224 



CELASTRACEAE. 



Rocky hillsides, frequent from Tucker's Town to Joyce's Dock and on Abbot's 

 Cliff. Native. Endemic. Flowers in late winter and spring. The tree is occa- 

 sionally planted for ornament. Nearest related to Elaeodendron attenuatum A. 

 Rich., of the Bahamas and Cuba, which has pale green leaves and yellow-green fruit, 

 and from which the Bermuda plant probably originated through drifted fruits. The 

 wood is very dense and the tree is of slow growth. Very few seedlings exist, for the 

 fruits are eaten, presumably by rats, as fast as they fall. Its bark was used for 

 tanning in the early days of the colony. Seeds taken to New York in 1912 germi- 

 nated promptly in a greenhouse. 



2. RHACOMA L. 

 Shrubs or low trees, with coriaceous small evergreen leaves, and small per- 

 fect greenish axillary flowers. Calyx 4-5-lobed. Disk depressed, 4-o-lobed. 

 Petals 4 or 5, inserted under the disk. Stamens 4 or 5. Ovary 4-celled; 

 stigmas 4; ovules 1 in each cavity of the ovary, erect. Drupe with a fleshy 

 thin exoearp and a bony stone. [Name used by Pliny for some Old World 

 plant.] About 12 species of warm and tropical America, the following typical. 



1. E-hacoma Crossopetalum L. 



Rhacoma. (Fig. 249.) A shrub or 

 tree up to 25° high with smooth grey 

 bark and angular twigs. Leaves oppo- 

 site or whorled, elliptic to oblong or 

 obovate, short-petioled, A'-li' long, 

 somewhat crenate, glabrous, acutish or 

 blunt at the apex, narrowed at the base, 

 paler green beneath than above; flowers 

 clustered in the axils; calyx ureeolate, 

 with 4 obtuse lobes; petals 4; disk 4- 

 lobed; stamens 4, inserted between the 

 lobes of the disk; ovary 4-celled; drupe 

 about 3" long slightly oblique, red. 

 [Myginda Rhacoma Sw.] 



Found by Lefroy in Southampton 

 Parish about 1875. Not found by subse- 

 quent collectors. Native. Florida and the 

 West Indies. Fruit ripe in January. Flow- 

 ers presumably in spring, that being its 

 flowering time in the Bahamas. 



Euonymus japonicus. L., Japanese 

 Spindle-teee, an evergreen shrub, 4°- 

 8° high, with short-petioled, elliptic to 

 obovate crenate obtuse leaves l'-2i' 

 long, the greenish 4-parted small flow- 

 ers in forked cymes, the subglobose cap- 

 sules pink, was occasional in gardens. 



Family 4. DODONAEACEAE H.B.K. 

 DoDONAEA Family. 

 Shrubs or trees, commonly sticky with a resinous excretion. Leaves alter- 

 nate, simple, without stipules. Flowers clustered, polygamous or polygamo- 

 dioecious. Sepals 3-5, nearly equal. Corolla and disk wanting. An- 

 droecium of 5-8 regularly inserted stamens; filaments distinct; anthers 

 4-angled. Gynoecium of 3 or 4 united carpels, wholly superior. Ovary 

 3_4.eelled; styles united. Ovules 2 in each cavity, balf-anatropous, often 

 superposed, the upper one ascending and the lower one pendulous. Cap- 

 sule membranous or leathery, reticulated, 2-6-angled, the angles obtuse, or 

 winged, opening septicidally by 2-6 valves. Seed subglobose or flattened, 

 without an aril ; endosperm none ; embryo spiral. Only the following genus. 



