SAPODILLxi FAMILY 171 



and are among the many fruits of tropical America that 

 Spanish explorers discovered and praised. 



Our native species are less noted, but are of unusual 

 interest. The satinleaf, Chrysophyllum monopyrenum, a 

 small tree of southern Florida, has leaves of such re- 

 markable beauty that any description of them is inade- 

 quate. These leaves, elliptical or oblong and one to four 

 inches in length, are densely covered on the lower surface 

 with a glistening golden brown pubescence — a copper- 

 colored satin that reflects the light in varying tones, and 

 is in beautiful contrast with the dark, almost bluish green 

 upper surface, which appears as if varnished. The black- 

 ish fruit, not quite an inch in length, is as gummy when 

 cut as is the yellow, slightly larger, somewhat plum-like 

 fruit of the mastic, Sideroxylon mastichodendron, a large 

 tree, with shining leaves three to six inches long, of oblong 

 or oval shape, and small yellowish flowers, which grows 

 in hammocks in the southern part of the peninsula and 

 on the Keys. 



The gummy sap, characteristic of this family and espe- 

 cially noticeable in the mastic, is so abundant in the 

 sapodilla that the tree is a chief source of the chicle used 

 in chewing-gum. Trees of East India genera yield gutta- 

 percha. 



Saffron Plum. Buckthorn. Black Haw (Genus 



Bumelia) 



Several shrubs or trees of this genus, some of them 

 thorny, are found in Florida, and bloom in small axillary 

 clusters of five-cleft flowers, in which the tiny petals are 

 oddly supplemented by little petal-like appendages. The 

 saffron plum, B. angustifolia, of the peninsula and Keys, 

 has somewhat wedge-shaped leaves, about an inch in 

 length, shining above and dull beneath, and blooms in 

 autumn and winter with many tiny flowers that scent 



