MYRTACE.E 771 



produced above the ovary, the liinb 4 or rarely o-lobed; petals usually 4, free and spread- 

 ing; ovary 2 or rarely 3-celled; ovules numerous in each cell, semianatropous. Fruit 1- 

 4-seeded. Seeds globose or flattened; seed-coat membranaceous or cartilaginous; embryo 

 thick and fleshy; cotyledons thick, more or less conferruminate into a homogeneous mass; 

 radicle very short, turned toward the hilum. 



Eugenia with some five hundred species is common in all tropical regions, with eight 

 species reaching the shores of southern Florida, of these 6 are small trees. Several species 

 are valued for their stimulant and digestive properties; some produce useful timber or 

 edible fruit, and others are cultivated for the beauty of their flowers. Cloves are the 

 flower-buds of Eugenia aromatica Baill., a native of the Molucca Islands; and Eugenia 

 Jambos L., the Rose Apple, of southeastern Asia, is cultivated in all tropical countries 

 as a shade-tree and for its delicately fragrant fruit. 



The generic name commemorates the interest in botany and gardening taken by Prince 

 Eugene of Savoy, who built the Belvidere Palace near Vienna in the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century, and made a collection of rare plants in its gardens. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Flowers in axillary racemes or fascicles. 



Flowers in short solitary or clustered axillary racemes. 



Leaves ovate or obovate, rounded at apex, short-petiolate; fruit subglobose to short- 

 oblong, black, ' in diameter. 1. E. buxifolia (C, D). 

 Leaves ovate, contracted at apex into a broad point, distinctly petiolate; fruit glo- 

 bose, black, \' in diameter. 2. E. axillaris (C, D). 

 Flowers in axillary fascicles. 



Leaves usually broad-ovate, narrowed at apex into a short point, subcoriaceous; 



fruit subglobose, rather broader than high, f'-l' in diameter, becoming black at 



maturity. 3. E. rhombea (D). 



Leaves oblong-ovate, narrowed at apex into a long point, coriaceous; fruit subglobose 



to obovoid, \'-\' long, bright scarlet. 4. E. confusa (D). 



Flowers in dichotomously branched cymes. (Anamomis.) 



Leaves ovate or obovate; cymes usually 3-flowered; flowers not more than \' in diameter; 



fruit black. 5. E. dicrana (D). 



Leaves oblong or broad-elliptic; cymes 3-15-flowered; flowers up to \' in diameter; fruit 



red. 6. E. Simpsonii (D). 



1. Eugenia buxifolia Willd. Gurgeon Stopper. Spanish Stopper. 



Leaves ovate or obovate, rounded at apex, sessile or narrowed into a short thick petiole, 

 occasionally slightly and remotely crenulate-serrate above the middle, thick and coriaceous, 

 dark green on the upper surface, yellow-green and marked with minute black dots on the 

 lower surface, \'-\\' long and about 1' wide, with a narrow conspicuous midrib; usually 

 unfolding in November and remaining on the branches until the end of their second winter, 

 and often turning red or partly red before falling. Flowers appearing in Florida from mid- 

 summer until early autumn, f ' in diameter, on short thick pedicels, in short rufous-pubes- 

 cent racemes clustered in the axils of old or fallen leaves, with minute lanceolate acute per- 

 sistent bracts, and broad-ovate acute bractlets immediately below the flowers; calyx 

 glandular-punctate, pubescent on the outer surface, with 4 ovate rounded lobes much 

 shorter than the 4 ovate white petals rounded at apex, ciliate on the margins, and glandular- 

 punctate. Fruit subglobose to short-oblong, black, glandular-roughened, crowned with 

 the large calyx-lobes, usually 1-seeded, and about \' in diameter, with thin aromatic flesh; 

 seeds \' in diameter, with a thick pale brown lustrous cartilaginous coat and a pale olive- 

 green embryo. 



A shrubby tree, in Florida rarely 20 high, with a short trunk occasionally a foot in 

 diameter, small mostly erect branches, and terete slender branchlets coated at first with 

 rufous pubescence, becoming at the end of a few months ashy gray or gray tinged with red, 



