70 
FLORIDA ARDISIA. 
This beautiful evergreen tree, according to Dr. Blodgett, 
is very common at Key West, where it attains an eleva- 
tion of 20 feet. Many years since, it was discovered in 
East Florida, about the latitude of 28°, by my friend Major 
Ware, but from the imperfection of the specimens, I was 
led to mistake its character, and form upon it a distinct 
genus. It bears a very considerable affinity to the Ardisia 
coriacea of Swartz, but differs wholly in the flower, and in 
the smallness of its calyx ; the leaves are also longer in 
proportion to their width. 
The leaves, resembling those of a laurel but smaller, 
grow out towards the extremities of the branches, which 
are covered with a dark-brown bark, they are 3 to 4 inches 
long, and an inch or more wide, very entire, oblong, or 
ovate-oblong, obtuse and narrowed below into a short 
petiole, so thick and opaque as to exhibit scarcely a vestige 
of veining above, and in this respect very different from A . 
tinifolia , which has also much larger leaves. The flowers 
are showy and rather large, white with a purple tinge, and 
disposed in axillary and terminal panicles made up of 
racemes. The calyx is not more than one-third the length 
of the corolla, with 5 obtuse, imbricated, spotted leaflets 
with membranous margins. The segments of the corolla 
are ovate, obtuse, and reflected, with dark-brown, almost 
black, narrow longitudinal blotches. The anthers are large, 
flat, and cordate, not quite so long as the corolla. The 
style is subulate and acute. The branches of the panicle 
are of a ferruginous browrn colour and pulverulently pubes- 
cent. 
According to Sloane, the drupes of A. coriacea , (t. 200, 
fig. 2,) were eaten in Jamaica, and accounted a pleasant 
dessert. 
Plate CII. 
A branch of the natural size., a. The flower somewhat enlarged. 
