Velvetseed 845 



The genus is tropical American, of several species. The type species, Genipa 

 americana Linnaeus, called Genipa tree, produces an edible fruit which is used in 

 the preparation of marmalade and is sometimes called Marmalade box. The 

 natives of the West Indies called it Genipapo, from which the generic name is 

 derived. 



V. THE GUETTARDAS 



GENUS GUETTARDA LINNAEUS 



[UETTARDA includes about 45 species of trees or shrubs, of tropical 

 and warm regions. Aside from some reported tonic properties of the 

 bark they are of no economic value, but several of them are very 

 ornamental, especially Guettarda hirsuta Linnaeus, of Africa, which 

 is cultivated in tropical gardens and in conservatories for its fragrant white 

 flowers. 



They have opposite, rarely whorled, membranous to leathery leaves. The 

 flowers are perfect or polygamo-dioecious, usually in axillary cymes, rarely solitary; 

 calyx-tube cylindric to globose, the lobes usually 4, deciduous or persistent; co- 

 rolla salverform, elongated, cylindric, smooth in the throat of the tube, the 4 to 9 

 lobes oblong, acute or roimded ; stamens 4 to 9, inserted on the corolla-tube and 

 alternate with its lobes, the filaments short or wanting; anthers attached on the 

 back and introrse; ovary 4- to 9-celled; style stout or thread-like; stigma subcapi- 

 tate or minutely 2-lobed; ovule solitary and suspended in each cavity. Fruit a 

 drupe, globose, sometimes angled, rarely ovoid, its flesh thin ; stone broad, globose 

 or blimtly angled, 4- to 9-celled; seeds straight or curved; endosperm fleshy or 

 none. 



The name is in honor of Jean Etienne Guettard (1715-1786), a French natu- 

 ralist. The type species is G. speciosa Linnaeus, of Java. Our species are: 



Leaves with 4 to 7 pairs of nerves; corolla less than i cm. long. i. G. elliplica. 



Leaves with 8 to 11 pairs of nerves; corolla over 2 cm. long. 2. G. scabra. 



I. VELVETSEED— Guettarda elliptica Swartz 



Also known as Nakedwood, this small nearly evergreen tree of the West Indies 

 is occasionally seen in sandy soil in peninsular , Florida and the Keys, where it 

 attains a maximum height of 6 meters, with a trunk diameter of 1.5 dm., usually 

 much smaller and commonly shrubby. 



The trunk is short, the thin bark smooth, the branches spreading or drooping, 

 and slender. The twigs are round and slender, covered with long silky hairs at 

 first, soon becoming smooth, red or gray-brown. The leaves are thin and firm, 

 oblong, oval or ovate, 2 to 4 cm. long, blunt and minutely tipped, rounded, nar- 

 rowed, or somewhat heart-shaped at the base, dark green and sUghtly hairy above, 

 pale silky hairy with 4 to 7 pairs of prominent nerves beneath; the leaf-stalk is 



