ROSACEA. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 1 
HETEROMELES. 
FLowers regular, perfect ; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in estivation ; petals 
5, convolute in estivation ; stamens 10, parapetalous; ovary 2-celled ; ovules 2 in each 
cell, ascending. Fruit a fleshy drupe. Leaves alternate, serrate, coriaceous, persistent. 
Heteromeles, Roemer, Fam. Nat. Syn. iii. 100. 
A small tree, with smooth pale aromatic bark, stout terete branches, pubescent or puberulous 
while young, and fibrous roots. Leaves alternate, oblong-lanceolate, acute at the two ends, sharply 
and remotely serrate with rigid glandular teeth, or rarely almost entire, dark green and lustrous on the 
upper, paler on the lower surface, petiolate with stout grooved glandular petioles often furnished near 
their apex with one or two slender glandular teeth, feather-veined, with broad midribs grooved on the 
upper side and conspicuous reticulated veinlets; stipules subulate, ridged, minute, early deciduous. 
Flowers in ample tomentose terminal corymbose panicles, their branches developed from the axils of the 
upper leaves or from acute leafy bracts. Bractlets acute, minute, usually tipped with small glands, 
caducous. Pedicels stout, shorter than the turbinate calyx-tube, tomentose below, glabrate above ; the 
lobes short, nearly triangular, spreading, persistent. Disk lining the tube of the calyx, cup-shaped, 
obscurely suleate ; petals five, inserted on the margin of the disk, flabellate, erose-denticulate or emar- 
ginate at the apex, contracted at the base into short broad claws, thick, glabrous, pure white. Stamens 
ten, inserted in one row with the petals on the margin of the disk in pairs opposite the lobes of the 
calyx; filaments subulate, enlarged at the base, incurved, free; anthers oblong-ovate, emarginate, 
attached on the back below the middle, introrse, two-celled, the cells opening longitudinally. Carpels 
two, adnate to the calyx-tube, at first only dorsally below the middle, and slightly united into a sub- 
globose tomentose nearly superior ovary; styles terminal, distinct, slightly spreading, enlarged at the 
apex into broad truncate stigmas; ovules two in each cell, ascending, anatropous ; raphe dorsal; micro- 
pyle inferior. Fruit an obovoid fleshy drupe formed by the thickening of the calyx-tube connate to 
their middle only with the membranaceous carpels which are coated above with long white hairs filling 
the cavity closed by the infolding of the thickened persistent lobes, their tips erect and crowning 
the fruit. Seeds usually solitary in each cell by the abortion of one of the ovules, or rarely two, ovate, 
lenticular, obtuse, slightly ridged on the back, destitute of albumen; testa membranaceous, puncticu- 
late, light brown ; hilum orbicular, conspicuous. Embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons 
plano-convex; radicle short, inferior. 
The wood of Heteromeles is very heavy, hard, and Blocosaesineds with a satiny surface susceptible 
of receiving a beautiful polish; it is dark red-brown, with thin lighter colored sapwood composed of 
seven or eight layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.9326, a 
suborbicular, cubic foot weighing 58.12 pounds. 
The genus is not known to possess useful properties. 
The generic name, from érepos and Aor, refers to the fact that this tree differs from the plants 
of allied genera. It consists of a single species. 
