Saffron Plum 



777 



Leaves wedge-shaped, mostly i to 3 cm. long. 

 Leaves not wedge-shaped, mostly 5 to ip cm. long. 

 Pubescence silky, shining, whitish, becoming tawny or brown. 



5. B. rigida. 



6. B. lanuginosa. 



7. B. tenax. 



I. SAFFRON PLUM— BumeUa angustifolia Nuttall 

 Bumelia Eggersii Pierre 



A small evergreen tree or shrub which grows along the coast of peninsular 

 Florida and the Keys, and on the Bahama islands, occurring on rocky shores and 

 borders of marshes, and attaining a 

 height of 6 meters, with a trunk di- 

 ameter up to 2 dm. It is also called 

 Ant's wood and Downward plum. 



The trunk is short, erect or ascend- 

 ing, its branches spreading or drooping. 

 The bark is 8 to 12 mm. thick, deeply 

 fissured into angular plates of a red- 

 dish gray color. The twigs are slender, 

 slightly hairy at first, soon becoming 

 smooth, reddish brown or gray, with 

 spinescent branchlets. The leaves are 

 persistent for about two years, leathery, 

 varying from oblanceolate-spatulate to 

 obovate, rounded at the apex, gradually 

 narrowed to the nearly sessile base, en- 

 tire and revolute on the margin, dull 

 green on both sides. The flowers ap- 



FlG. 707. — Saffron Plum. 



pear in autumn or early winter in crowded fascicles, on short pedicels; their 

 calyx is smooth, deeply lobed into blunt-pointed segments 2 mm. long; corolla- 

 lobes oval, the appendages ovate to lanceolate and taper- pointed; staminodes ovate 

 to ovate-lanceolate, 2 mm. long, and toothed; stamens longer than the corolla; 

 ovary ovoi9, slightly hairy at the base; style elongated. The fruit, ripening in 

 the spring, is oblong, 1.5 to 2 cm. long and black, pendent on a slender stem, 

 usually solitary; its flesh is thick, sweet and edible. 



The wood is hard, weak, dense, light brown and satiny; its specific gravity is 

 about 0.79. 



The shrub of southern Texas and adjacent Mexico, which has been referred to this species, 

 differs in its shining leaves, slightly larger flowers with narrower oblong petals, and may be 

 known as Bumelia Schottii Britton. The type specimen was collected by Mr. Schott near 

 Laredo, Texas, July, 1853. 



