SAPOTACE^E 809 



many internal appendages borne on its throat; disk 0; fertile stamens as many as and oppo- 

 site the divisions of the corolla and inserted on its short tube, often with sterile filaments 

 (staminodia) alternate with them; anthers generally extrorse, 2-celled, the cells opening 

 longitudinally; pistil of united carpels; ovary sessile, usually 5-celled; style simple; ovules 

 solitary in each cell, attached to an axile placenta, ascending, anatropous; raphe ventral; 

 micropyle inferior. Fruit baccate, bearing at apex the remnant of the style, usually 1- 

 celled and 1-seeded. Seed with or without albumen; embryo large; radicle terete, inferior. 

 This family with fifty genera is chiefly tropical and subtropical, with only Bumelia ex- 

 tending in North America into temperate regions. Some of the species produce valuable 

 timber or edible and agreeable fruits. From Palaquium gutta Burkh., of the Malay Penin- 

 sula, gutta-percha is obtained. Five genera are represented by trees in the flora of the 

 United States. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Calyx of 5 sepals in a single series. 



Staminodia 1 in each sinus of the corolla. 



Appendages of the corolla 0; staminodia slender, scale-like. 1. Sideroxylum. 



Appendages of the corolla present; staminodia petaloid. 



Staminodia linear, fimbriate; seeds, with copious albumen. 2. Dipholis. 



Staminodia petaloid, entire or denticulate; seeds, without albumen. 3. Bumelia. 

 Staminodia and appendages of the corolla 0; leaves covered below with lustrous copper- 

 colored or golden pubescence. 4. Chrysophyllum. 

 Calyx of 6-8 sepals in 2 series; corolla 6-8-lobed, with 2 appendages in each sinus inside of a 

 scale-like or petaloid staminodia. 5. Mimusops. 



1. SIDEROXYLUM L. 



Trees, with terete branchlets, naked buds, and long-petiolate persistent leaves, the veins 

 remote and connected by reticulate veinlets. Flowers minute, on ebracteolate pedicels 

 from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, in crowded many-flowered axillary fascicles; 

 calyx 5-parted, the divisions in one series, nearly equal, corolla furnished with 5 or 6 stam- 

 inodia, and 5 or rarely 6-lobed; filaments slender, elongated, bent outward at the apex; 

 anthers oblong, the cells at first extrorse, sometimes becoming sublateral; staminodia linear, 

 scale-like; ovary contracted into a subulate style tipped with a minute slightly 5-lobed 

 stigma. Fruit dry, 1-seeded, oblong, with thin coriaceous flesh. Seed obovoid or oblong; 

 seed-coat lustrous, light brown, folded on the inner face into 2 obscure lobes rounded at 

 apex; hilum elevated, subbasilar or lateral, oblong or linear; embryo erect in thick fleshy 

 albumen; radicle much shorter than the oblong fleshy cotyledons. 



Sideroxylum with a hundred species is widely distributed through the tropics of the two 

 hemispheres, and occurs also with a few species in Australia, Madeira, southern Africa, 

 New Zealand, and Norfolk Island, a single species reaching the shores of southern Florida. 

 Some of the species are largfe and valuable timber-trees, producing hard handsome durable 

 wood. 



The generic name, from o-tdypos and %v\ov, is in reference to the hardness of the wood. 



1. Sideroxylum fcetidissimum Jacq. Mastic. 



Sideroxylum Mastichodendron Jacq. 



Leaves mostly clustered near the end of the branches, appearing irregularly from early 

 spring until autumn, oval, acute or rounded and slightly emarginate at apex, and gradually 

 narrowed at base, with thickened cartilaginous slightly involute margins, silky-canescent 

 beneath when they unfold, and at maturity thin and firm, glabrous, bright green and lus- 

 trous above, lustrous and yellow-green below, 3'-5' long and l|'-2' wide, with a broad pale 

 conspicuous midrib deeply impressed on the upper side and inconspicuous primary veins 

 arcuate near the margins; petioles slender, I'-lf ' in length. Flowers usually appearing in 

 Florida in the autumn and also in early spring and during the summer on stout orange- 



