TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



many or few-flowered clusters; calyx greenish white, hirsute on the outer surface, divided 

 to the base into 4 ovate rounded lobes, persistent under the fruit; stamens 4, inserted under 

 the margin and between the lobes of the flat tomentose disk; filaments slender, exserted; 

 anthers introrse, emarginate, pilose, wanting in the pistillate flower; ovary ovoid, tomen- 

 tose, 2-celled, with 2 nearly sessile oblique spreading cushion-like stigmas. Fruit ripening 

 during the spring and early summer, subglobose, \ r in diameter, tipped with the conspicu- 

 ous blackened remnants of the stigmas, bright red, covered with soft pubescence, solitary 

 or in clusters of 2 or 3, deciduous at maturity from its stout stalk enlarged at apex and \' 



Fig. 591 



long; flesh thin and crustaceous, closely investing the thin-walled crustaceous stone; seed 

 usually solitary by abortion, obovoid, gibbous, ' long, narrowed below, narrowed and 

 marked at apex by the elevated pale hilum and on the inner surface of the seed-coat by 

 the broad conspicuous raphe. 



A tree, 20-30 high, with a short trunk 5'-6' in diameter, small erect branches, and 

 slender branchlets, light green tinged with red w r hen they first appear, becoming in their 

 first winter ashy gray and marked by scattered pale lenticels, and at the end of their second 

 year by the small elevated oval leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 fibro- vascular bundles. 

 Winter-buds minute, acute or obtuse, chestnut-brown, and covered with pale hairs. Bark 

 of the trunk about TO' thick, light brown tinged with red, the generally smooth surface 

 separating into small irregular scales. Wood heavy, hard, brittle, close-grained, rich 

 dark brown, with thick yellow sapwood. 



Distribution. Florida, Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, shores of Bay Biscayne, Dade 

 County, and on many of the southern keys; common on the Bahama Islands and on several 

 of the Antilles. 



2. HIPPOMANE L. 



A glabrous tree, with thick acrid juice, scaly bark, and stout pithy branchlets marked 

 by circular raised lenticels, and oblong or semiorbicular horizontal elevated leaf-scars 

 displaying a row of obscure fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and nearly encircled at the nodes 

 by ring-like scars left by the falling of the stipules. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, covered by 

 many loosely imbricated long-pointed chestnut-brown scales. Leaves alternate, involute 

 in the bud, tardily deciduous, broad-ovate, rounded and abruptly narrowed at apex into a 

 broad point terminating in a slender mucro, rounded or subcordate at base, remotely crenu- 

 late-serrate with minute gland-tipped teeth, penniveined, long-petiolate, at first pilose with 

 occasional long pale hairs, soon becoming glabrous, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, 

 dark yellow-green and lustrous above, paler and dull below, with a stout light yellow midrib 



