SAPOTACE^E 819 



5. MIMUSOPS L. 



Trees or rarely shrubs, with stout terete branchlets, small naked buds, and sweet juice. 

 Leaves usually clustered at the end of the branches, with slender inconspicuous transverse 

 veins and minute reticulate veinlets, persistent. Flowers on clavate pedicels from the 

 axils of minute deciduous bracts; calyx 6-8-parted, the divisions in 2 series, those of the 

 exterior series almost valvate in the bud; corolla white, barely longer than the calyx, sub- 

 rotate, usually dilated at the throat, 6-8-lobed, the lobes furnished at base with a pair of 

 petal-like appendages: stamens as many as the lobes of the corolla; filaments short, dilated; 

 anthers lanceolate, their connectives excurrent, acute, or sometimes aristate at apex; stam- 

 inodia as many as the lobes of the corolla, scale-like or petaloid, entire, 2-lobed or lacini- 

 ate; ovary ovoid, hirsute or puberulous, gradually narrowed into a slender style stigmatic 

 at apex. Fruit globose, 1 or 2-seeded, tipped with the much thickened elongated style; 

 skin crustaceous, indurate; flesh thick and dry. Seed oblong-ovoid, slightly compressed; 

 seed-coat crustaceous, chestnut-brown and lustrous; hilum elongated, lateral or minute, 

 basilar; embryo surrounded by thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons flat, thick and fleshy, 

 much longer than the short erect radicle. 



Mimusops with thirty or forty species is widely distributed through the tropics of the 

 two hemispheres, a single species reaching the shores of southern Florida. Several species 

 produce hard heavy timber, edible fruits, or valuable milky juices. 



The significance of the generic name, from nipt!) and 6^t$ in allusion to the shape of the 

 corolla, is not apparent. 



1. Mimusops emarginata Britt. Wild Dilly. 

 Mimusops Sieberi Chap., not A. DC. 



Leaves clustered at the end of the branches, involute in the bud oblong-elliptic, or occa- 

 sionally slightly obovate, rounded or retuse at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, with 

 slightly thickened revolute margins, bright red when they unfold, and slightly puberulous 

 on the under surface of the midrib, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, bright green and 



Fig. 729 



lustrous, covered on the upper surface with a slight glaucous bloom, conspicuously reticu- 

 late- venulose, 3'-4' long and I'-l^' wide, with a stout midrib glabrous, or puberulous with 

 rusty hairs below, and deeply impressed above; appearing in Florida in April and May and 

 deciduous during their second year; petioles slender, grooved, rusty-pubescent, especially 

 while young, I'-l' in length. Flowers opening in the spring on slender pedicels near the 



