SAPOTACE.E 817 



being developed from a fascicle of flowers, oblong or slightly obovoid, rounded at the ends, 

 |'-f ' long and j' in diameter, with thick sweet flesh; seed oblong, rounded at apex, \' long. 

 A tree, sometimes 20 high, with a short trunk rarely exceeding 6'-8' in diameter, grace- 

 ful pendulous branches forming a compact round head, and rigid spinescent divergent lat- 

 eral branchlets often armed with acute slender spines sometimes 1' in length, and when 

 they first appear thickly coated with loose pale or dark brown deciduous tomentum, be- 

 coming light brown tinged with red or ashy gray. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, and covered 

 with rufous tomentum. Bark of the trunk \'-\' thick, gray tinged with red, and deeply 



divided by longitudinal and cross fissures into oblong or nearly square plates. Wood 

 heavy, hard, although not strong, very close-grained, light brown or orange-colored, with 

 thick lighter colored sapwood. 



Distribution. Florida, shores of Indian River to the southern keys, and on the west 

 coast from Cedar Keys to East Cape, and here less abundant and usually on rocky shores 

 and in the interior of low barren islands; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba. 



4. CHRYSOPHYLLUM L. 



Trees, with terete branchlets usually coated while young with dense tomentum, and 

 naked buds. Leaves short-petiolate, bright green and glabrous on the upper surface and 

 coated on the lower surface with brilliant silky pubescence or tomentum, persistent. Flow- 

 ers on pedicels from the axils of minute acute bracts, in dense many-flowered fascicles; 

 calyx usually 5-parted, the divisions nearly equal, obtuse; corolla 5 or rarely 6 or 7-lobed, 

 tubular, campanulate or subrotate, white or greenish white; filaments short, subulate or 

 filiform, enlarged into broad* connectives; anthers ovoid or triangular, extrorse or rarely 

 partly introrse, the cells spreading below; ovary usually 5-celled, style crowned by a 5- 

 lobed stigma. Fruit short-oblong, ovoid or globose. Seed ovoid; seed-coat coriaceous, 

 dull or lustrous; hilum subbasilar, elongated, conspicuous; embryo erect, surrounded by 

 more or less pungent fleshy albumen; cotyledons oblong, foliaceous. 



Chrysophyllum is tropical, with fifty or sixty species most abundant in the New World, 

 with a small number of species in western and southern tropical Africa, southern Asia, 

 Australia, and the Hawaiian Islands, and with one species in southern Florida. The most 

 valuable species, Chrysophyllum Cainito L., a native of the West Indies and now cultivated 

 in all tropical countries and naturalized in many parts of Central and South America, pro- 

 duces the so-called star-apple, a succulent edible blue or purple and green fruit the size and 

 shape of a small apple. 



The generic name, from xpvo-6s and <t>t\\ov is in allusion to the golden covering of the 

 under surface of the leaves. 



