680 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



starainate flower; style very short, gradually enlarged into the large 2-lobed stigma, with 

 spreading lobes; ovule solitary, ascending; raphe thin, ventral; micropyle inferior. Fruit 

 a small 2-seeded fleshy drupe, ovoid or obovoid, crowned with the remnants of the per- 

 sistent style, indistinctly 2-lobed by longitudinal grooves, slightly flattened; flesh thin 

 and tuberculate; nutlets 2, obovoid, rounded at the ends, with a thick bony shell. Seed 

 solitary, ascending; seed-coat membranaceous; albumen fleshy; cotyledons broad, folia- 

 ceous; radicle very short, inferior, next the hilum. 



Schaefferia with four or five species is confined to the New World, with one species in 

 southern Florida, and another, a small shrub, Schcefferia cuneifolia A. Gray in the arid 

 region of western Texas and northern Mexico. 



The generic name is in honor of Jakob Christian Schaeffer (1718-1790), the distinguished 

 German naturalist. 



1. Schsefferia frutescens Jacq. Yellow Wood. Box Wood. 



Leaves bright yellow-green, 2'-2f long, J'-l' wide, with thick revolute margins, ap- 

 pearing in Florida in April and persistent on the branches until the spring of the follow- 



Fig. 613 



ing year; petioles short and broad Flowers opening in spring on branchlets of the 

 year, |' across, the staminate generally 3 or 5 together on pedicels rarely more than ^' 

 long, the pistillato solitary or 2 or 3 together on pedicels rather longer than the petioles. 

 Fruit ripening in Florida in November, slightly grooved, compressed, bright scarlet, with 

 an acrid disagreeable flavor. 



A glabrous tree, 35-40 high, with a trunk sometimes 8'-10' in diameter, erect branches, 

 and slender many-angled branchlets pale greenish yellow during their first season, becom- 

 ing light gray during their second year and then conspicuously marked by the remains of 

 the persistent wart-like clusters of bud-scales; or often a tall or low shrub. Bark of the 

 trunk rarely more than T V thick, pale brown faintly tinged with red, the surface divided 

 by long shallow fissures, and ultimately separating into long narrow scales. Wood heavy, 

 close-grained, bright clear yellow, with thick rather lighter colored sapwood; sometimes 

 used as a substitute for boxwood in wood engraving. 



Distribution. Florida, upper Matecombe and Old Rhodes Keys, and eastward on the 

 southern keys, and on the Everglade Keys, Dade County; on the Bahama Islands, and 

 widely distributed through the West Indies to Venezuela. 



