36 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. MYRTACEX. 
CALYPTRANTHES CHYTRACULIA. 
Perats 0; ovules 2 in each cell. Branchlets wing-angled. 
Linnea, xxvii. 26. — Chapman, Fl. 131. — Sargent, Forest 
Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 88. 
Myrtus Chytraculia, Linneus, Amen. v. 398 (1760). — 
Swartz, Obs. 202. 
Eugenia pallens, Poiret, Lam. Dict. Suppl. iii. 122 (1813). 
Calyptranthes Chytraculia, Swartz, Prodr. 79 (1788) ; 
Fl. Ind. Oce. ii. 921. — Willdenow, Spec. ii. 975. — Per- 
soon, Syn. ii. 32.— Sprengel, Syst. ii. 499.— De Can- 
dolle, Prodr. iii. 257. — Don, Gen. Syst. ii. 847, — Nut- 
tall, Sylva, i. 101, t. 26. — Dietrich, Syn. iii. 120. — Berg, 
A slender tree, in Florida sometimes twenty to twenty-five feet in height, with a trunk three or 
four inches in diameter, and a narrow head. The bark of the trunk is one eighth of an inch thick, with 
a generally smooth, light gray, or almost white surface, occasionally separating into irregular plate-like 
scales. The branchlets, when they first appear, are slender, wing-angled between the nodes, and coated, 
like the branches of the flower-clusters, the bracts, and the flower-buds, with short rufous silky tomen- 
tum ; in their second or third year they become terete, thicken at the nodes, and are covered with light 
gray bark tinged with red and broken into small thin scales. The leaves are oblong or ovate-oblong, 
elongated and rounded or acute at the apex, and gradually contracted at the base into long petioles ; 
they are pellucid-punctate on the upper surface, marked with dark glands on the lower, and are at 
first pink or light red and covered with pale silky hairs, and at maturity are coriaceous, dark green 
and lustrous above, coated with pale pubescence below, two and a half to three inches long and one 
half to three quarters of an inch broad, with slightly thickened revolute margins, broad midribs orange- 
colored beneath and deeply impressed on the upper surface, slender veins arcuate and united near the 
margins, and petioles varying from one third to one half of an inch in length. The flower-clusters 
are subterminal and axillary, long-stemmed, and from two and a half to three inches in length and 
breadth, with slender divaricate branches, the flowers of the ultimate divisions being in threes. The 
flowers are sessile, apetalous, an eighth of an inch long, and covered with rufous pubescence on the 
outer surface of the calyx-limb. The fruit is oblong or nearly globose, dark reddish brown, and 
puberulous, with thin dry flesh and lustrous seeds.’ 
In Florida Calyptranthes Chytraculia inhabits the shores of Lake Worth, and is not uncommon 
on Key West and Key Largo and on the hummocks in the neighborhood of Bay Biscayne. It occurs 
on many of the West India islands” and in southern Mexico? 
The wood of Calyptranthes Chytraculia is very heavy, hard, and close-grained, with numerous 
1 Berg (Linnea, xxvii. 27) proposed the following varieties : — 
a. genuina : indumentum tomentose, ultimately silky; leaves short- 
petiolate, ovate, obtuse, or shortly acuminate at the base, glabrous, 
obscurely impressed-punctate on the upper surface ; cymes two to 
four-branched, shorter than the leaves, subterminal. 
B. ovalis: indumentum, scanty, velutinous ; leaves short-petiolate, 
oval, acute at the base, obsoletely impressed-punctate on the upper 
surface, with very narrow veins ; cymes shorter than the leaves. 
y. trichotoma: indumentum, silky-velutinous ; leaves long-petio- 
late, oval-oblong or oval, acute at the base, ciliate on the margins, 
slightly impressed-punctate on the upper surface, densely silky- 
pubescent on the lower, with very thin veins ; cymes ample, longer 
than the leaves. 
8. pauciflora : indumentum, silky-velutinous ; leaves long-petiolate, 
oval-oblong, acute at the base, impressed-punctate on the upper 
surface, silky-pubescent on the lower, with thin veins ; cymes long- 
pedunculate, scarcely shorter than the leaves, their branches abbre- 
viated, few-flowered. 
e. Zuzygium: branches and petioles ferrugineo-silky ; leaves long- 
petiolate, oval, acute at the base, impressed-punctate on the upper 
surface, glabrous, with thin veins ; cymes as long as the leaves, 
trichotomous. 
Myrtus Zuzygium, Linneus, Amen. v. 398 (1760). 
Calyptranthes Zuzygium, Swartz, Prodr. 79 (1788) ; Fl. Ind. 
Occ. ii. 919. — De Candolle, Prodr. iii. 257. — Grisebach, Fl. Brit. 
W. Ind. 232. 
2 Lunan, Hort. Jam. i. 61.— A. Richard, Fl. Cub. ii. 275. — Grise- 
bach, J. c. 232. — Eggers, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 13, 50 (Fi. St. 
Croix and the Virgin Islands). 
8 Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 408. 
