32 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



grayish brown bark fissured into narrow firm rounded ridges and 

 exfoliating in small thick scales. 



HABITAT. The native land of the Sapodilla is supposed to be the 

 West Indies, Central America and northern South America. It is 

 extensively grown in southern Florida and on the southern keys and 

 has become naturalized in places. Besides the names mentioned in 

 our heading it is also known as Nisberry, Naseberry, Chico, Bully- 

 tree, etc. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood very heavy, hard, strong, close 

 grained, very durable, with very fine medullary rays and of a rich 

 reddish brown color with lighter sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 1.02. 



USES. The usefulness of the Sapodilla is three-fold. The fruit, 

 known in common parlance of the regions where grown as "dillies," 

 is very highly prized in warm countries-, and is of growing popularity 

 outside of the tropics as far as it can be shipped. Unfortunately it is 

 not adapted (to long shipments. 



The glutinous milk juice, obtained from the bark and fruit, is known 

 as gum chicle of commerce. It is an important ingredient of chewing 

 gum and is also used in England as a substitute and adulterant of 

 gutta-percha. The wood is used ito some extent for construction pur- 

 poses. It is said that lintels made of this wood in old ruins in Mexico, 

 centuries if not thousands of years old, arte found to be still sound. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not omcinally recognized of this species, 

 though Nuttall mentions the astringent bark as being febrifugal and 

 the seeds as being powerfully aperient and diuretic. He also mentions 

 the gum as diffusing the odor of incense when burned. 



GENUS SIDEROXYLON LINNAEUS. 



Leaves persistent, simple, alternate, long-petiolate, rather thin and leathery, 

 with prominent midrib impressed above and rather remote arcuate veins. Flowers 

 small, in crowded many-flowered axillary fascicles ; calyx bell-shaped, 5- or occa- 

 sionally 6-parted, corolla 5- or 6-lobed and furnished with 5 or 6 lanceolate scale- 

 like staminodia in the -sinuses ; stamens 5 or 6, with slender elongated filaments 

 and oblong anthers ; pistil with usually 5-celled ovary contracted into a subulate 

 style and small terminal stigma. Fruit, usually but one developing from each 

 flower-cluster, an oblong drupe, shining light brown, with elevated hilum and erect 

 embryo in fleshy albumen. 



A genus of 60 or more species of trees and shrubs, widely dis- 

 tributed through the warm climates of both hemispheres, and the 

 following one species in southern Florida. The name is from Greek 

 words meaning iron and wood, owing to its hardness and weight. 



