702 



TREES OF NOKTH AMERICA 



Lost Man's River near Cape Sable, and at its northern limits a low shrub; common 

 in the Antilles, on the shores of Central America and tropical South America, on the 

 Galapagos Islands, and on the west coast of Africa. 



2. BUCIDA, L. 



A tree or shrub, with terete often spinescent branchlets. Leaves alternate, crowded 

 at the ends of spur-like lateral branchlets much thickened and roughened by the 

 large elevated crowded leaf-scars, obovate to oblong-lanceolate, rounded and slightly 

 emarginate or minutely apiculate at the apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at 

 the base, coriaceous, blnish green on the upper and yellow-green on the lower, sur- 

 face, pubescent while young, especially beneath, and glabrous at maturity with the 

 exception of rufous hairs on the under surface of the stout midribs, and on the short 

 stout petioles. Flowers perfect, greenish white, hairy on the outer surface, sessile in 

 the axils of minute bracts, in lax elongated axillary clustered rufous-pubescent 

 spikes; calyx-tube ovoid, constricted above the ovary, the limb campanulate, 5-lobed, 

 the lobes valvate in the bud, persistent; petals 0; stamens 10, in two ranks, inflexed 

 in the bud, unequal, 5 longer than the others and inserted opposite the calyx-lobes 

 under the hairy 5-lobed disk, the others shorter, alternate with them and inserted 

 higher on the calyx-tube; filaments incurved near the apex; anthers minute, sagit- 

 tate; ovary included in the tube of the calyx; style thickened and villose at the 

 base; ovules suspended on elongated slender funiculi. Fruit ovoid, conical, oblique, 

 and more or less falcate, irregularly 5-angled, coriaceous, light brown, puberulous 

 on the outer surface, with thin membranaceous flesh inseparable from the crustaceous 

 stone porous toward the interior. Seed ovate, acute; seed-coat coriaceous, chestnut- 

 brown; cotj^ledons fleshy; radicle superior. 



Bucida with a single species is confined to tropical America, where it is distributed 

 from southern Florida throuofh the West Indies to Guiana and Central America. 



The generic name is from /Sous, in allusion to the fancied resemblance of the fruit 

 to the horns of an ox. 



1. Bucida Buceras, P. Br. Black Olive Tree. 



(Terminalia Buceras, Silva N. Am. v. 21.) 



Leaves 2'-3' long, I'-l^' wide, their petioles y-\' in length. Flowers appearing 

 in Florida in April, 1' long, on spikes l^'-3' in length. Fruit about \' long. 



