LAURACE^ 



333 



region of the New 



World from southern Florida to Brazil and Peru, with Old 

 World representatives in the Canary Islands, South Africa, and the Mascarene 

 Islands. One species grows naturally in Florida. 



Ocotea produces hard strong durable beautifully colored wood often employed in 

 cabinet-making. 



The name is derived from the native name of one of the species of Guiana. 



1. Ocotea Catesbyaua, Sarg. 



Leaves oblong-lanceolate, entire, slightly contracted above into long points 

 rounded at the apex, when they unfold thin, membranaceous, light green tinged 

 with red, and sometimes puberulous on the low^er surface, and at maturity thick and 

 coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 3'-6' long, l'-2' wide, with 

 thickened slightly revolute margins, broad stout midribs, slender remote primary 

 veins arcuate and united near the margins and connected by coarsely reticulate 

 conspicuous veinlets; their petioles broad, flat, Y-^' long. Flowers perfect, appear- 

 ing in early summer in elongated panicles, their stalks slender, glabrous, light red, 

 solitary or 2 or 3 together from the axils of the leaves of the year or from those of 



the previous year, and 3'^' long; calyx nearly 1' across when expanded, pubescent 

 on the outer surface, tomeutose on the inner surface, about twice as long as the 

 stamens; filaments of the 2 outer series slightly hirsute at the base and shorter than 

 their introrse anthers; filaments of the third series as long or longer than their 

 extrorse anthers. Fruit ripening in the autumn, ovate or subglobose, ^' long, lus- 

 trous, dark blue or nearly black, the thickened cup-like tube of the calyx truncate 

 or obscurely lobed and bright red like the thickened pedicels; flesh thin and dry; 

 seed with a thin brittle red-brown coat, the inner layer lustrous on the inner surface 

 and marked by broad light-colored veins radiating from the small hilum; embryo 

 ^' long, light red-brown. 



A tree, 20-30 high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 18' in diameter, slender 

 spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and thin terete branchlets 

 glabrous and dark reddish brown when they first appear, soon becoming lighter 

 colored, and in their second year light brown or gray tinged with red and often 

 marked by minute pale lenticels, and in their second or third year by small semi- 



