338 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



lJ'-2' long, |'-lj' wide, with slightly thickened revolute margins, a prominent midrib 

 and obscure primary veins; petioles slender, narrow wing-margined at apex, i'-f in length. 

 Flowers bell-shaped, fragrant, about f long, on slender pedicels in the axils of minute 

 acuminate caducous bractlets, in 3 or 4-flowered clusters on peduncles ^'-|' long; calyx- 

 lobes acute, petals elliptic and rounded or obtusely pointed at apex, yellowish white, leathery, 

 conspicuously bearded on the inner surface from base nearly to apex. Fruit broad-ovoid 

 to subglobose, bright yellow, with thin acid flesh, l'-lj' long, on slender pedicels about 

 -|' in length, in usually 2 or 3-fruited drooping clusters; stone ovoid, apiculate at apex, 

 covered with minute pits, light red; seed yellow, with bright orange-colored cotyledons. 



A tree, occasionally 30 high, with a tall trunk 2|'-3|' in diameter, spreading branches 

 armed with stout straight spines usually f'-l' in length, and slender branchlets slightly 

 angled and light reddish brown when they first appear, becoming terete and light gray or 

 red-brown and marked by numerous lenticels; more often a shrub with long vine-like stems. 

 Bark close, dark red, astringent. Wood very heavy, tough, hard, close-grained, compact, 

 brown tinged with red with lighter-colored sapwood. Hydrocyanic acid has been obtained 

 from the fruit. 



Distribution. Florida, near Eustis Lake, Lake County, to the southern keys, attaining 

 its largest size on the west coast and on Long Key in the Everglades; common on the shores 

 of the Antilles and southward to Brazil, and on those of west tropical Africa, the Indian 

 peninsula, the islands of the Malay Archipelago, New Guinea, Australia, and on those of 

 many of the islands of the south Pacific Ocean. 



Section 3. Flowers perfect or unisexual; calyx 5-lobed; ovary superior, 1- 

 celled; ovule solitary, rising from the bottom of the cell; fruit inclosed in the 

 thickened calyx; leaves persistent. 



XIV. POLYGONACE^E. 



Trees, with alternate coriaceous stalked leaves, their stipules sheathing the stem. 

 Flowers perfect; calyx 5-lobed; stamens 8; ovary 3-celled; ovule orthotropous. Fruit a 

 nutlet, inclosed in the thickened calyx-tube; seed erect; embryo axillary in ruminate 

 farinaceous albumen; radicle superior, ascending, turned toward the hilum. Of this, 

 the Buckwheat family with thirty widely distributed genera, only Coccolobis is arbo- 

 rescent in North America. 



1. COCCOLOBIS P. Br. 



Trees or shrubs. Leaves coriaceous, entire, orbicular, ovate, obovate, or lanceolate, 

 petiolate, their stipules inclosing the branch above the node with membranaceous trun- 

 cate entire brown persistent sheaths. Flowers jointed on ebracteolate pedicels, in 1 or 

 few-flowered fascicles subtended by a minute bract and surrounded by a narrow trun- 

 cate membranaceous sheath, each pedicel and those above it being surrounded by a simi- 

 lar sheath, the fascicles gathered in elongated terminal and axillary racemes inclosed at 

 the base of the sheath of the nearest leaf and sometimes also in a separate sheath; calyx 

 cup-shaped, the lobes ovate, rounded, thin, white, reflexed after anthesis, and thicken- 

 ing and inclosing the nutlet; stamens with filiform or subulate filaments dilated and united 

 at base into a short discoid cup adnate to the tube of the calyx; anthers ovoid, introrse, 

 2-celled, the cells parallel, opening longitudinally; ovary free, sessile, 3-angled, contracted 

 into a short stout style, divided into three short or elongated stigmatic lobes. Fruit ovoid 

 or globose, rounded or acute and crowned at apex by the persistent lobes of the calyx, 

 narrowed at base; flesh thin and acidulous, more or less adnate to the thin crustaceous or 

 bony w r all of the nutlet often divided on the inner surface near the base into several more 

 or less intrusive plates. Seed subglobose, acuminate at apex, 3-6-lobed; testa membra- 

 naceous, minutely pitted, dark red-brown, and lustrous. 



Coccolobis is confined to the tropics of the New World, with about one hundred and 



