SAPOTACE^ 



739 



thick, coriaceous and lustrous; hilum oblong, basilar or slightly lateral; embryo 

 erect in thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons ovate, flat, much longer than the short 

 radicle turned toward the hilum. 



Dipholis with three species is confined to the West Indies and southern Florida. 



The generic name, from dis and <pokis, relates to the appendages of the corolla. 



1. Dipholis salicifolia, A. DC. Bustic. Cassada. 



Leaves oblong-lanceolate or narrowly obovate, acute, acuminate, or rounded at the 

 apex, gradually contracted at the base, with slightly thickened cartilaginous wavy 

 margins, when they unfold thickly coated with lustrous rufous pubescence, and at 

 maturity thin and firm, da,rk green and lustrous above, pale yellow-green below, 

 3' -5' long, ^'-ly wide, and glabrous or slightly puberulous on the lower side of the 

 narrow pale midribs, with inconspicuous veins and reticulate veinlets, appearing in 

 Florida in the spring and remaining on the branches between one and two years; their 

 petioles slender, ^-1' long. Flowers opening during March and April, i' long, on 

 thick pedicels ^' in length from the axils of minute ovate acute scarious bracts and 

 coated with rufous pubescence, in dense many-flowered fascicles crowded on branch- 

 lets of the year or of the previous year for a distance of 8'-12'; calyx half the length 

 of the corolla, coated on the outer surface with rusty silky pubescence; appendages 



of the corolla as long as the oval acute irregularly toothed staminodia; ovary nar- 

 rowly ovate, glabrous, gradually contracted into a slender style shorter than the 

 corolla and stigmatic at the apex. Fruit solitary or rarely clustered, ripening in the 

 autumn, oblong to subglobose, black, \' long; seed pale brown, about j\' in length. 

 A tree, in Florida sometimes 40-o0 high, with a straight trunk 18'-20' in diame- 

 ter, small upright branches forming a narrow graceful head, and slender branchlets 

 coated with rufous pubescence when they first appear, becoming ashy gray or light 

 brown tinged with red and marked by numerous circular pale lenticels and by small 

 elevated orbicular leaf-scars displaying near the centre a compact cluster of fibro- 

 vascular bundle-scars. Bark of the trunk about ^ thick and broken into thick square 

 plate-like brown scales tinged with red. Wood very heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, 

 close-grained, dark brown or red, with thin sapwood of 4 or 5 layers of annual 

 growth. 



