13 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. SAPINDACE.E. 
HYPELATE TRIFOLIATA. 
White Iron Wood. 
Hypelate trifoliata, Swartz, Fl. Ind. Occ. ii. 655, t. 14. — Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 127; Cat. Pl. Cub. 46. — 
Lunan, Hort. Jum. i. 387. — Delessert, Icon. iii. 23, t. Sargent, Garden and Forest, iv. 100. 
39. — De Candolle, Prodr. i. 614. — Macfadyen, Fl. Jam. Amyris Hypelate, Robinson; Lunan, Hort. Jam. i. 149. 
163. — Dietrich, Syn. ii. 1279. — Chapman, Fl. 78. — 
A tree, rising sometimes in Florida to the height of thirty-five or forty feet, with a trunk occa- 
sionally eighteen or twenty inches in diameter, although generally much smaller. The bark, which is 
smooth, is rarely an eighth of an inch in thickness and is marked with many shallow depressions and 
minute lenticels. The branchlets are pale green when they first appear; they become gray later in the 
season, and bright red-brown in the second year. The leaves unfold in Florida nm June and remain 
on the branches until the second season and often longer. They are borne on stout petioles one and 
a half to two inches long, furnished with narrow green wings. The leaflets are one and a half 
to two inches long, three quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter wide, and very bright green. 
The inflorescence is few-flowered, and is three or four inches in length, with a slender peduncle and 
branches. The sterile and fertile flowers are produced in separate panicles on the same tree. The 
flowers appear in Florida in June, and when fully expanded are a little less than an eighth of an inch 
across. The fruit, which is produced very sparingly, ripens in September; it is three eighths of an 
inch long and possesses a sweet rather agreeable flavor. 
Hypelate trifoliata is known in Florida only on Upper Metacombe and Umbrella Keys, and is one 
of the rarest of the tropical trees which occur within the territory of the United States. It also inhabits 
Jamaica and Cuba. 
Hypelate trifoliata was discovered in Jamaica by Sir Hans Sloane, and the earliest account of it 
appears in his Catalogue of the Plants of Jamaica published in 1696.' It was first found in Florida by 
Dr. J. L. Blodgett. 
1 Cytisus arboreus, foliis obtusis glabris, foliorum pediculis alatis, Fruticosa, foliis obovatis pinnato-ternatis, petiolo marginato af- 
141 ; Nat. Hist. Jam. ii. 33.— Ray, Hist. Pl. iii. 473. The figure (fizis, Browne, Nat. Hist. Jam. 208. 
in the Natural History of Jamaica, to which Sloane himself refers, 
represents another plant. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 
PuaTte LXXX. Hypeate TRIFOLIATA. PLate LXXXI. HyYpevatTe TRIFOLIATA. 
1. A flowering branch, natural size. 1. A fruiting branch, natural size. 
2. Diagram of a flower. 2. Vertical section of a fruit, enlarged. 
3. A staminate flower, enlarged. 3. A fruit cut transversely, enlarged. 
4. A stamen, back and front views, enlarged. 4, A seed, enlarged. 
5. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 5, 6. An embryo, much magnified. 
6. A pistil divided transversely, enlarged. 
7. Vertical section of a pistil, enlarged. 
8. A pair of ovules, much magnified. 
