SAPINDACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. v7 
HY PELATE. 
FLoweErs regular, polygamo-monecious; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in 
estivation, deciduous; petals 5, imbricated in estivation; ovary 3-celled; ovules 2 in 
each cell, heterotropous. Fruit a fleshy drupe, 1-celled, 1-seeded. 
Hypelate, Browne, Nat. Hist. Jam. 208. — Cambessedes, Gen. i. 408 (in part). — Baillon, Hist. Pl. v. 408 (in 
Mém. Mus. xiii. 31 (in part).— Endlicher, Gen. 1071 part). 
(in part). — Meisner, Gen. 53.— Bentham & Hooker, Melicocca, A. L. de Jussieu, Mém. Mus. iii. 178 (in part ; 
not Linnzus). 
A glabrous tree or shrub, with smooth bark and slender terete branches. Leaves alternate, long- 
petiolate, the petioles sometimes narrow winged, destitute of stipules, three-foliolate, the terminal leaflet 
rather larger than the others, persistent ; leaflets sessile, obovate, rounded or rarely acute or emarginate 
at the apex, entire with thickened revolute margins and prominent midribs, coriaceous, conspicuously 
feather-veined, the veins arcuate and connected near the margin, dark green and lustrous on the upper, 
and bright green on the lower surface. Flowers minute, in few-flowered long-stemmed wide-branched 
terminal or axillary panicles. Pedicels slender from the axils of minute deciduous bracts. Calyx-lobes 
ovate, rounded at the apex, slightly puberulous on the outer surface, ciliate along the margins, decidu- 
ous by a circumscissile line. Petals rather longer than the calyx-lobes, rounded, spreading, white, with 
ciliate margins. Stamens seven or eight, inserted on the lobes of the annular fleshy disk ; filaments fili- 
form, in the sterile flower as long as the petals, much shorter in the fertile flower; anthers oblong, 
attached on the back near the bottom, two-celled, the cells spreading from above downwards, opening 
longitudinally. Ovary sessile on the disk, slightly three-lobed, three-celled, contracted into a short stout 
style; rudimentary in the sterile flower; stigma large, declinate, obscurely three-lobed ; ovules two in 
each cell, borne on the middle of its inner angle, amphitropous, superposed, the upper ascending with 
the micropyle inferior, the lower pendulous with the micropyle superior. Fruit an ovate black drupe, 
crowned with the remnants of the persistent style and supported on the persistent base of the calyx ; 
sarcocarp thin and fleshy ; endocarp thick and crustaceous. Seed destitute of albumen, solitary by the 
abortion of the upper ovule, suspended, obovate; testa thin, slightly wrinkled. Embryo conduplicate, 
filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons thin, foliaceous, irregularly folded, incumbent on the long 
radicle. 
The wood of Hypelate is very heavy, hard, and close-grained. It contains numerous thin obscure 
medullary rays, and is rich dark brown in color with thin darker colored sapwood usually composed of 
four or five layers of annual growth. It is durable in contact with the soil, and is valued in Florida for 
posts; it is also used in ship-building and for the handles of tools. 
Hypelate, the ancient name of the Butcher’s Broom, Ruscus Hypophyllum of Linnzus, was 
adopted by Patrick Browne as the generic name for the West Indian tree. The genus is represented 
by a single species. 
