MYRSINACEiE 733 



ture of other small articles. Decoctions of the astringent bark of the root and of 

 the leaves are sometimes employed domestically in the treatment of diarrhoea. The 

 bark has been used by tanners. 



Distribution. Usually in moist sandy soil along the banks of ponds and streams; 

 North Carolina, from the coast to the valleys of the high Appalachian Mountains, 

 to Hernando County, Florida, through the Gulf states to the shores of Matagorda 

 Bay, Texas, and through Arkansas and Missouri to southern Illinois; common in the 

 maritime Pine belt of the south Atlantic and Gulf states, and of its largest size near 

 the coast of eastern Texas; in the interior less abundant and usually of small size. 



L. MYRSINACE-51. 



Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, alternate entire coriaceous punctate 

 leaves without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect ; calyx persistent under the 

 fruit ; corolla without staminodia, glandular-punctate ; stamens inserted on 

 the corolla, as many as and opposite its lobes ; ovary 1-celled, with an undi- 

 vided style and a minute terminal stigma ; ovules peltate, immersed in the 

 fleshy central placenta, amphitropous. Fruit a drupe. Seed solitary, globose, 

 with copious cartilaginous albumen ; seed-coat membranaceous. 



A family of twenty-nine genera confined to tropical and semitropical 

 regions, with one arborescent species of Icacorea reaching the sl^ores of south- 

 ern Florida. 



1. ICACOREA, Aubl. 



Glabrous trees or shrubs, with leaves punctate below, with immersed resinous dots. 

 Flowers resinous-punctate, pedicellate, the pedicels bibracteolate at the base or 

 ebracteolate, in terminal or rarely axillary branched panicles, with minute scarious 

 deciduous or caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx free, 5 or rarely 4-lobed or parted, 

 the divisions contorted or imbricated in the bud; corolla 5 or rarely 4-6-parted, the 

 divisions extrorsely or sinistrorsely contorted in the bud, short or elongated, white 

 or rose color; stamens exserted; filaments short or nearly obsolete, free, inserted 

 on the throat of the corolla; anthers usually sagittate-lanceolate, attached on the 

 back just above the base, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally some- 

 times nearly to the base; ovary globose; ovules numerous, immersed in the globose 

 resinous-punctate placenta. Fruit globose, with thin usually dry flesh and a 1-seeded 

 stone with a usually crustaceous or bony shell. Seed concave or more or less lobed 

 at the base, resinous-punctate; hilum basilar, concave, conspicuous; embryo cylin- 

 drical, transverse; cotyledons flat on the inner face, rounded on the back, shorter 

 than the slender radicle. 



Icacorea with about two hundred species inhabits tropical and subtropical regions 

 of the two hemispheres. The genus has few useful properties, but a number of spe- 

 cies are cultivated for the beauty of their handsome evergreen foliage and bright- 

 colored fruits. 



The generic name is of Carib origin. 



1. Icacorea paniculata, Sudvsr. Marlberry. Cherry. 



Leaves ovate to lanceolate-oblong: or lanceolate-obovate, acute or rounded at the 

 narrow apex, wedge-shaped and gradually contracted at the base, entire, with thick- 

 ened and slightly revolute margins, 3'-6' long, I'-l^' wide, thick and coriaceous, 

 glabrous, marked by minute scattered dark dots, dark yellow-green on the upper, 



