o2 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. MYRTACES. 
ANAMOMIS DICHOTOMA. 
Naked Wood. 
LEAVES ovate or obovate, acute or rounded at the apex. 
Anamomis dichotoma, Sargent, Garden and Forest, vii Eugenia ? dichotoma, De Candolle, Prodr. iii. 278 
130 (1893). (1828).— Don, Gen. Syst. ii. 861.— Nuttall, Sylva, i. 108, 
Eugenia fragrans, Sims, Bot. Mag. xxxi. t. 1242 (not Will- t. 27.— Dietrich, Syn. iii. 64.— Berg, Linnea, xxvii. 
denow teste Grisebach) (1810). 261.— Chapman, F7. 131.— Sargent, Forest Trees N. 
Myrtus dichotoma, Poiret, Zam. Dict. Suppl. iv. 53 (1816). Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 88. 
Myrcia? Balbisiana, De Candolle, Prodr. iii. 243 (1828) Anamomis punctata, Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 240 
(teste Grisebach). (1864). 
A tree, twenty to twenty-five feet in height, with a trunk six or eight inches in diameter ; or often 
a shrub sending up from the ground numerous slender stems. The bark of the trunk varies from one 
sixteenth to one eighth of an inch in thickness, with a smooth light red or red-brown surface exfoliating 
into minute thin scales. The branchlets, which are slender and terete, are at first light red and coated 
with pale silky hairs ; in their second year they are glabrous and covered with light or dark red-brown 
bark which separates into small thin scales. The leaves are ovate or obovate, acute or rounded and 
occasionally emarginate at the apex, wedge-shaped at the base, entire, chartaceous and finally subcori- 
aceous, glabrous, and covered with minute black dots ; they are an inch to an inch and a quarter long 
and half an inch to two thirds of an inch broad, with stout midribs impressed on the upper surface, 
slightly thickened and revolute margins, and short stout petioles enlarged at the base and covered while 
young with silky hairs. The flowers, which appear in Florida in May, and are a quarter of an inch 
across when expanded, are borne in pedunculate cymes produced near the ends of the branches in the 
axils of the leaves of the year. The peduncles are slender and coated with pale silky hairs, and are 
sometimes one-flowered and not longer than the leaves; more often they are longer than the leaves, 
dichotomously branched, and three-flowered, with one flower at the end of the principal division in the 
fork of its one-flowered branches, which vary from a quarter to half an inch in length ; or occasionally 
they are five to seven-flowered by the development of peduncles from the axils of the bracts of the 
secondary divisions of the inflorescence. Each branch of the inflorescence is furnished at its apex, 
immediately beneath the flower, with two lanceolate acute bracts which are nearly as long as the calyx- 
tube, and which in falling leave prominent persistent scars. The calyx is narrowly ovoid and coated 
with hoary tomentum, with a four-parted limb, its lobes ovate, rounded at the apex, and much shorter 
than the ovate acute glandular-punctate white petals. The fruit, which ripens in August in Florida, is 
reddish brown, a quarter of an inch long, obliquely oblong, obovate or subglobose, crowned by the 
persistent limb of the calyx, roughened with minute glands, and one or rarely two-seeded ; its flesh is 
thin and rather dry, with an agreeable aromatic flavor. The large reniform seed is covered with a thin 
light brown membranaceous coat and is extremely fragrant. 
Anamomis dichotoma is abundant in rocky woods on the east coast of Florida from Mosquito 
Inlet to Cape Canaveral ; on the west coast it occurs from the banks of the Caloosa River to the shores 
of Cape Romano; it grows occasionally on Key West and in the neighborhood of Bay Biscayne, and 
inhabits several of the West Indian islands. 
The wood of Anamomis dichotoma is very heavy, hard, and close-grained, with numerous thin 
medullary rays ; it is light brown or red, with thick yellow sapwood composed of forty or fifty layers of 
