CAFFARIDACE^. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA, 33 



CAPPARIS JAMAICENSIS. 



Flowers in a terminal cyme ; sepals valvate, glandular. Fruit siliquiform, Yalvular- 

 dehiscent. 



Capparis Jamaicensis, Jacquin, Enum. Fl. Carib. 23 ; C. emarginata, Richard, Fl. Cub. 78, t. 9. — Walpers, Fej). 

 Stirp. Am. IGO, t. 101. — Icon. Am. Gewach. ii. 38, t. i. 201. 



]_71. Alton, FTort. Kew. ed. 2, iii. 285. — De CandoUe, C. Jamaicensis, var. emarginata, Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. 



Frodr. i. 252. — Macfadyen, Fl. Jam. 39. — Dietrich, Ind. 18. 



Syn. iii. 231. — Chapman, Fl. 32. — Eichler, Martins 

 Fl. Brasll. xiii. 1, 270, t. 64, f . 2. 



A small slender shrubby tree, growing in Florida to a beigbt of elgbteen or twenty feet, witb a 

 stralo-lit trunk sometimes five or six inches in diameter. The bark of the trunk is rarely more than an 

 eio-hth of an inch thiekj slightly fissured, the dark red-brown surface broken into small irregularly-shaped 

 divisions ; that of the branches is dark gray, smooth or slightly rugose. The branchlets are angled and 

 covered like the under surface of the leaves, the petioles and inflorescence, with minute ferruginous 

 scales, which are most abundant and darkest colored on the flower-buds and their stout angled stems. 

 The leaves are oblong-lanceolate, rounded and emarginate at the apes, shghtly revolute, coiiaeeous; with 

 a prominent midrib and inconspicuous primary veins ; they are two to three inches long and an inch or 

 an inch and a half broad, the upper surface rather light yellow-green, smooth and lustrous. The flower- 

 buds are obtuse or acute, four-angled by the prominently reduplicate margins of the sepals. Tlie showy 

 fragrant flowers open in Florida, in April and May. The sepals are ovate, acute, lepidote on the outer 

 surface, and furnished on the inner with a smaU ovate gland j they are recurved when the flower is fully 

 expanded, and are about half the size of the rounded membranaceous white petals which turn purple in 

 fading. The filaments of the twenty to thirty stamens are purple and conspicuously viUose towards the 

 base, and are an inch and a half to nearly two inches long ; the anthers are yellow. The slender stalk 

 of the ovary is an inch and a half or more in length and quite glabrous. The fruit is nine to twelve 

 inches long, terete, sometimes slightly torulose, pubescent-lepidote, the long stalk appearmg jomted by 

 the enlargement of the pedicel and torus below the insertion of the stipe. The outer coat of the seeds 



is hght brown and coriaceous.* 



Capparis Jamaicensis grows on the Florida coast from Cape Cimaveral to the southern keys, on 

 which, although nowhere common, it is generaUy distributed. It grows .vith the smaU Eugemas, the 

 Exostema, the Ehamnidium, the CondaKa, and the Pisonias, which form a large part of the shrubby sec- 

 ond growth which has replaced the original forests on Key West and some of the ne:ghbonng islands 

 The largest trees noticed in Florida are on Upper Metacombe and Umbrella Keys, two smdl islands eas 

 of Key West. It was first distinguished in Jamaica, and occurs in Cuba, Dominica, the Bahamas, and 



probably on some of the other West Indian Islands. ^ . , i i i 



The wood of Capparis Jamaicensis is yellow faintly tinged with red. It rs heavy, hard, close- 

 grained, and satiny, and contams many evenly distributed large open ducts and obscure medullary ray. 

 The specific gravij of the absolutely dry wood is 0.6971, a cubic foot of the dry wood weighing 43.44 

 pounds. The sapwood, composed of about fifteen layers of annual growth is rather hghter colored. 

 Capparis Jamaicensis was discovered in Florida by Dr. John L. Blodgett. 



. C.,,„„. J^i.e„,, ,o,ong. to fte .ection Qu.,Mla (Benth.. vatc g.a„du,„ .epa,s a,u, ^^^f^^J^^^^' '"'' ^ '^"^ ^^ ^ 

 S. Hooker, Gen. i. 109. - Eichler, Manius FL Braul xiii. 1, 207). ar^ed, destitute of sepa s -^ I • __^ ^^^^^ ^^___,^^^^^ 



The speeie, are all Ameriea,,, and are distinguished by large val- ' John Loom.s Blodgett (IbOO l»o.i,, 



