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ON THE CULTURE OF VARIOUS SPECIES OF STAR-APPLE. 
The Michino Star-Apple (Chrysophyllum Michino). — This species is stated 
by Don to be a native of Bracamoras, near Cavico and Matam. It there forms a 
tree forty or fifty feet high, with tapering, smooth, rusty-looking branches. The 
leaves are about three inches long, thickly set upon the branches, smooth and of the 
same colour on both surfaces, obovate, and somewhat blunt. Flowers small, white, 
and produced both from the axils of the leaves, and also at the termination of the 
young branchlets. Fruit when ripe, of a bright yellow outside, whitish and clammy 
inside ; pulp full of juice, sweet, and with a grateful flavour. 
The Damson Star-Apple [Chrysophyllum monopyrenum). — This is the Chry- 
sophyllum oliviforme of "Lam., Encyclop.," v. i., p. 552; C. Cainito of "Miller's 
Dictionary;" and C. Cainito, variety (3 of Willd., Spec. 1, p. 1083. It is a native 
of Jamaica, St. Domingo, Martinico, and many other parts of the tropics, growing 
in thickets, and forming a tree about thirty feet high, " with a trunk not exceeding 
a foot in diameter, covered with a cracked, and roughish, but otherwise pretty even 
or equal ash-coloured bark. The head is thick, close, and bushy in the middle, 
but not of a regular-formed shape ; and the outer branches, projecting into the air 
with a certain fan-shaped regularity, have a very light and elegant appearance when 
seen from beneath, in relief against the sky. The general aspect and shape of the 
whole somewhat resembles a fine young vigorous Hawthorn tree. Terminal or 
young leaf-bearing branchlets growing out in a regular, flattened, horizontal, fan- like 
form, as if they had been regularly trained against a wall, densely clothed with a 
coat of ferruginous adpressed hairs, which easily rub off, and ultimately disappear. 
Young leaves clothed on both sides with similar hairs, which disappear from the 
upper surface in a short time. Petioles short, about an inch long, densely ferrugineo- 
pubescent. All parts of the tree, while young, are milky when cut or broken. 
Leaves alternate, oval, approaching to oblong, four or five inches long, and two 
broad ; shortly acuminate, sometimes retuse, entire, with simple, parallel, equi- 
distant, inconspicuous nerves above, when adult, smooth and shining; beneath, 
beautifully satiny, with pale, ferruginous, close-pressed, silky hairs ; the midrib and 
nerves deeper ferruginous than the rest. Before they fall, the leaves turn to a 
beautiful deep rich red, variously marbled and mottled with yellow or white. 
Pedicels axillary all along, and at the ends of the branchlets, and even coming out 
here and there on the older, thicker branches ; aggregated, very irregular in 
number, shorter than the petioles, round, densely ferrugineo-pubescent. Flowers 
very small, scentless. Buds globose, ferrugineo-pubescent. Calyx of five, or often 
six, rarely four, rounded, imbricated sepals ; the two or three outer ones densely 
ferrugineo-pubescent. Corolla sub-campanulate, pale greenish or yellowish-white, 
clothed outside with shining close-pressed hairs of the same colour ; tube longer than 
the calyx ; limb in five or often six, rarely four, shallow, ovate-obtuse, patent, sub- 
revolute lobes. Fruit a shining, purplish- black, ovate-oblong drupe, about an inch 
long, and half-an-inch broad, narrowed, and almost pointed at the top, but other- 
wise much resembling a Date in figure, tipped with the dry remains of the short 
