SAPINDACE^ 



653 



valley of the Washita River, Arkansas, and southern Kansas, and through Texas to 

 the mountain valleys of southern Xew Mexico, southern Arizona, and northern 

 Mexico. 



2. EXOTHEA, Macf. 



A tree, with thin scaly bark, and terete branchlets covered with lenticels. Leaves 

 petiolate, abruptly pinnate or 3- or rarely 1-foliolate, glabrous, without stipules, per- 

 sistent; leaflets oblong or oblong-ovate, acute, rounded or emargiuate at the apex, 

 with entire undulate margins, obscurely veined, membranaceous, dark green and 

 lustrous on the upper and slightly paler on the lower surface. Flowers regular, 

 polygamo-dicecious, on short pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts cov- 

 ered with thick pale tomentum, in ample terminal or axillary wide-branched panicles 

 clothed with orange-colored pubescence; sepals 5, ovate, rounded at the apex, ciliate 

 on the margins, puberulous, persistent; petals 5, white, ovate, rounded at the apex, 

 shortly unguiculate, alternate with and rather longer and narrower than the sepals; 

 disk annular, fleshy, irregularly 5-lobed, puberulous; stamens 7 or 8, inserted on the 

 disk, as long as the petals in the staminate flower, much shorter in the pistillate 

 flower; filaments filiform, glabrous, anthers oblong, with a broad connective, rudi- 

 mentary in the staminate flower; ovary sessile on the disk, conical, pubescent, 

 2-celled, contracted into a short thick style, rudimentary in the staminate flower, 

 stigma large, declinate, obtuse; ovules 2 in each cell, suspended from the sum- 

 mit of the inner angle, collateral, anatropous, raphe ventral; micropyle superior. 

 Fruit a nearly spherical 1-seeded berry containing the riidiment of the second cell 

 and tipped with the short remnant of the style, surrounded at the base by the per- 

 sistent reflexed sepals; flesh becoming thick, dark purple, and juicy at maturity. 

 Seed oblong, short to subglobose, solitary, suspended; seed-coat thin, coriaceous, 

 orange-brown, and lustrous; embryo subglobose, filling the cavitv of the seed;;, coty- 

 ledons fleshy, plano-convex, puberulous; radicle superior, very short, uncinate, 

 turned toward the small hilum and inclosed in a lateral cavity of the seed-coat. 



The genvis is represented by a single West Indian species. 



The generic name is from i^wdea, in allusion to its removal from a related genus. 



1. Exothea paniculata, Radlk. Iron-wood. Ink Wood. 

 Leaves appearing in April on stout grooved petioles ^-1' long ; leaflets 4'-5' 



