slender branchlets at first slightly many-angled and puberulous, 

 soon glabrous, orange-green and marked by white lenticels, becoming in their second 

 season terete, pale brown faintly tinged with red. Bark of the trunk i'-^' thick, 

 light gray and roughened by oblong lighter colored excrescences, the outer layer ex- 

 foliating in large flakes exposing the nearly black inner bark. Wood heavy, rather 

 hard, close-grained, light brown tinged- with yellow, with thick yellow sapwood. 



Distribution. Southern Florida, shores of Cape Sable, shores and islands of 

 Caximbas Bay, Key Largo, Elliott's Key, and the shores of Bay Biscay ne; in Florida 

 most common on Cape Sable, and of its largest size on some of the Thousand Islands; 

 generally distributed through the West Indies to Venezuela. 



2. Sapindus marginatus, "Willd. Soapberry. 



Leaves 6'-7' long, with slender wingless or narrowly margined or marginless 

 rachises, and 7-13 lance-oblong acuminate more or less falcate leaflets, glabrous, 

 dark green, and lustrous on the upper, paler and glabrous or puberulous on the 



fiq'jrji 



lower surface along the slender midnerves, sessile or very short-petiolulate, 2'-5' 

 long, f -1^ wide, the lower usually alternate, the upper opposite. Flowers more or 

 less tinged with red and nearly \' in diameter, on short stout tomentose pedicels, 

 appearing in early spring in panicles 4' -5' long and usually about 3' wide, with vil- 

 lose stems and branches; sepals rounded at the apex, villose on the outer surface 

 toward the base, ciliate on the margins, the outer much narrower than the inner; 

 petals ovate-oblong, short-clawed, ciliate, furnished on the inner surface near the 



