2. OCOTEA Aubl.
Leaves scattered, alternate or rarely subopposite, penniveined, coriaceous, rigid, glabrous or more or less covered with pubescence. Flowers glabrous or tomentose on slender bibracteolate pedicels from the axils of lanceolate acute minute bracts, in cymose clusters in axillary or subterminal stalked panicles; calyx-tube campanulate, the 6 lobes of the limb nearly equal, deciduous; stamens of the inner series reduced to linear staminodes, with minute abortive anthers; filaments inserted on the tube of the calyx, those of the outer series opposite its exterior lobes, shorter or sometimes rather longer than the anthers, glabrous or hirsute, furnished in the third series near the base with two conspicuous globose stalked yellow glands; anthers oblong, flattened, 4-celled, introrse in the 2 outer series, extrorse, subextrorse, or very rarely introrse in the third series, in the pistillate flower rudimentary and sterile; ovary ovoid, glabrous, more or less immersed in the tube of the calyx, gradually narrowed into a short erect style dilated at apex into a capitate obscurely lobed stigma; in the staminate flower linear-lanceolate, effete or minute, sometimes 0; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit nearly inclosed while young in the thickened tube of the calyx, exserted at maturity, surrounded at base by the cup-like truncate or slightly lobed calyx-tube; pericarp thin and fleshy. Seed ovoid, pendulous; testa thin, membranaceous.
Ocotea with nearly two hundred species is confined principally to the tropical region of the New World from southern Florida to Brazil and Peru, with Old World representatives in the Canary Islands, South Africa, and the Mascarene Islands. One species grows naturally in Florida.
Ocotea produces hard, strong, durable, beautifully colored wood often employed in cabinet-making.
The name is derived from the native name of one of the species of Guiana.
1. [Ocotea Catesbyana] Sarg.
Leaves oblong-lanceolate, entire, slightly contracted above into a long point rounded at apex, when they unfold thin, membranaceous, light green tinged with red, and sometimes puberulous on the lower surface, at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 3′—6′ long, 1′—2′ wide, with thickened slightly revolute margins, a broad stout midrib, slender remote primary veins arcuate and united near the margins and connected by coarsely reticulate conspicuous veinlets; petioles broad, flat, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers perfect, appearing in early summer in elongated panicles, their peduncles slender, glabrous, light red, solitary or 2 or 3 together from the axils of the leaves of the year or from those of the previous year, and 3′—4′ long; calyx nearly ¼′ across when expanded, puberulous on the outer surface, hoary pubescent on the inner surface and on the margins of the lobes, about twice as long as the stamens; filaments of the 2 outer series slightly hirsute at the base and shorter than their introrse anthers; filaments of the third series as long or longer than their extrorse anthers. Fruit ripening in the autumn, ovoid or subglobose, ⅔′ long, lustrous, dark blue or nearly black, the thickened cup-like tube of the calyx truncate or obscurely lobed and bright red like the thickened pedicels; flesh thin and dry; seed with a thin brittle red-brown coat, the inner layer lustrous on the inner surface and marked by broad light-colored veins radiating from the small hilum; embryo ⅓′ long, light red-brown.
A tree, 20°—30° high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 18′ in diameter, slender spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and thin terete branchlets glabrous and dark reddish brown when they first appear, soon becoming lighter colored, and in their second year light brown or gray tinged with red and often marked by minute pale lenticels, and in their second or third year by small semiorbicular leaf-scars, displaying a single central fibro-vascular bundle-scar. Bark about ⅛′ thick, dark reddish brown, and roughened on the otherwise smooth surface by numerous small excrescences. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, rich dark brown, with thick bright yellow sapwood of 20—30 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Shores and islands of Florida south of Cape Canaveral on the east coast and of Cape Romano on the west coast; comparatively common except on some of the western keys, and most abundant and of its largest size in the rich wooded hummocks adjacent to Bay Biscayne; in the Bahamas.