CELASTRACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 17 
SCHAIFFERIA FRUTESCENS. 
Yellow Wood. Box Wood. 
FLowERrs pediceled. Leaves alternate, usually acute at the two ends. 
Scheefferia frutescens, Jacquin, Cat. Pl. Carib. 33 ; Stirp. N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 39. — Trelease, Trans. St. 
Am. 259.—Gertner f. Fruct. Suppl. 249, t. 225. — Louis Acad. v. 356. 
Poiret, Lam. Dict. vi. 727; Ill. iii. 402, t. 809.—De SS. completa, Swartz, Fl. Ind. Oce. i. 327, t. 7, £ A. — 
Candolle, Prodr. ii. 41.— Karsten, Fl. Columb. i. 183, Poiret, Lam. Ill. iii. 402. — Willdenow, Spec. iv. 741. — 
t. 91.— Chapman, Fl. 76. — Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. Macfadyen, FV. Jam. 207. 
146. — Walpers, Ann. vii. 581.— Sargent, Forest Trees SS. buxifolia, Nuttall, Sylva, ii. 42. t. 56. 
A small slender glabrous tree, with rigid upright terete branches, and slender many-angled 
branchlets, growing sometimes to the height of thirty-five or forty feet, with a trunk eight or ten 
inches in diameter; or often a tall or low shrub. The bark of the trunk is rarely more than a twelfth 
of an inch thick, pale brown faintly tinged with red, the surface divided by long shallow fissures, and 
separating ultimately into small narrow scales; that of the shoots of the year is pale greenish yellow, 
becoming light gray during the second year, and then conspicuously marked with the remains of the 
persistent wart-like clusters of bud-scales. The leaves are persistent, entire, obovate-oblong, usually 
acute, and then often minutely apiculate, or sometimes rounded or emarginate at the apex, the base 
narrowed gradually into a short broad petiole; they are bright yellow-green, two to two and a half 
inches long and half an inch to an inch broad, with thick revolute margins. In Florida they appear 
in April, and remain on the branches until the spring of the following year. The pedicels of the 
sterile flowers, generally three or five together, are rarely more than two lines long; those of the 
fertile flowers are solitary, or more often two or three together, and are rather longer than the petioles. 
The flowers are produced in spring on shoots of the year, and are an eighth of an inch across when 
expanded. The fruit is slightly grooved and compressed, and is bright scarlet at maturity. It ripens 
in Florida in November, and then possesses an acrid disagreeable flavor, but is greedily devoured by 
many birds. 
Schefferia frutescens is not rare in southern Florida, beg found on the principal islands from 
Metacombe Key eastward, in the neighborhood of the Caloosa River and sparmgly on the Reef Keys. 
It inhabits the Bahama group, is widely distributed through the West Indies, and has been noticed 
in Venezuela.’ In Florida, where this tree was once much more common than it 1s now, it is usually 
found growing with the Eugenias, the Pisonias, the Florida Coccoloba, the Drypetes, the Bumelia, 
and the Ardisia, forming with them the shrubby second growth which now covers several of the large 
keys. 
The wood of Schefferia frutescens is heavy and close-grained; it contains numerous obscure 
medullary rays, and is bright clear yellow, while the thick sapwood is a little hghter colored. The 
specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7745, a cubic foot weighing 48.27 pounds. It has 
been used as a substitute for box-wood, and the large trees were cut in Florida many years ago and 
sent to New Providence for export to England. 
Schefferia frutescens was first described by Plukenet’ in 1691. He obtained it from the Barba- 
1 Near the city of Quibor, Kartsen, /. c. 2 Burus Lauri Alexandrine foliis accedens Americana, Phyt. t. 
80, f.6; Alm. Bot. 74. 
