3. METOPIUM P. Br.
Trees or shrubs, with naked buds, fleshy roots, and milky exceedingly caustic juice. Leaves unequally pinnate, persistent; leaflets coriaceous, lustrous, long-petiolulate. Flowers diœcious, yellow-green, on short stout pedicels, in narrow erect axillary clusters at the ends of the branches, with minute acute deciduous bracts and bractlets, the males and females on different trees; calyx-lobes semiorbicular, about half as long as the ovate obtuse petals; stamens 5, inserted under the margin of the disk; filaments shorter than the anthers, minute and rudimentary in the pistillate flower; ovary ovoid, sessile, minute in the staminate flower; style terminal, short, undivided; stigma 3-lobed. Fruit ovoid, compressed, smooth and glabrous, crowned with the remnants of the style; outer coat thick and resinous; stone crustaceous. Seed nearly quadrangular, compressed; seed-coat smooth, dark brown and opaque, the broad funicle covering its margin.
Metopium with two species is confined to southern Florida and the West Indies.
The generic name, from ὄπος, was the classical name of an African tree now unknown.
1. [Metopium toxiferum] Kr. & Urb. Poison Wood. Hog Gum.
Metopium Metopium Small.
Leaves clustered near the end of the branches, 9′—10′ long, with stout petioles swollen and enlarged at base, and 5—7 leaflets, or often 3-foliolate; unfolding in March and persistent until the following spring; leaflets ovate, rounded or usually contracted toward the acute or sometimes slightly emarginate apex, rounded or sometimes cordate or cuneate at base, 3′—4′ long, 2′—3′ broad, with thickened slightly revolute margins, a prominent midrib, primary veins spreading at right angles, and numerous reticulate veinlets; petiolules stout, ½′—1′ long, that of the terminal leaflet often twice as long as the others. Flowers about ⅛′ in diameter, in clusters as long or rather longer than the leaves; petals yellow-green, marked on the inner surface by dark longitudinal lines; stamens rather shorter than the petals. Fruit ripening in November and December, pendent in long graceful clusters, orange-colored, rather lustrous, ¾′ in length; seed about ¼′ long.
A tree, frequently 35°—40° high, with a short trunk sometimes 2° in diameter, stout spreading often pendulous branches forming a low broad head, and reddish brown branchlets marked by prominent leaf-scars and numerous orange-colored lenticels. Winter-buds ⅓′—½′ in length, with acuminate scales ciliate on the margin with rufous hairs. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, light reddish brown tinged with orange, often marked by dark spots caused by the exuding of the resinous gum, and separating into large thin plate-like scales displaying the bright orange color of the inner bark. Wood heavy, hard, not strong, rich dark brown streaked with red, with thick light brown or yellow sapwood of 25—30 layers of annual growth. The resinous gum obtained from incisions made in the bark is emetic, purgative, and diuretic.
Distribution. Florida, shores of Bay Biscayne, on the Everglade Keys, and on Coot Bay in the rear of Cape Sable, Dade County, and on the southern keys; very abundant; in the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, and Honduras.