MYRTACE^E 773 



Flowers appearing at midsummer, about ' in diameter, in short axillary racemes, on stout 

 pedicels ^ '-%' long, covered with pale white hairs, and furnished near the middle or toward 

 the apex with 2 acute minute persistent bractlets; calyx glandular-punctate, covered on 

 the outer surface with pale hairs, 4-lobed, with ovate rounded lobes shorter than the 4 ovate 

 glandular white petals. Fruit ripening in succession from November to April, globose, 

 black, glandular-punctate, usually 1-seeded, \' in diameter, edible, rather juicy, with a 

 sweet agreeable flavor; seeds subglobose, |' in diameter, with a pale brown chartaceous 

 coat, and light olive-green cotyledons. 



A tree, 20-25 high, with a trunk occasionally a foot in diameter, small branches, and 

 terete stout rigid ashy gray branchlets often slightly tinged with red and covered with 

 small wart-like excrescences; or toward the northern limits of its range a low shrub. Bark 

 of the trunk about \' thick and divided by irregular shallow fissures into broad ridges finally 

 separating on the surface into small thin light brown scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, 

 very close-grained, brown often tinged with red, with thin darker colored sapwood of 5-6 

 layers of annual growth. 



Distribution. Florida, shores of the St. John's River to the southern keys; nowhere 

 common; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles. 



3. Eugenia rhombea Kr. & Urb. Stopper. 



Leaves broad-ovate, narrowed into a broad point rounded at apex, and abruptly or grad- 

 ually narrowed and cuneate at base, when they unfold thin and light red, and at maturity 



subcoriaceous, conspicuously^ marked with black dots, olive-green on the upper surface and 

 paler on the lower surface, 2'-2f long and I'-l^' wide, with a narrow midrib; unfolding in 

 Florida in May; petioles narrow-winged, \'-\' in length. Flowers \' in diameter, appear- 

 ing in Florida in April or May on slender glandular pedicels \'-\' long and furnished at 

 apex with 2 lanceolate acute persistent bractlets ciliate on the margins, in sessile axillary 

 many-flowered clusters; calyx-tube much shorter than the limb divided into 4 glandular 

 narrow lobes rounded at apex and one half the length of the broad-ovate rounded glandular 

 white petals. Fruit ripening in Florida from September to November, f'-l' in diameter, 

 slightly glandular-roughened, orange color, with a bright red cheek when fully grown, be- 

 coming black at maturity; flesh thin and dry; seeds almost globose, nearly \' in diameter, 

 with a thick pale chestnut-brown lustrous coat and olive-green cotyledons. 



A tree, 20-25 high, with a trunk usually a foot in diameter, small branches, and slender 

 terete branchlets at first light purple and covered with a glaucous bloom, becoming ashy 

 gray or almost white. Bark of the trunk about j 1 ^' thick, with a smooth light gray sur- 



