SAPOTACE^ 741 



1. Bumelia tenax, "Willd. Ironwood. 



Leaves oblauceolate-spatulate to cuneate-obovate, rounded or acute and some- 

 times apiculate or emarginate at the apex and wedge-shaped at the base, when they 

 unfold coated with thick pale or light red silky pubescence, and at maturity thin and 

 firm, dark dull green, glabrous and finely reticulate-venulose on the upper, coated 



on the lower surface with soft silky golden ferrugineous pubescence, 1^-3' long 

 and ^'-|' wide, turning yellow and falling irregularly during the winter; their petioles 

 slender, hairy, grooved, ^' long. Flowers appearing from May in Florida to July 

 in North Carolina, ^' long, on pedicels 1' in length and coated like the calyx with 

 rufous silky pubescence, in many-flowered crowded fascicles; calyx ovate, with ob- 

 long lobes; appendages of the corolla large, ovate, acute, crenate, shorter than the 

 ovate staminodia about as long as the lobes of the corolla; ovary narrowly ovate, 

 gradually contracted into an elongated style. Fruit ripening and falling in the 

 autumn, oblong, y-^' in length; seed oblong, short-pointed at the apex, y^' long. 



A tree, 20-30 high, with a trunk occasionally 5'-6' in diameter, straight spread- 

 ing flexible tough branches unarmed or armed with straight stout rigid spines some- 

 times 1' in length, and slender branchlets coated when they first appear with silky 

 pale pubescence often tinged with red and soon rusty brown, becoming glabrous 

 before winter, and then dark red and slightly roughened by occasional minute dark 

 lenticels. Winter-buds minute, subglobose, with imbricated ovate scales rounded 

 at the apex and clothed with rusty brown tomentum. Bark of the trunk thick, 

 brown tinged with red, and divided irregularly by deep fissures into narrow flat 

 reticulate ridges covered with minute appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, close- 

 grained, light brown streaked with white, with lighter colored sapwood. 



Distribution. Dry sandy soil in the neighborhood of the coast; North Carolina 

 to Cape Canaveral and Cedar Keys, Florida. 



2. Bumelia lanuginosa, Pers. Gum Elastic. Chittam Wood. 



Leaves oblong-obovate to cuneate-obovate, rounded and often apiculate at the apex 

 and gradually narrowed at the base, when they unfold coated with pale ferrugineous 

 tomentum dense on the lower and loose on the upper surface, and at maturity thin 

 and firm, dark green and lustrous above, more or less thickly covered below with 



