LAURACE^ 329 



base by a bright red spot, and broader and somewhat longer than those of the inner 

 row. Fruit ripening in November, broadly ovate, truncate or depressed at the base, 

 rounded at the apex, 3'-o' long, 2'-3^' broad, light green when fully grown, becom- 

 ing yellow and often marked by numerous dark brown blotches when fully ripe, 

 with a thick elongate fibrous torus and light green slightly aromatic insipid flesh 

 of no comestible value; seeds i' long, slightly obovate, turgid, rounded at the ends, 

 their margins contracted into a narrow wing formed by the thickening of the outer 

 coat. 



A tree, 30-4:0 high, with a short trunk often 18' in diameter above the swell of 

 the thickened tapering base sometimes enlarged into spreading buttresses, stout 

 wide-spreading often contorted branches, slender branchlets brown dr yellow during 

 their first season, becoming in their second year brown and marked by small scat- 

 tered wart-like excrescences. Bark ^' thick, dark reddish brown, divided by broad 

 shallow fissures separating on the surface into numerous small scales. Wood light, 

 soft, not strong, light brown streaked with yellow. 



Distribution. Florida from Cape Malabar to the shores of Bay Biscayne, and on 

 the west coast from Peace Creek to the Caloosa River; in shallow fresh water 

 ponds, on swampy hummocks, or on the borders of fresh water streams flowing from 

 the everglades; of its largest size on the shores of Bay Biscayne near the Miami 

 River, growing in the shade of larger trees; on the Bahama Islands and on several 

 of the Antilles. 



XVII. LAURACEiE. 



Aromatic trees and shrubs, with slender terete branchlets, naked or scaly 

 buds, and alternate punctate leaves without stipules. Flowers small, perfect 

 or polygamo-dicecious, yellow or greenish ; calyx 6-lobed, the lobes in 2 series, 

 imbricated in the bud ; corolla ; stamens 9 or 12, inserted on the base of the 

 calyx in 3 or 4 series of 3's, distinct, those of the fourth series sterile; anthers 

 4-celled, superposed in jDairs, opening from below upward by persistent lids ; 

 ovary 1-celled ; stigma discoid or capitate ; ovule solitary, suspended from the 

 apex of the cell, anatropous. Fruit a 1-seeded berry ; seed without albumen ; 

 testa thin and membranaceous, of 2 coats ; embryo erect ; cotyledons thick and 

 fleshy ; radicle superior, turned toward the hilum, included between thick and 

 fleshy cotyledons. The Laurel family with about forty genera, confined mostly 

 to the tropics, is represented in North America by six genera ; of these four 

 are arborescent. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT GENERA. 



Leaves entire, persistent ; stamens 12. 



CaUTc-lobes persistent under the fruit. . 1. Persea. 

 Calyx-lobes deciduous. 



Flower cyniose in axillary or subterminal panicles. 2. Ocotea. 



Flowers in axillary many-flowered umbels inclosed before anthesis in an involucre of 



deciduous scales. 3. Unibellularia. 



Leaves entire or lobed, deciduous ; stamens 9 ; flowers dicecious in few-flowered drooping- 

 racemes. 4. Sassafras. 



1. PERSEA, L. 



Trees, with naked buds. Leaves revolute in the bud, alternate, scattered, penni- 

 veined, subcoriaceous, rigid, tomentose or rarely glabrous, persistent. Flowers per- 



