532 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



Winter-buds acute or obtuse, with dark red scales. Bark of the trunk \'-^' thick 

 and dark reddish brown. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, pale reddish brown, 

 with hardly distinguishable sapwood. 



Distribution. Islands of southern California, in all exposures from the fertile 

 valleys and canons at the water's edge up to elevations of 3000 on the dry interior 

 ridges; and in Lower California. 



10. chrysobAlanus, l. 



Trees or shrubs, with stout branchlets covered with pale lenticels, and fibrous 

 roots. Leaves alternate, entire, coriaceous, short-petiolate, persistent; stipules mi- 

 nute, deciduous. Flowers perfect, short-pedicellate, small, creamy white, in axillary 

 or terminal dichotomously branched slender canescent cymes, with conspicuous de- 

 ciduous bracts; calyx turbinate-campanulate, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the 

 bud, without bracts, deciduous; disk thin, adnate to the calyx-tube; petals 5, alter- 

 nate with the lobes of the calyx, spatulate, deciduous; stamens (in the arborescent 

 species) indefinite in a single continuous series, inserted with the petals on the mar- 

 gin of the disk; filaments filiform, hairy, free or slightly united at the base; anthers 

 ovoid, ovary sessile in the bottom of the calyx-tube, hirsute or glabrous, 1-celled; 

 style rising from the base of the ovary, filiform, terminated by a minute truncate 

 stigma; ovules 2, collateral, ascending; raphe dorsal, the micropyle inferior. Fruit 

 a fleshy 1-seeded drupe with pulpy flesh, a coriaceous or crustaceous stone, 5 or 

 6-angled toward the base and imperfectly 5 or 6-valved, the valves reticulate-veined. 

 Seed erect; seed-coat chartaceous, light brown; embryo filling the cavity of the 

 seed; cotyledons thick and fleshy; radicle inferior, very short. 



Chrysobalanus is represented in the south Atlantic states by a shrubby species 

 confined to the coast region from Georgia to Alabama, and by a second species occa- 

 sionally attaining the size of a small tree, an inhabitant of the shores of southern 

 Florida, widely distributed through the maritime regions of tropical America, and 

 found in various forms on the coast of western tropical Africa. 



The generic name is from XP^'^^^ ^^^ fiaKavos, in allusion to the supposed golden 

 fruit of one of the species. 



1. Chrysobalanus Icaco, L. Cocoa Plum. 



Leaves broadly elliptical or round-obovate, rounded or slightly emarginate at the 

 apex, wedge-shaped at the base, glabrous, coriaceous, obscurely reticulate-veined, 

 dark green and lustrous on the upper and light yellow-green on the lower surface, 

 l'-3^' long, l'-2|' wide, with broad conspicuous midribs rounded on the upper side 

 and thin primary veins, standing on the branches at an acute angle and appearing 

 to be pressed against them; their petioles stout, ^'-^' long; stipules acuminate, \' 

 long. Flowers y long, on short thick club-shaped hoary-tomentose pedicels, in 

 cymes l'-2' in length, appearing in Florida continuously during the spring and sum- 

 mer months on the growing branches; calyx hoary-tomentose, the lobes nearly trian- 

 gular, acute, more or less pubescent on the inner surface and about half as long as 

 the narrow white petals; ovary hoary-pubescent; style long and slender, clothed 

 nearly to the apex with pale hairs. Fruit nearly globose or often slightly ovoid, 

 f'-l' in diameter, with smooth bright pink, yellow, purple, creamy white, or some- 

 times nearly black skin, white sweet juicy flesh often \' thick, and more or less ad- 

 herent to the stone pointed at the ends, 5 or 6-angled below the middle, \'-l\' long 



