716 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



and on the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on the southern keys ; on the Bahamas, on 

 many of the Antilles, and in Guatemala; on the Florida Keys generally distributed, but not 

 common. 



3. HYPELATE P. Br. 



A glabrous tree or shrub, with smooth bark and slender terete branchlets. Leaves long- 

 petioled, the petioles sometimes narrow-winged, 3-foliolate, the terminal leaflet rather 

 larger than the others, persistent; leaflets sessile, obovate, rounded or rarely acute or emar- 

 ginate at apex, entire, with thickened revolute margins and a prominent midrib, coriaceous, 

 feather-veined, the veins arcuate and connected near the margins, dark green and lustrous 

 on the upper surface, bright green on the lower surface. Flowers regular, polygamo-mo- 

 ncecious, minute, on slender pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, in few-flow- 

 ered long-stemmed wide-branched terminal or axillary panicles; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes 

 ovate, rounded at apex, slightly puberulous on the outer surface, ciliate on the margins, de- 

 ciduous by a circumscissile line, petals 5, rather longer than the calyx-lobes, rounded, spread- 

 ing, ciliate on the margins, white; stamens 7 or 8, inserted on the lobes of the annular fleshy 

 disk; filaments filiform, as long as the petals in the staminate flower, much shorter in the 

 pistillate flower; anthers oblong, attached on the back near the bottom, the cells spreading 

 from above downward; ovary sessile on the disk, slightly 3-lobed, 3-celled, contracted into 

 a short stout style, rudimentary in the staminate flower; stigma large, declinate, obscurely 

 3-lobed; ovules 2 in each cell, borne on the middle of its inner angle, superposed, amphitro- 

 pous, the upper ascending, with the micropyle inferior, the low r er pendulous, with the micro- 

 pyle superior. Fruit an ovoid black drupe crowned w r ith the remnants of the persistent 

 style and supported on the persistent base of the disk; flesh thin and fleshy; walls of the 

 stone thick and crustaceous. Seed solitary by the abortion of the upper ovule, suspended, 

 obovoid; seed-coat thin, slightly wrinkled; embryo conduplicate, filling the cavity of the 

 seed; cotyledons thin, foliaceous, irregularly folded, incumbent on the long radicle. 



The genus with a single species is distributed from southern Florida to the Bahamas, 

 Cuba, Porto Rico, St. Martin, Anguilla and Jamaica. 



Hypelate is the ancient name of the Butcher's Broom. 



1. Hypelate trifoliate Sw. White Ironwood. 



Leaves unfolding in June and persistent until their second season or longer; petioles 

 stout, l|'-2' in length, with narrow green wings; leaflets l|'-2' long and f'-lj' wide. 



Fig. 644 



Flowers appearing in Florida in June, rather less than ' in diameter, in few-flowered pani- 

 cles 3'-4' long, on a slender peduncle, the staminate and pistillate in separate panicles 



