860 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



into narrow ridges broken on the surface into short thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, 

 hard, close-grained, dark brown, with thick light brown or yellow sapwood. 



Distribution. Florida, Flamingo near Cape Sable (A. A. Eaton) and Madeira Ham- 

 mock, Munroe County, and on the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands, on most of the 

 Antilles, and in Guiana and New Granada. 



Often planted in tropical countries as an ornament of gardens. 



2. Cordia Boissieri A. DC. Anacahuita. 



Leaves oval to oblong-ovate, acute or rounded at apex, rounded or subcordate at baset 

 entire or obscurely crenulate-serrate, covered when they unfold like the branches of the in- 

 florescence, both surfaces of the calyx and the young branchlets with rusty or dark brown 

 tomentum and short white usually matted hairs, thick and firm, dark green, minutely 

 rugose and more or less scabrous above, coated below with thick soft pale or rufous tomen- 

 tum, 4 '-5' long and 3 '-4' wide, with a broad midrib, and conspicuous primary veins forked 

 near the margins and connected by cross veinlets; deciduous at the end of their first year; 

 petioles stout, tomentose, l'-l|' in length. Flowers opening from April to June, slightly 

 fragrant, sessile or short-pedicellate, in open terminal dichotomous cymes; calyx tubular or 

 subcampanulate, conspicuously many-ribbed, with 5 linear acute teeth, and about half as 

 long as the tube of the white corolla puberulous on the outer surface, marked in the throat 

 by a large light yellow spot, the lobes rounded, imbricated in the bud, and 2' across when 



Fig. 761 



fully expanded; ovary glabrous, gradually narrowed into a slender ^-branched style. Fruit 

 ovoid, 1' long, about f ' broad, pointed at apex, lustrous, bright red-brown, and inclosed 

 entirely or partly by the thin fibrous now conspicuously rayed orange-brown calyx coated 

 on the outer surface with thick short pale tomentum, and often splitting nearly to the base; 

 flesh thin, sweet, and pulpy, separating easily from the ovoid smooth light brown stone 

 gradually narrowed from above the middle, faintly reticulate-veined, and marked by 4 

 longitudinal lines and at the acuminate apex by a deeply 4-lobed thin cap, thick-walled, 

 hard and bony, deeply lobed at base; seeds ovoid, acute, |' long, with a thin delicate pure 

 white coat. 



A tree, occasionally 20-25 high, with a short often crooked trunk 6'-8' in diameter, 

 stout spreading branches forming a low round-topped head, and stout branchlets, becom- 

 ing in their second year dark gray or brown, slightly puberulous, and marked by occasional 

 large lenticels and by elevated obcordate leaf-scars; or often a shrub, with numerous stems 

 sometimes only 2 or 3 tall. Bark of the trunk thin, gray tinged with red, and irregularly 

 divided into broad flat ridges, the surface ultimately separating into long thin papery 



