EUPHORBIACE^ 597 



Distribution. Dry sandy soil on Key West, Umbrella and Elliott's Keys, southern 

 Florida; one of the rarest of the tropical trees of Florida. 



2, Drypetes lateriflora, Urb. Guiana Plum. 



Leaves appearing in Florida in early spring and falling during their second year, 

 oblong, acute or acuminate at the apex, gradually narrowed at the base, and entire, 

 when they unfold thin and covered with scattered pale hairs, and at maturity thick 

 and subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous, 3'-4' long, ^'-1^' wide, with conspicuous 



light-colored midribs rounded above, and pale and obscure primary veins arcuate and 

 united near the slightly thickened revolute margins and connected by slender reticu- 

 late veinlets; their petioles slender, grooved, \' long. Flowers on pedicels shorter 

 than the petioles, opening late in the autumn or in early winter on branches one or 

 two years old, in the axils of leaves or from leafless nodes, in many or few-flowered 

 clusters; calyx greenish white, hirsute on the outer surface, divided to the base into 

 4 ovate rounded lobes, persistent under the fruit; stamens 4, inserted under the mar- 

 gin and between the lobes of the flat tomentose disk; filaments slender, exserted ; 

 anthers introrse, emarginate, pilose, wanting in the pistillate flower; ovary ovate, 

 tomentose, 2-celled, with 2 nearly sessile oblique spreading cushion-like stigmas. 

 Fruit ripening during the spring and early summer, subglobose, |-' in diameter, tipped 

 with the conspicuous blackened remnants of the stigmas, dark brown, covered with 

 soft pubescence, solitary or in clusters of 2 or 3, deciduous at maturity from its stout 

 stalk enlarged at the apex and ^' long; flesh thin and crustaceous, closely investing 

 the thin-walled crustaceous stone; seed usually solitary by abortion, obovate, gib- 

 bous, Y loi^> narrowed below, narrowed and marked at the apex by the elevated pale 

 hilum and on the inner surface by the broad conspicuous raphe. 



A tree, 20-30 high, with a short trunk 5'-6' in diameter, small erect branches, 

 and slender branchlets, light green tinged with red when they first appear, becoming 

 in their first winter ashy gray and marked by scattered pale lenticels, and at the end 

 of their second year by the small elevated oval leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 

 fibro-vascular bundles. Winter-buds minute, acute or obtuse, chestnut-brown, and 

 covered with pale hairs. Bark of the trunk about -^^' thick, light brown tinged with 

 red, the generally smooth surface separating into small irregular scales. Wood 

 heavy, hard, brittle, close-grained, rich dark brown, with thick yellow sapwood. 



