THE THEOPHRASTA FAMILY 



THEOPHRASTACE^ D. Don 



I HIS small family consists of about 5 genera, with some 70 species of 

 tropical American trees or shrubs, usually evergreen, and of no economic 

 value. 



They have persistent, entire, yellowish leathery leaves. The flowers 

 are perfect, regular, racemose, cymose or panicled. The calyx is bell-shaped 

 with 5 imbricated sepals; corolla bell-shaped, wheel-shaped or salver-form, 5- 

 lobed, with 5 petal-Uke staminodes at the base of the corolla-lobes, inside of 

 which are 5 stamens joined to the base of the corolla- tube and opposite its lobes; 

 ovary i-celled, enclosing many ovules attached to the central placenta; styles 

 united; stigma simple, usually 5-lobed and hidden by the converging anthers. 

 The fruit is a globular, leathery berrj', with few or many seeds; endosperm thick 

 and hard, surrounding the embryo. A single arborescent species occurs in Florida. 



JOEWOOD 



GENUS JACQmNIA LINN^US 

 Species Jacquinia keyensis Mez 



SMALL tree or shrub of the 



coasts of southern peninsular 



Florida, and the Bahamas, 



reaching a maximum height of 

 about 6 meters and a trunk diameter of 2.5 

 dm. 



The branches are stout, stiff, ascending 

 and spreading, forming a dense round head. 

 The bark is smooth, gray to nearly white. 

 The twigs are somewhat angular, softly 

 and finely hairy, greenish yellow, becoming 

 round, smooth, brown-gray and marked 

 with yellowish leaf scars. The leaves are 

 densely clustered, persisting until the new 

 ones unfold, leathery, wedge-shaped, spat- 

 ulate or oblong-obovate, 3 to 7 cm. long, blunt, notched or minutely tipped, 

 tapering at the base, entire and revolute on the margin, yellowish green, dotted, 

 smooth and shining above, dull beneath; leaf-stalk short, hairj', thickened at the 



77° 



Fig. 702. — Joewood. 



