808 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



upper surface, paler on the lower surface, 2f'-3^' long and I'-l^' wide, with thickened 

 revolute margins, a thick midrib and obscure veins; petioles stout, narrowly wing-margined, 

 ?'- s' in length. Flowers in November, minute, short-pedicellate in short pedunculate clus- 



Fig. 720 



ters usually 5, rarely 4-merous, white more or less marked with purple, about ' in diameter; 

 calyx divided to the middle, the lobes broad-ovate, acute or rounded at apex, slightly ciliate, 

 persistent under the fruit; corolla 2 or 3 times longer than the calyx, the lobes spreading, 

 narrowed and rounded at apex, slightly ciliate on the margins; staminate flowers dimor- 

 phous; anthers sagittate-apiculate, inserted below the middle of the petals; ovary in one form 

 crowned by a minute discoid sessile stigma and probably abortive, in the other form gradu- 

 ally narrowed into a slender style, terminating in an oblique stigma and fertile; pistillate 

 flowers, anthers smaller and rudimentary; ovary crowned by a large nearly sessile irregu- 

 larly lobed papillate stigma deciduous from the fruit. Fruit in clusters crowded on the 

 elongated somewhat thickened spur-like peduncle of the flower-cluster covered with imbri- 

 cated persistent bracts, dark blue or nearly black, tipped with the persistent style, ' j-' in 

 diameter; exocarp thin and fleshy; endocarp crustaceous, white. 



A tree, in Florida occasionally 18-20 high, with a tall usually more or less crooked 

 trunk 2'-3' in diameter, small ascending branches forming an open irregular head, and 

 slender gray or light red-brown branchlets roughened for a year or two by the persistent 

 spur-like peduncles of the fallen fruit and later marked by circular scars in the axils of the 

 small transverse leaf-scars; more often a shrub. Bark of the trunk thin, close, pale gray. 



Distribution. Florida, shores of Indian River on the east coast and Palmetto, Mana- 

 tee County, on the west coast, southward to the southern keys; common; on the Bahama 

 Islands, Cuba, Porto Rico, Jamaica and Trinidad, to southern Brazil, and to Mexico and 

 Bolivia. 



LVI. SAPOTACE^:. 



Trees or shrubs, with milky juice. Leaves alternate, simple, entire, pinnately veined, 

 mostly coriaceous, petiolate, without stipules. Flowers perfect, regular, small, in axillary 

 clusters; calyx of 5-8 sepals imbricated in the bud, persistent under the fruit; corolla hy- 

 pogynous, 5-8-cleft, the divisions imbricated in the bud, often with as many or twice as 



