588 



Alvaradoa 



IV. ALVARADOA 



GENUS ALVARADOA LIEBMANN 

 Species Alvaradoa amorphoides Llebmann 



]LVARADOA consists of four species, natives of the West Indies, and 



Mexico, one of them occurring in southern Florida. They have 



alternate pinnate leaves with numerous small alternate leaflets readily 



detachable from the leaf-axis when dry. The small regular dioecious 



flowers are in racemes or spikes. The name is in honor of Pedro de Alvarado, a 



Mexican explorer and conqueror, who assisted Cortes in the conquest of Mexico. 



In Alvaradoa amorphoides, the twigs and racemes are finely velvety. The 



leaves are 2 dm. long or less, in- 

 cluding the slender stalk, and 

 usually have 25 to 35 leaflets, 

 which are short-stalked, thin, 

 obovate to oblong, 2 to 3 cm. 

 long, 7 to 10 mm. wide, finely 

 hairy on both sides, or the upper 

 surface smooth when old, dark 

 green above, pale or whitish 

 beneath, the apex rounded or 

 pointed, the base narrowed. 

 The slender racemes of flowers 

 are borne at the ends of branches, 

 those of staminate flowers some- 

 times 4 dm. long, those of pistil- 

 late flowers shorter; the calyx is 

 about 1.5 mm. long, velvety, 

 deeply 5-lobed, its lobes ovate, 

 acutish; there are no petals; the 

 staminate flowers have 5 sta- 

 FiG. 543- - Alvaradoa. ^^^^ ^-^j^ fihform filaments 



several times longer than the calyx, and a 5-lobcd disk; the pistillate flowers have 

 a similar calyx, and a flattened ovary with 2 or 3 recurved styles; the ovary is 2- 

 celled or 3-celled, the 2 ovules being borne in one of the cavities, the other cavity 

 empty. The capsules are lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, flat, finely hairy and 

 hairy-fringed, 8 to 18 mm. long, 3 to 4 mm. wide, tipped by the persistent styles. 

 The tree was discovered in southern Florida by P. H. Rolfs and N. L. Britton in 

 1904, in hammocks southwest of Cutler, and has since been observed by J. K. Small 

 in the same region, attaining a height of 6 meters, with a trunk up to i dm. thick. 

 It is widely distributed in the Bahamas, in Cuba and in southern Mexico, growing 

 more commonly as a shrub than as a tree and is the type of the genus. 



