SAPOTACEZ. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 161 
CHRYSOPHYLLUM OLIVIFORME. 
Fruit ovoid or subglobose, dark purple, I-seeded. Leaves covered on the lower 
surface with lustrous copper-colored pubescence. 
Chrysophyllum oliviforme, Lamarck, Dict. i. 552 (1783) ; 259. — Roemer & Schultes, Syst. iv. 703. — Sprengel, Syst. 
Iii. ii. 44. — A. de Candolle, Prodr. viii. 158. — Gray, i. 666. — Bot. Mag. 1xi. t. 3303. — Don, Gen. Syst. iv. 
Syn. Fl. NM. Am. ii. 67. — Chapman, Fl. ed. 2, Suppl. 32. — Dietrich, Syn. i. 638. — Miquel, Martius Fl. Brasil. 
634. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. vii. 94 (excl. var. microphyllum). 
ix. 100. Chrysophyllum ferrugineum, Gertner f. Fruct. iii. 122, 
Chrysophyllum Cainito, Miller, Dict. ed. 8, No. 1 (not t. 202 (1805). 
Linnzus) (1768). Chrysophyllum oliviforme, var. monopyrenum, Grise- 
Chrysophyllum monopyrenum, Swartz, Prodr. 49 bach, #7. Brit. W. Ind. 398 (1864) ; Cat. Pl. Cub. 163. 
(1788); #7. Ind. Occ. i. 480. — Willdenow, Spec. i. pt. Chrysophyllum microphyllum, Chapman, Bot. Gazette, 
ii. 1083. — Persoon, Syn. i. 236. — Lunan, Hort. Jam. i. ili. 9 (not A. de Candolle) (1878). 
A trée, twenty-five to thirty feet in height, with a tall straight trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, 
upright branches which form a compact oblong head, and slender terete slightly zigzag branchlets. 
The bark of the trunk is a quarter of an inch thick, light brown slightly tinged with red, and broken 
by shallow fissures into large irregularly shaped plates, the surface of which separates into small thin 
scales. The branchlets, when they first appear, are coated with ferrugineous tomentum, and in their 
second year are light red-brown or ashy gray and covered with small pale elevated circular lenticels. 
The leaves are revolute in vernation, oval, acute or contracted into short broad points or sometimes 
rounded at the apex, and abruptly wedge-shaped at the base; they are thick and coriaceous, two or 
three inches long and an inch and a half or two inches wide, bright blue-green on the upper surface, 
and covered on the lower and on the stout petioles with brilliant copper-colored pubescence ; they have 
broad prominent midribs deeply impressed on the upper side and numerous straight veins arcuate near 
the margins, and are borne on petioles which vary from one half to two thirds of an inch in length. 
The flowers are raised on stout pedicels shorter than the petioles and covered like the calyx with rufous 
tomentum, and produced in few or many-flowered fascicles in the axils of leaves of the year, or at the 
base of lateral branchlets in those of the previous year. The calyx is divided nearly to the base into 
broad rounded lobes and is rather shorter than the tube of the subrotate white corolla, the short 
spreading lobes of which are rounded at the apex. The ovary is five-celled and pubescent, and is 
gradually contracted into a short style crowned by a broad fivelobed stigma. In Florida the flowers 
appear irregularly throughout the year, and are often found on the same branch with ripe or half-grown 
fruit. The fruit, which is ovoid or sometimes nearly globose, dark purple and roughened with occa- 
sional excrescences, hangs gracefully on stems an inch long, usually only a single fruit being produced 
from a cluster of flowers. It is covered with a thick tough skin inclosing the juicy sweet mawkishly 
flavored flesh, and is light purple on the exterior, lighter towards the interior, and quite white in the 
centre ; it is usually only one-seeded by abortion, the seed, which is half an inch long, narrowed at both 
ends, and covered with a thin light brown coat, bemg closely invested with a white glutinous aril-like 
pulpy mass. 
In Florida, where it is always local and nowhere common, Chrysophyllum oliviforme is found on 
the east coast from Mosquito Inlet to the southern keys, and on the west coast from the shores of the 
Caloosa River to Cape Sable. It also inhabits the Bahamas’ and many of the West Indian islands.’ 
1 Hitchcock, Rep. Missouri Bot. Gard. iv. 104. 2 Descourtilz, Fl. Mféd. Antill. ii. 17, t. 171. — Grisebach, Fl. Brit. 
W. Ind. 398 ; Cat. Pl. Cub. 163. 
