VERBENACEA. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 101 
CITHAREXYLON. 
FLowers perfect; calyx 5-toothed, accrescent under the fruit; corolla gamopeta- 
lous, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in exstivation; stamens 4; staminodium 1; disk 
annular; ovary superior, imperfectly 4-celled ; ovules solitary in each cell. Fruit a 
2-stoned 4-seeded fleshy drupe. Leaves opposite, persistent, without stipules. 
Citharexylon, Linnzus, Amen. i. 406 (1749); Gen. ed. 6, Boequillon, Adansonia, iii. 222. — Bentham & Hooker, 
314. — Adanson, Fam. Pl. ii. 200.— A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. ii. 1149. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. xi. 98. 
Gen. 108. — Endlicher, Gen. 636. — Meisner, Gen. 291.— Rauwolfia, Ruiz & Pavon, Fl. Perwv. ii. 26, t. 152 (not Lin- 
nus) (1799). 
Trees or shrubs, glabrous, or tomentose with simple or branched hairs, unarmed or rarely armed 
with axillary spines. Leaves opposite, entire, serrulate or spinosely toothed. Flowers small, in axillary 
or terminal short or elongated racemes, short-pedicellate, the pedicels ebracteolate, produced in the axils 
of minute persistent bracts, alternate or scattered on the filiform rachis. Calyx gamosepalous, 
membranaceous, tubular-campanulate, truncate, minutely five-toothed, persistent and spreading or cup- 
shaped under the fruit. Corolla salver-form, usually white, inserted on the thin annular hypogynous 
disk, the spreading limb somewhat oblique, five-lobed, the broadly ovate rounded lobes slightly unequal, 
the two posterior exterior. Stamens four, inserted on the tube of the corolla below the middle, didy- 
mous, introrse, included ; filaments short, filiform, slightly thickened at the base, the two anterior longer 
than the others; anthers oblong, attached on the back near the base, two-celled, the cells parallel, 
opening longitudinally ; staminodium posterior, linear, acute, or rarely antheriferous and fertile. Ovary 
sessile, ovate, incompletely four-celled by the development of the two parietal placentas, gradually 
narrowed into a short simple included style slightly two-lobed and stigmatic at the apex; ovules 
solitary in each cell, erect, attached laterally near the base, ascending, anatropous; micropyle inferior. 
Fruit drupaceous, surrounded at the base by the persistent calyx, tipped with the remnants of the style ; 
exocarp thin and fleshy; endocarp thick and bony, separable into two two-seeded compressed smooth 
light brown nutlets, rounded on the back, and concave on the inner face. Seed erect, exalbuminous, 
filling the seminal cavity ; testa membranaceous, light brown. Embryo subterete, straight; cotyledons 
thick and fleshy, oblong, much longer than the short inferior radicle turned toward the oblong basal 
hilum. 
Citharexylon is confined to tropical America, and is distributed from southern Florida, where one 
species occurs, through the West Indies to southern Mexico, Lower California, Bolivia, and Brazil. 
Fifteen or twenty species are distinguished.’ 
Citharexylon produces hard strong wood, but is not known to possess economic properties. 
The generic name, from xi$dpa and £vAov, is a translation of the English West Indian name 
Fiddle Wood, a corruption of the earlier French-colonial Bois Fidéle, given in allusion to the strength 
and toughness of the wood produced by the trees of this genus. 
1 Schauer, De Candolle Prodr. xi. 609; Martius Fl. Brasil. ix. 536.— Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xxiv.67.—T. S. Brandegee, Proc. 
267. — Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 497 ; Cat. Pl. Cub. 216.—Boc- Cal. Acad. ser. 2, ii. 197 (Pl. Baja Cal.) ; iii. 163. 
quillon, Adansonia, iii. 222.— Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. ii. 
