ANONACE^. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



27 



ANONA. 



r 



M ■ 



L 



Flowers solitary, fascicled, or rarely cymoscly racemose, terminal or extra axil- 

 lary ; sepals 3, yalvate ; petals usually 6, in two series, valvate or rarely imbricated in 

 estivation ; stamens inserted on a hemispherical receptacle, indefinite. Carpels con- 

 fluent into a many-celled fleshy fruit ; seeds inclosed in an aril ; albumen ruminate. 



Anona, Linn^us, Gen. 158, m part. — Adanson, Fam. PI. ii. Endliclier, Gen. 834. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 27. — 



365. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 283. — Meisner, Gen. 4. — Baillon, Hist. PI. i. 285. 



r 



Trees or shrubs, emitting a pungent aromatic odor when bruised, witli flesliy roots, glandular and 

 often reticulated bark, and terete slender branches marked "nith conspicuous leaf-scars, and often pubes- 

 cent during the first season. Leaves conduplicate in vernation, destitute of stipules, alternate, entire, 

 coriaceous, feather- veined, often glandular-punctate, persistent or tardily deciduous. Flowers nodding 

 on bracted peduncles. Calyx small, three-lobed, or composed of three concave suhcordate acute sepals, 

 green, deciduous. Petals hypogynous, sessile, ovate, acuminate or obtuse, concave, triquetrous at the 

 apex, thick and fleshy, generally white or yellow, the exterior alternate with the sepals ; those of the 

 inner row opposite the sepals often much smaller than those of the outer row, and sometimes reduced 

 to minute scales or absent. Stamens club-shaped, densely packed on the receptacle ; filaments shorter 

 than the fleshy connective terminated by a broad ovoid truncate often glandular tip extending above 

 the extrorse anthers ; their cells oblong, contiguous, opening longitudinally. Pistils sessile on the 

 receptacle, free or united ; ovary one-celled ; stigmas sessile or slightly stipitate, oblong ; ovules one, or 

 rarely two,^ erect, anatropous ; raphe ventral. Fruit ovate or globose, the surface muricate, squaraulose 

 or smooth, many-seeded. Seeds ovate or elliptical ; testa crustaceo-coriaceous, smooth, chestnut-brown ; 

 the tegmen adherent to the testa, its broad appendages penetrating the albumen nearly to the axis. 

 Embryo minute, the radicle next the Iiilum ; cotyledons appressed. 



The genus Anona Is found In tropical America and in tropical Africa. About fifty species have 

 been described by botanists. A single species extends north of the tropics to the coast of southern 

 Florida and to the Bahama Islands. Six African species are known ; ^ twenty-eight species, including 

 two or three naturalized from the "West Indies, are found in Brazil ; ^ ten or twelve species are Central 

 American,* one at least extending south of the equator to Peru ; ^ the remainder inhabit the West 

 Indies ^ and the northern countries of the South American continent.^ 



Several species cuhlvated for their fruit have become naturalized In the tropics of the two worlds.^ 

 The Sweetsop or Sugar Apple {A. squamosa^ Is now perhaps the most widely distributed and the 

 most firmly fixed in the Old World." The yellow-green fruit, two to four inches across, is oblong and 

 embossed with oblong, obtuse scales ; the flesh is soft and white, with an agreeable perfume and Insipid 

 flavor. The seeds are acrid and are used as an Insecticide. The soursop, the ovold or nearly globular 



1 Baillon, Hist. PL i. 229. "^ Aublct, Fl. Guian. i. Gil. 



^ Baker, FL Maur. and Seych. 3. -Oliver, Fl Trap. Aft. 14. « A. De CandoUe, Giograplm Botanique, ii. 859 ; Origlne des 



3 St. Hilaire, FL Bras. Merid. i. 24. — Martlus, FL BrasiL xiii. 1, 3. Plantes CuUive'es, 133. 



^ Hemsley, Bot. BioL Am. Cent. i. 18. ' Linn=e«s, Spec. 537. - Desco.rtilz, FL Med. AnUL u 65. t. 



'A. Cherimolia Miller, Diet. (A De Caadolle, Origine des 83.-£.^ il/«i/. t. 309o.-Tussac, H. ^«(-7. iii. 4.-^ an Nooteu, 



Plantes Cultivees, 138.) " -^'^^"''^ •^«'^- *■ ^^■ 



« Sloane, Nat. Hist. Jam. ii. 166. -Browne, Nat. Hist. Jam. '" Hooker f. FL Brit. Ind. i. 7S.-Brandis. Forest^ Fl Ind.G. 



255— Maycoek,F/.fior&. 232. - Maef.dyen, Fl. Jam.6.--Rich^ The irnitoi A. squamosa i. called "custard apple m Iiidta, the 



ard, FL Cub. 27— Griscbach, FL Brit. W. Ind. 4. American name of the fruit of A. reticulata. 



