Bal 



samo 



847 



VI. BALSAMO 



GENUS PSYCHOTRIA LINN/EUS 

 Species Psychotria undata Jacquin 



SMALL, evergreen tree or branching shrub of wooded places along the 

 coast of southern Florida and the Keys, and very common in the West 

 Indies. It attains a maximum height of about 5 meters. 



The twigs are slender, round, usually smooth and green, becoming 

 gray or bro^\^l-gray. The leaves are opposite, thin and leather)-, oval, elliptic or 

 elHptic-lanceolate, 6 to 15 cm. long, taper-pointed at each end, dark green and 

 shining with impressed venation above, pale, smooth or nearly so, and prominently 

 veined beneath, the leaf-stalk stout and about i cm. long; stipules at first con- 



FiG. 770. Balsamo. 



spicuous, united and sheath-Hke, soon falling away. The flowers are usually per- 

 fect, in open cymes, the calyx-tube i mm. long, the limb 5-toothed; corolla tubu- 

 lar, 2.5 to 3 mm. long, hairy in the throat, its lobes oblong-lanceolate, shorter than 

 the tube; stamens 5, attached to the base of the corolla-tube, their filaments some- 

 what united; anthers introrse; ovary 2-celled. The fruit is a bright red fleshy 

 drupe, subglobose or elHpsoid, 4 to 4.5 mm. long, containing i or 2 prominently 

 ribbed stones. 



The genus is a large tropical American one embracing about 400 species of 

 trees or shrubs. One other species, a low branched shrub, P. tenuijoUa Swartz, 

 also occurs in Florida. The generic name is Greek, meaning vivifying, in refer- 

 ence to the reputed stimulating properties of some of these plants. P. asialica 

 Linnaeus, of Jamaica, is the type of the genus, its name misleading. 



