1. CAPPARIS L.
Trees, with naked buds. Leaves conduplicate in the bud, entire, feather-veined, coriaceous, persistent, without stipules. Flowers regular, in terminal cymes; sepals 4, valvate in the bud, glandular on the inner surface; petals 4, inserted on the base of the short receptacle; stamens numerous, inserted on the receptacle, their filaments free, elongated, much longer than the introrse 2-celled anthers opening longitudinally; ovary long-stalked, 2-celled, with 2 parietal placentas; stigmas sessile, orbicular; ovules campylotropous. Fruit baccate, siliquiform (in the North American species) separating into 3 or 4 valves. Seeds reniform, numerous, surrounded by pulp; seed-coat coriaceous; embryo convolute; cotyledons foliaceous, fleshy.
Capparis, with more than one hundred species, mostly tropical, is found in the two hemispheres, the largest number of species occurring in Central and South America. Two of the West Indian species reach the shores of southern Florida, the most northern station of the genus in America; of these one is arborescent.
Capparis, from κάππαρις, the classical name of Capparis spinosa L., is derived from the Persian kabor, capers, the dried flower-buds of that species.
1. [Capparis jamaicensis] Jacq.
Leaves oblong-lanceolate, rounded and emarginate at apex, slightly revolute, coriaceous, light yellow-green, smooth and lustrous on the upper surface, covered on the lower by minute ferrugineous scales, 2′—3′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, with a prominent midrib and inconspicuous primary veins; petioles stout covered at first with ferrugineous scales often becoming nearly glabrous, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers 1¼′ in diameter, opening in Florida in April and May from obtuse or acute, 4-angled buds; sepals ovate, acute, lepidote on the outer surface, furnished on the inner with a small ovate gland, recurved when the flower is fully expanded, and about half the size of the round white petals turning purple in fading; stamens 20—30, with purple filaments villose toward the base, 1½′—2′ long; anthers yellow; ovary raised on a slender stipe about 1½′ in length. Fruit 9′—12′ long, terete, sometimes slightly torulose, pubescent-lepidote, the long stalk appearing jointed by the enlargement of the pedicel and torus below the insertion of the stipe; seed light brown, 1¼′ long.
A small slender shrubby tree, 18°—20° high, with a trunk sometimes 5′—6′ in diameter, and thin angled branchlets dark gray, smooth or slightly rugose, and covered with minute ferrugineous scales. Bark rarely more than ⅛′ thick, slightly fissured, the dark red-brown surface broken into small irregularly shaped divisions. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, yellow faintly tinged with red, with lighter colored sapwood of about 15 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Coast of Florida; Cape Canaveral and Cape Sable to the southern keys; generally distributed, but nowhere abundant; common on several of the Antilles.