ROSACES 



581 



or slightly reticulate-fissured, light brown tinged with red. Wood heavy, hard, closer 

 grained, light clear red, with thick pale sapw r ood. 



Distribution. Florida, rich hummock land, occasionally in the neighborhood of small 

 streams and ponds near the shore of Bay Biscayne and on Long Key in the Everglades, 

 Dade County; through the West Indies to Brazil. 



21 . Prunus ilicifolia Walp. Islay 



Leaves ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acute, rounded or emarginate at apex, narrowed and 

 rounded or truncate at base, with thickened coarsely spinosely toothed margins, the stout 

 teeth near the base of the leaf often tipped with large dark glands, thick and coriaceous, 

 dark green and lustrous above, paler and yellow-green below, l'-2f long, and I'-l^' 

 wide, with a slender yellow midrib and obscure veins; deciduous during their second 

 summer; petioles broad, -i' |' in length; stipules acuminate, obscurely denticulate, |' long. 

 Flowers opening from March to May, $' in diameter, on short slender pedicels from the axils 

 of acuminate scarious bracts in length and mostly deciduous before the opening of the 

 flower-buds, in slender erect racemes l|'-3' long; calyx-tube cup-shaped, orange-brown, 

 the lobes minute, acuminate, reflexed at maturity, deciduous, about one third as long as the 

 obovate white petals rounded above and narrowed below into a short claw; stamens 

 slightly exserted, with slender incurved filaments and minute yellow anthers; ovary sessile, 

 abruptly contracted into a slender style usually bent near the summit at a right angle or 

 rarely erect, and surmounted by a large orbicular stigma. Fruit ripening in November and 

 December, subglobose, often compressed, \'-\' in diameter, dark red when fully grown, 

 purple or sometimes nearly black at maturity, w r ith thin slightly acid astringent flesh; stone 

 ovoid slightly compressed, \'-\' long, short-pointed at apex, with thin brittle walls, light 

 yellow-brown, conspicuously marked by reticulate orange-colored vein-like lines and with 

 3 orange bands radiating from the base to the apex along one suture, and with a single 

 narrow band along the other suture. 



A glabrous tree, 20-30 high, with a trunk rarely 2 in diameter or more than 10-12 

 long, stout spreading branches forming a dense compact head, and branchlets-at first yel- 



Fig. 534 



low-green or orange color, soon becoming gray or reddish brown and more or less conspicu- 

 ously marked by minute pale lenticels, and in their second or third years by the large leaf- 

 scars; usually much smaller and often a shrub sometimes only a foot or two high. Winter- 

 buds acuminate, with dark red scales contracted into a long slender point, those of the inner 

 ranks accrescent and persistent on the young branchlets until these have reached a length 

 of several inches. Bark \'-\' thick, dark red-brown, and divided by deep fissures into 



