MYRTACE^ 699 



in Florida in August, reddish brown, i' long, obliquely oblong, obovate or sub- 

 globose, roughened by minute glands; flesh thin, rather dry and aromatic; seeds 

 reniform, light brown, exceedingly fi'agrant. 



A tree, 20- 25 high, with a trunk 6'- 8' in diameter, and slender terete branchlets 

 at first light red and coated with pale silky hairs, becoming glabrous in their second 

 year and covered with light or dark brown bark separating into small thin scales; 

 or often a shrub, with numerous slender stems. Bark of the trunk ^^g^i' thick, with 

 a smooth light red or red-brown surface separating into minute thin scales. Wood 

 very heavy, hard, close-grained, light brown or red, with thick yellow sapwood of 

 40-50 layers of annual growth. 



Distribution. Rocky woods; Mosquito Inlet to Cape Canaveral, and from the 

 banks of the Caioosa River to the shores of Cape Romano, on Key West, and in the 

 neighborhood of Bay Biscay ne, Florida; on the Bahamas and on several of the West 

 Indian islands. 



3. CHYTRACULIA, P. Br. 



Aromatic trees or shrubs, with terete or angled branchlets. Leaves complanate in 

 the bud, penniveined, petiolate. Flowers minute, in subterminal or axillary pedun- 

 culate many-flowered panicles, their primary and secondary branches often racemose, 

 and the ultimate branches cymose; calyx-tube turbinate, produced above the ovary, 

 closed in the bud by a sliglitly 4 or 5-lobed. lid-like orbicular limb, opening in an- 

 thesis by a circumscissile line, the limb at first attached laterally, finally deciduous; 

 disk lining the tube of the calyx; petals 2-5, minute, or 0; ovary 2 or 3-celled; 

 ovules 2 or 3 in each cell, collateral, ascending, anatropous. Fruit baccate, 2-4- 

 seeded. Seed subglobose; seed-coat shining; cotyledons foliaceous, contortuplicate; 

 radicle elongated, incurved. 



Chytraculia with seventy or eighty species is confined to tropical America, with 

 a single species reaching southern Florida. 



The generic name is from x'^^P" in reference to the peculiar lid-like limb which 

 closes the calyx before the opening of the flower. 



1. Chytraculia Chytraculia, Sud-w. 



(^Calyptranthes Chytraculia, Silva N. Am. v. 35.) 



Leaves oblong or ovate-oblong, elongated and rounded or acute at the apex, 

 gradually narrowed at the base, pellucid-punctate above, marked with dark glands 

 below, when they unfold pink or light red and covered with pale silky hairs, and at 

 maturity coriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper, coated with pale pubes- 

 cence on the lower surface, 21^-3' long, \'-^' wide, wdth broad midribs orange-colored 

 beneath; their petioles stout, \^-y long. Flowers sessile, 1' long, covered with 

 rufous pubescence on the outer surface of the calyx, in subterminal and axillary 

 long-stalked clusters 21'- 3' long and wide, with slender divaricate branches, the 

 flowers of the ultimate divisions in 3's. Fruit oblong or nearly globose, dark reddish 

 brown and puberulous, with thin dry flesh; seeds oblong, rounded at the ends. 



A tree, in Florida sometimes 20-25 high, with a trunk 3'- 4' in diameter, small 

 branches forming a narrow head, and slender branchlets at first w^ing-angled between 

 the nodes and coated, like the branches of the flower-clusters, bracts, and flower- 

 buds, with short rufous silky tomentum, becoming in their second or third year 

 terete, thickened at the nodes, light gray tinged wath red and covered with small 

 thin scales. Bark of the trunk about ^' thick, with a generally smooth light gray 



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