MYKTACE^ 693 



leaf-scars. Bark of young stems and of the branches smooth, light reddish brown, 

 becoming on old trunks ^'-^' thick, and gray faintly tinged with red, the surface 

 irregularly fissured and broken into thin appressed scales. Wood exceedingly 

 heavy, hard, close-grained, strong, dark reddish brown streaked with lighter brown, 

 with pale sap wood of 40-50 layers of annual growth; used for fuel and wharf -piles. 

 Distribution. Shores of Florida from Mosquito Inlet on the east coast and Cedar 

 Keys on the west coast to the southern islands ; most abundant south of latitude 29, 

 following the coast with wide thickets and ascending the rivers for many miles; on 

 Cape Sable and the shores of Bay Biscayne sometimes growing at a little distance 

 from the coast on ground not submerged by the tide, and here attaining its largest 

 size, with tall straight trunks producing few aerial roots; also on Bermuda, the 

 Bahamas, the Antilles, the west coast of Mexico, lower California, the Galapagos 

 Islands, and from Central America along the northeast coast of South America to 

 the limits of the tropics. 



XLV. MYRTACEiE. 



Trees or slirubs, abounding in pungent aromatic volatile oil, with minute 

 scaly buds. Leaves opposite, simple, mostly entire, pellucid-punctate, penni- 

 veined, persistent, the slender obscure veins arcuate and united within the 

 thickened revohite margins ; stipules 0. Flowers perfect, regular ; calyx 

 4-5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, or lid-like and deciduous ; petals 

 2-5, imbricated in the bud, inserted on the margin of the disk, or ; stamens 

 very numerous, inserted in many ranks with the petals ; filaments slender, 

 inflexed in the bud, exserted ; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening 

 longitudinally ; ovary 2-4-celled ; style simple, filiform, crowned with a minute 

 stigma ; ovules numerous or 2 or 3 in each cell, attached on a central placenta, 

 anatropous or semianatropous ; raphe ventral ; micropyle superior. Fruit bac- 

 cate, crowned wdth the persistent calyx-lobes, 1-4-seedecl. Seeds without 

 albumen ; seed-coat membranaceous. 



The Myrtle family with seventy-two genera is chiefly tropical and Aus- 

 tralasian, with representatives in southern Europe, extratropical Africa, and 

 extratropical South America. Three genera are represented by small trees in 

 the flora of southern Florida. To this family, beside the Myrtle, belong the 

 Australian Eucalypti, large and important timber-trees largely planted in Cali- 

 fornia, and the Guava, cultivated in Florida for its fruit. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Calyx 4 or 5-lobed, with persistent lobes ; petals 4 or 5, 



Flowers in axillary racemes or fascicles. 1. Eugenia. 



Flowers in mostly dichotomoiisly branched cymes. 2. Anamomis. 



Calyx closed in the bud by an orbicular lid-like deciduous limb ; petals 0. 



3. Chytraculia. 

 1. EUGENIA, L. 



Trees or shrubs, with hard durable wood and scaly bark. Flowers often large and 

 conspicuous, on short bibracteolate pedicels, in axillary racemes or fascicles, with 

 minute caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx campanulate, scarcely produced above 

 the ovary, the limb 4 or rarely 5-lobed; petals usually 4, free and spreading; ovary 

 2 or rarely 3-celled; ovules numerous in each cell, semianatropous. Fruit 1-4-seeded, 

 Seeds globose or flattened; seed-coat membranaceous or cartilaginous; embryo thick 



