338 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



XVIII. CAPPARIDACE^. 



Annual or perennial herbs, trees, or shrubs, with acrid often pungent juices, 

 alternate or rarely opposite leaves, and regular or irregular usually perfect 

 flowers in terminal cymes or i-acemes, or solitary, numerous ovules inserted in 

 two rows on each of the two placentas, capsular or baccate 1-celled fruit, and 

 seeds without albumen. A family of thirty-four genera, mostly confined to 

 the warmer parts of the world and widely distributed in the two hemispheres. 

 Of the seven genera which occur in North America only one has an arbores- 

 cent representative. 



1. CAPPARIS, L. 



Trees, with naked buds. Leaves conduplicate in the bud, entire, feather-veined, 

 coriaceous, persistent, without stipules. Flowers regular, in terminal cymes; sepals 

 4, valvate in the bud, glandular on the inner surface; petals 4, inserted on the base 

 of the short receptacle; stamens numerous, inserted on the receptacle, their filaments 

 free, elongated, much longer than the introrse 2-celled anthers opening longitudi- 

 nally; ovary long-stalked, 2-celled, with 2 parietal placentas; stigmas sessile, orbic- 

 ular; ovules campylotropous. Fruit baccate, siliquiform (in the North American 

 species) separating into 3 or 4 valves. Seeds reniform, numerous, surrounded by 

 pulp; seed-coat coriaceous; embryo convolute; cotyledons foliaceous, fleshy. 



Capparis, with more than one hundred species, mostly tropical, is found in the two 

 hemispheres, the largest number of species occurring in Central and South America. 

 Two of the West Indian species reach the shores of southern Florida, the most north- 

 ern station of the genus in America; of these one is arborescent. 



Capparis, from Kdmrapis, the classical name of Capparis spinosa, L., is derived from 

 the Persian kabor, capers, the dried flower-buds of that species. 



1. Capparis Jamaicensis, Jacq. 



Leaves oblong-lanceolate, rounded and emarginate at the apex, slightly revolute, 

 coriaceous, light yellow-green, smooth and lustrous on the upper surface, covered on 



h^ s6a 



the lower by minute ferrugineous scales, 2'-3' long, l'-l|' broad, with prominent 

 midribs and inconspicuous primary veins. Flowers 1^ in diameter, opening in Florida 



