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SAPOTACEAE. 



BUMELIA. False Buckthorn. 

 (Family Sapotaceae). 



Shrubs or small spreading 

 trees with branch-spines: mostly 

 deciduous. Twigs moderate, zig- 

 zag, often occurring as short leafy 

 spurs: pith continuous, white or 

 striped with brown.. Buds small, 

 hemispherical, sessile, sometimes 

 branched or developing a collat- 

 eral spine, with about 4 exposed 

 scales. Leaf-scars alternate, tri- 

 angular or crescent-shaped or 

 shallowly U-shaped, somewhat 

 raised: bundle-traces 3, sometimes 

 subconfluent: stipule-scars lack- 

 ing. 



Winter - character reference : 

 Bumelia lanuginosa. Hitchcock 

 (1), 4. 



One of the first novelties to 

 which a visitor to Mexico is in- 

 troduced is the zapote or mamey 



sapote, the fruit of Calocarpum mammosum or Lucuma mam- 

 mosa; and one of the sweetest of all fruits is the sapote chico, 

 chicozapote, or sapodilla, the fruit of Achras Sapota, a tree 

 which furnishes the too-familiar chicle chewing gum, of which 

 large quantities are brought up by every fruit ship touching 

 at Belize. A very readable account of these sapotaceous 

 plants is given by Pititier in volume 18 of Contributions from 

 the U. S. National Herbarium. 



1. Subevergreen : leaves golden-satiny beneath. (1).B. tenax. 

 Mostly deciduous: leaves not satiny if present. 2. 



2. Glabrous: twigs black-purple. (2). B. lycioides. 

 Somewhat tomentose: twigs red-gray. B. lanuginosa. 



