SAPOTACER. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 167 
BUMELIA. 
FLowERs perfect ; calyx 5 or 6-lobed, the lobes imbricated in estivation, persistent ; 
corolla gamopetalous, 5-lobed, the lobes furnished with petal-like appendages and stami- 
nodia, imbricated in estivation; stamens 5; disk 0; ovary superior, 5-celled; ovules 
solitary, ascending. Fruit a fleshy 1-seeded berry ; seed exalbuminous. Leaves alter- 
nate, membranaceous or coriaceous, destitute of stipules. 
Bumelia, Swartz, Prodr. 49 (1788). — Meisner, Gen. 251. — zenfam. iv. pt. i. 145. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. xi. 277 (excl. 
Endlicher, Gen. 740 (excl. Rostellaria). — Bentham & Dipholis). 
Hooker, Gen. ii. 660. — Radlkofer, Sitz. Math.-Phys. Cl. Sclerocladus, Rafinesque, Sylva Tellur. 35 (1838). 
Acad. Miinch. xiv. pt. iii. 465. — Engler & Prantl, Pflan- 
Small trees or shrubs, with hard close-grained wood, terete often spinescent glabrous or tomentose 
branches with short spur-like lateral branchlets, scaly buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves alternate, often 
fascicled on the spur-like lateral branchlets, conduplicate in vernation, coriaceous or membranaceous, 
short-petiolate, small, obovate, obtuse, or sometimes larger and elliptical, clothed on the lower surface 
with silky or tomentose pubescence, or glabrous or nearly so, penniveined with rather inconspicuous 
veins arcuate near the entire margins and conspicuous reticulate veinlets, deciduous or persistent. 
Flowers small, pedicellate, in many-flowered crowded fascicles in the axils of existing leaves or from 
leafless nodes of previous years. Pedicels slender, clavate, ebracteolate, produced from the axils of 
lanceolate acute scarious deciduous bracts. Calyx ovate to subcampanulate, tomentose or glabrous, 
five-lobed, the lobes in one series, ovate or oblong, rounded at the apex, nearly equal. Corolla hypogy- 
nous, campanulate, short-tubed, white, with spreading broadly ovate lobes rounded at the apex and 
furnished on each side at the base with an acute ovate or lanceolate petaloid appendage. Stamens five, 
inserted in the throat of the tube of the corolla opposite its lobes; filaments filiform, short or elon- 
gated ; anthers ovate-sagittate, attached on the back below the middle, two-celled, the cells openmg 
longitudinally by subextrorse slits. Staminodia petal-like, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, entire or obscurely 
denticulate, complanate or keeled on the back, sometimes furnished at the base with a pair of minute 
scales, inserted in the same rank and alternately with the stamens. Ovary hirsute, ovate to ovate-conical, 
gradually or abruptly contracted into a slender short or elongated simple style stigmatic at the acute 
apex ; ovules solitary, attached by the base to an axile placenta projected from the inner angle of the 
cell, ascending, anatropous ; raphe dorsal; micropyle inferior. Fruit an oblong obovate or globose 
black one-seeded berry tipped with the remnants of the persistent style and inclosed at the base by the 
calyx, solitary or in two or three-fruited clusters; pericarp thin and fleshy. Seed ovate or oblong, 
apiculate or rounded at the apex, destitute of albumen ; testa thick, crustaceous, ight brown, smooth 
and shining, folded more or less conspicuously on the back into two lobes rounded at the apex. Embryo 
filling the cavity of the seed ; cotyledons thick and fleshy, hemispherical, usually consolidated ; radicle 
terete, very short, turned toward the basilar or subbasilar, orbicular, or elliptical hilum. 
Bumelia, with about twenty species,’ is confined to the New World, where it is distributed from 
the southern United States through the West Indies to Mexico, Central America, and Brazil. Five 
1 A. de Candolle, Prodr. viii. 189.— Grisebach, F7. Brit. W. Ind. Am. ed. 2, ii. 67. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. ii. 297. — Engler, 
401. — Miquel, Martius Fl. Brasil. vii. 46. — Gray, Syn. Fl. N. Bot. Jahrb. xii. 519. 
