800 



TREES OF NOKTH AMERICA 



scales. Wood close-grained, soft, weak, brown, with lighter-colored sapwood of 

 8-10 layers of annual growth. The bark has been used in the treatment of inter- 

 mittent fevers. 



Distribution. Low wet sandy swamps on the borders of streams; coast region of 

 South Carolina to the basin of the upper Appalachicola River and its tributaries in 

 Florida and Georgia; rare and local. 



2. EXOSTEMA, Rich. 



Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, and bitter bark. Leaves sessile or petio- 

 late, persistent; stipules interpetiolar, deciduous. Flowers axillary, fragrant, pedun- 

 culate, the peduncles bibracteolate above the middle; calyx-tube ovoid, clavate or 

 turbinate, the limb short, 5-lobed, its lobes nearly triangular, persistent; corolla 

 5-lobed, white, funnel-shaped, the tube long and narrow, erect, the lobes of the limb 

 linear, elongated, spreading, imbricated in the bud; filaments filiform, united at 

 the base into a tube inserted on and adnate to the tube of the corolla; anthers 

 oblong, linear; ovary 2-celled; style elongated, slender, exserted; stigma capitate, 

 simple or minutely 2-lobed; ovules numerous, attached on the 2 sides of a fleshy 

 oblong peltate placenta fixed to the inner face of the cell, ascending. Fruit a many- 

 seeded 2-celled capsule septicidally 2-valved, the valves 2-parted, their outer layer 

 membranaceous, separable from the crustaceous inner layer. Seeds compressed, 

 oblong, imbricated downward on the placenta; seed-coat chestnut-brown, lustrous, 

 produced into a narrow wing; embryo minute, in fleshy albumen; cotyledons flat; 

 radicle terete, inferior. 



Exostema with about twenty species is confined to the tropics of America, and is 

 most abundant in the Antilles, one species reaching the shores of southern Florida. 

 The bark contains active tonic properties, and has been used as a febrifuge. 



The generic name, from e|o> and o-r^/xa, relates to the long exserted stamens. 



1. Exostema Caribaeum, R. & S. Prince Wood. 



Leaves oblong-ovate to lanceolate, contracted into slender points and apiculate at 

 the apex, wedge-shaped and gradually narrowed at the base, entire, thick and coria- 

 ceous, clark green on the upper surface and yellow-green on the lower, l'-3' long 

 and \'-l\' wide, with prominent orange-colored midribs and conspicuous reticulate 



