SAPINDACE^E 715 



margins, obscurely veined, thin, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface and slightly 

 paler on the lower surface. Flowers regular, polygamo-direcious, on short pedicels from the 

 axils of minute deciduous bracts covered with thick pale tomentum, in ample terminal or 

 axillary wide-branched panicles clothed with orange-colored pubescence; sepals 5, ovate, 

 rounded at apex, ciliate on the margins, puberulous, persistent; petals 5, white, ovate, 

 rounded at apex, short-unguiculate, alternate with and rather longer and narrower 

 than the sepals; disk annular, fleshy, irregularly 5-lobed, puberulous; stamens 7 or 8, in- 

 serted on the disk, as long as the petals in the staminate flower, much shorter in the pis- 

 tillate flower; filaments filiform, glabrous, anthers oblong, with a broad connective, rudi- 

 mentary in the staminate flower; ovary sessile on the disk, conic, pubescent, 2-celled, con- 

 tracted into a short thick style, rudimentary in the staminate flower, stigma large, declinate, 

 obtuse; ovules 2 in each cell, suspended from the summit of the inner angle, collateral, 

 anatropous, raphe ventral ; micropyle superior. Fruit a nearly spherical 1-seeded berry con- 

 taining the rudiment of the second cell and tipped with the short remnant of the style, sur- 

 rounded at base by the persistent reflexed sepals; flesh becoming thick, dark purple, and 

 juicy at maturity. Seed short-oblong to subglobose, solitary, suspended; seed-coat thin, 

 coriaceous, orange-brown and lustrous; embryo subglobose, filling the cavity of the seed; 

 cotyledons fleshy, plano-convex, puberulous; radicle superior, very short, uncinate, turned 

 toward the small hilum and inclosed in a lateral cavity of the seed-coat. 



The genus is represented by a single West Indian species. 



The generic name is from t&dtu, in allusion to its removal from a related genus. 



1. Exothea paniculata Radlk. Ironwood. Ink Wood. 



Leaves appearing in April, on stout grooved petioles '-!' in length; leaflets 4-5' long 

 and 1 |'-2' wide. Flowers opening in Florida in April, \' across when expanded, the stam- 

 inate and pistillate on separate plants. Fruit fully grown by the end of June and then i'-f ' 



Fig. 643 



long, and dull orange color, remaining on the branches during the summer, ripening in the 

 autumn; seeds i'-f in diameter. 



A tree, sometimes 40-50 high, with a trunk 12'-15' in diameter, slender upright branch- 

 lets orange-brown when they first appear, becoming reddish brown in their second year and 

 thickly covered by small white lenticels. Bark of the trunk \'-\' thick, the bright red sur- 

 face separating into large scales. Wood very hard and heavy, strong, close-grained, bright 

 red-brown, with lighter colored sapwood of 10-12 layers of annual growth; valued for piles 

 and also used in Florida in boatbuilding, for the handles of tools, and many small articles. 



Distribution. Florida, Mosquito Inlet on the east coast to the shores of Bay Biscayne 



