per aecnek SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 159 
CHRYSOPHYLLUM. 
FLowers perfect; calyx 5 or rarely 6 or 7-parted, the divisions nearly equal, 
imbricated in estivation, deciduous; corolla gamopetalous, 5 or rarely 6 or 7-lobed, the 
lobes imbricated in estivation; stamens as many as the lobes of the corolla; disk 0; 
ovary superior, 5 or rarely 6 to 10-celled; ovules solitary in each cell. Fruit a fleshy 
or coriaceous 1 or few-seeded berry. Leaves alternate, usually clothed on the lower 
surface with brilliant golden or copper-colored pubescence, persistent, destitute of 
stipules. 
Chrysophyllum, Linneus, Gen. 361 (1737).—A. L. de & Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iv. pt. i. 147. — Baillon, Hist. Pi. 
Jussieu, Gen. 152.— Meisner, Gen. 251. — Endlicher, xi. 293. 
Gen. 739. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. ii. 653.— Engler Cainito, Adanson, Fam. Pl. ii. 166 (1763). 
Nycterisition, Ruiz & Pavon, Prodr. Fl. Peruv. 30 (1794). 
Trees, with terete unarmed branchlets, usually coated while young with dense tomentum, naked 
buds, and milky juice. Leaves short-petiolate, entire, coriaceous, penniveined, the veins usually 
numerous and arcuate near the margins, or remote, connected by transverse reticulate veinlets, bright 
green and glabrous on the upper surface and coated on the lower with brilliant silky golden or copper- 
colored pubescence or tomentum, or in some Old World species naked on the lower surface, persistent. 
Flowers pedicellate or subsessile, minute, in dense many-flowered fascicles, axillary or from leafless 
thickened nodes of previous years. Pedicels ebracteolate, produced from the axils of minute acute 
deciduous bracts. Calyx generally deeply parted, the divisions obtuse, almost one-ranked, persistent. 
Corolla hypogynous, tubular, campanulate, or subrotate, white or greenish white. Stamens inserted in 
the throat or towards the base of the corolla-tube opposite its lobes; filaments short, subulate or fili- 
form, enlarged into a broad connective ; anthers ovate or triangular, attached on the back, extrorse 
or rarely partly introrse, two-celled, the cells spreading below, opening longitudmally. Ovary usually 
five or rarely six to ten-celled, villose, contracted into a glabrous short or elongated style crowned 
by a five-lobed stigma; ovules solitary, attached below the middle of the cell to an axile placenta 
projected from its interior angle, ascending, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle inferior. Fruit 
globose, ovoid or oblong, apiculate, fleshy or coriaceous, usually one or few-seeded by the abortion of 
several of the ovules. Seeds ovoid, terete when solitary, or compressed by mutual pressure when more 
than one; testa coriaceous, dull or lustrous; hilum subbasilar, elongated, conspicuous. Embryo erect, 
surrounded by more or less abundant fleshy albumen ; cotyledons oblong, foliaceous or fleshy ; radicle 
terete, inferior. 
Chrysophyllum, a tropical genus with fifty or sixty species, is principally confined to the New 
World, where it is distributed from southern Florida, where one species is found, to Brazil* and Peru,’ 
although it also occurs with a small number of species in western and southern tropical Africa,’ southern 
Asia,‘ Australia,’ and the Sandwich Islands.° 
1 Miquel, Martius Fl. Brasil. vii. 87. 4 Miquel, FV. Ind. Bat. Suppl. 578. — Hooker f. FU. Brit. Ind. iii. 
; : 
2 Ruiz & Pavon, Fl. Peruv. ii. 47 (Nycterisition). 535. 
8 Sonder, Linnea, xxiii. 72. — Oliver, FU. Trop. Afr. iii. 498. 5 Bentham, Fl. Austral. iv. 278. 
6 Hillebrand, Fl. Haw. Is. 277. 
