700 



Balsam Tree 



maximum height is about 20 meters, with a trunk diameter of 1.5 dm. The twigs 

 are stout, smooth, yellow-green or gray, and roughened by large leaf scars. 



The leaves are thick and leather}-, cuneate-obovate, 5 to 15 cm. long, blunt 

 or notched at the apex, wedge-shaped at the base, narrowed to the short, broad 

 leaf-stalk, entire on the margin, yellowish green, smooth and shining above, paler, 

 smooth and finely veined beneath. The flowers are few, clustered in cymes; 

 calyx of 8 to 16 imbricated sepals, which are thick, leather-hke, and suborbicular; 

 the corolla has 4 broad obovate petals 2.5 to 3 cm. long, leathery, yellow, some- 

 times slightly unequal; stamens short and thick, several to many in the staminate 

 flowers, none in the pistillate flowers. The fruit is a pear-shaped or globular, 

 leathery capsule, and splits into about 12 segments; seeds usually 12, globular^ 

 surrounded by a soft pulp. 



Fig. 647. Balsam Tree. 



The gummy exudation is used in the West Indies as a dressing for wounds,, 

 and the bites of insects. 



No species of the genus is known to inhabit Florida at the present time, but 

 there is evidence that another one, perhaps Clusia rosea Linnaeus, formerly existed 

 on Pine Key and Key West; further exploration of the Keys may still reveal one 

 or the other. 



The genus is composed of about 80 species, confined to tropical and subtropical 

 America. The name is in commemoration of Charles de I'Ecluse, a French bota- 

 nist of the sixteenth century. The type species is Clusia major Linnaeus, of the 

 West Indies. 



