Bitter Bush 



585 



The alternate leaves are i to 



II. BITTER BUSH 



GENUS PICRAMNIA. SWARTZ 



Species Picramnia pentandra Swartz 



WEST INDIAN shrub or small tree which enters our area in southern 

 peninsular Florida and some of the Keys, where it occurs in sandy 

 soils and reaches a maximum height of 6 meters, with a trunk diam- 

 eter of 1.5 dm. It is abundant on the Bahama islands and in Porto 



Rico and other West Indian islands. 



The twigs are slender, shghtly hairy and gray. 



3 dm. long, unevenly pinnate, consisting of 5 to 



9 leaflets and a round leaf-stalk 4 to 6 cm. long; 



the leaflets are elliptic or oblong-elliptic, rarely 



ovate, 5 to 10 cm. long, taper-pointed, tapering 



or rounded at the base, entire on the thickened 



margin, thin and firm, dark green and shining 



above, paler and smooth beneath, the venation 



yellowish and conspicuous on either side. The 



flowers are dioecious, greenish and small, in rather 



loose, few-flowered, shghtly hairy panicles oppo- 

 site the leaves; the calyx is usually s-lobed and 



the lobes imbricated, those of the pistillate flowers 



narrowly triangular-ovate and sharp-pointed, the 



disk flat and lobed ; the corolla of the staminate 



flowers is 3 to 5 mm. wide, the petals narrow; 



stamens usually 5, inserted opposite the petals 



and beneath the disk; in the pistillate flowers 



they are reduced to linear scales; the ovary is 



sessile, 2-celled ; styles partially united ; stigmas 2 



or 3, recurved; ovules 2, pendulous. The fruit is an oblong berry, i to 1.5 cm. 



long, reddish, becoming dark blue or black and shining. 



The genus is tropical American, comprising about 30 species of trees or shrubs 



with a very bitter principle in their bark, wood and twigs, to which the Greek 



generic name has reference. The type species is Picramnia Antidesma Swartz, 



of the West Indies and Central America. 



Fig. 540. — Bitter Bush. 



