698 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



2. ANAMOMIS, Griseb. 



Trees, with terete slender branchlets and chartaceous or coriaceous leaves. Flow- 

 ers in pedunculate usually 3, sometimes 5-7, or occasionally 1-flowered cymes, with 

 axillary dichotomously branched or rarely simple peduncles furnished immediately 

 below the apex of each division with 2 lanceolate acute deciduous bractlets; calyx 

 ovoid, with 4 ovate acute persistent lobes; petals 4, ovate, acute, glandular-punctate, 

 spreading after anthesis; ovary 2-^1-celled; ovules numerous in each cell, attached 

 irregularly to the central placenta, semianatropous. Fruit subglobose or more or 

 less obliquely oblong, aromatic, 1 or sometimes 2-seeded. Seed reniform; embr} r o 

 aromatic; cotyledons distinct, obovate, thick and fleshy, flat and rounded or more or 

 less pointed, incurved and variously infolded at the apex; radicle basilar, terete, 

 accumbent, \-^ the length of the cotyledons. 



Anamomis with four or five species is confined to the West Indies, one species 

 reaching the shores and islands of southern Florida. 



The generic name is from avd and afj.ufji.is, in allusion to the aromatic properties of 

 these plants. 



1. Anamomis dichotoma, Sarg. Naked Wood. 



Leaves ovate or obovate, acute or rounded and occasionally emarginate at the 

 apex, cuneate at the base, entire, chartaceous when they unfold, becoming subcori- 

 aceous, glabrous, covered with minute black dots, I'-l^-' long and ^'-f ' wide, with stout 



midribs; their petioles stout, enlarged at the base, coated at first with silky hairs, 

 finally glabrous. Flowers appearing in Florida in May, \' in diameter, in cymes 

 produced near the ends of the branches, in the axils of leaves of the year, on slender 

 peduncles coated with pale silky hairs, sometimes 1-flowered and not longer than the 

 leaves, more often longer than the leaves, dichotomously branched and 3-flowered, 

 with 1 flower at the end of the principal division in the fork of its branches, or occa- 

 sionally 5-7-flowered by the development of peduncles from the axils of the bracts 

 of the secondary divisions of the inflorescence, each branch of the inflorescence fur- 

 nished immediately beneath the flower with 2 lanceolate acute bracts nearly as long as 

 the calyx-tube; calyx hoary-tomentose, with the ovate lobes rounded at the apex and 

 much shorter than the ovate acute glandular-punctate white petals. Fruit ripening 



