﻿6 SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED. 



relation between seed and flesh and the thickness of the skin ; and a 

 most careful pomological description of its flavor, texture, and other 

 characteristics, together with notes written in the field as to its prob- 

 able season of ripening and productivity. In other words, Mr. Pope- 

 noe's collection, as it is being sent out to growers for trial, has had 

 eliminated from it about all the chances for disappointment which 

 it is humanly possible to eliminate when a foreign fruit tree 

 is introduced into an entirely new environment. While the sea- 

 son of ripening may change, the degree of frost which it will 

 stand may change, and even the flavor be affected, it is not 

 to be expected that any great changes in the form of the fruit or in 

 the proportion of seed to flesh will appear in his collection when the 

 fruits ripen in the United States. The difficulty which nurserymen 

 and growers find in handling the cumbersome numbers under which 

 the plants of this office are sent out made it appear necessary to 

 assign names to the various seedlings. In order to do honor to the 

 people from whose country they came and to distinguish them as 

 emigrants from that country, selected names were taken from the 

 Maya language. To this race belongs the distinction of having 

 learned the value of the hard-skinned avocado, and it seems proper 

 that as these Guatemalan varieties become commercially grown in 

 this country they should be called by these Maya names rather than 

 by Americanized names which have no real philological significance. 

 It is believed that these names will enrich rather than impoverish the 

 language of that commerce which is growing up about this important 

 food plant. See Persea americana, Nos. 44625 to 44628, 44679 to 

 44681, 44781 to 44783, 44785, and 44856. 



While looking for varieties of the avocado, Mr. Popenoe found a 

 very rare species of Persea known as the coyo or shucte (Persea 

 schiedeana, No. 44682) which deserves to be introduced into all 

 strictly tropical countries. In its wild state and without any at- 

 tempts having been made at its domestication, it appears to have 

 seedlings which rival the avocado in the size of their fruits and in the 

 quality of these fruits for the table. It seems to have been com- 

 pletely overlooked by the tropical botanic gardens of the world. 



Mr. Popenoe also obtained material of the following : The tortoise- 

 shell custard-apple (Annona testudinea, No. 44774) which bears fruit 

 with large seed, hard shell, and flesh that is devoid of all grittiness ; 

 the monkey-flower tree (Phyllocarpus septentrionalis, No. 44775), a 

 species which, according to the explorer, compares in beauty with 

 the royal poinciana and produces in January a mass of crimson- 

 scarlet flowers; the lignum-vitse (Guaiacum guatemalense, No. 

 44858), which as a small tree with evergreen foliage has already 

 attracted attention in Florida and which, according to Mr. Popenoe, 



