4. GUETTARDA Endl.
Small trees or shrubs, with bitter bark, opposite or rarely verticellate persistent leaves, interpetiolar deciduous stipules, and scaly buds. Flowers sessile or short-pedicellate, with or without bractlets, in axillary forked pedunculate cymes, their bracts and bractlets lanceolate, acute, minute, deciduous; calyx globose, the limb produced above the ovary into an elongated 4—7-lobed tube; corolla salver-shaped, with an elongated cylindric tube naked in the throat, and a 4-lobed limb, the oblong lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens included; filaments free, short; anthers oblong-linear; ovary 4-celled, the cells elongated, tubular; style stout; stigma capitate; ovule solitary, suspended on the thickened funicle from the inner angle of the cell. Fruit a fleshy 1-stoned 2—9-seeded subglobose drupe, with thin flesh, and a bony or ligneous globose 4—9-celled stone obtusely angled or sulcate, the cells narrow and often curved upward. Seed compressed, suspended on the thick funicle closing the orifice of the wall of the stone, straight or excurved; albumen thin and fleshy; embryo elongated, cylindric or compressed; cotyledons flat, minute, not longer than the elongated terete radicle turned toward the hilum.
Guettarda with about fifty species is chiefly tropical American, with one species widely distributed on maritime shores from east tropical Africa to Australia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Of the species found within the territory of the United States two are arborescent. The bark of some of the species is occasionally employed as a tonic and febrifuge, and a few species are cultivated in tropical gardens for the delightful fragrance of their white flowers.
The generic name is in honor of Jean Étienne Guettard (1715—1786), the distinguished French botanist and mineralogist.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
Leaves thin, pilose or glabrate above.1. [G. elliptica] (D). Leaves coriaceous, hispidulose-papillose and scabrate above.2. [G. scabra] (D).
1. [Guettarda elliptica] Sw.
Leaves broad-oval to oblong-elliptic, acute or obtuse and apiculate at apex, and cuneate or rounded at base, covered with pale silky hairs when they unfold, and at maturity thin, dark green, pilose or glabrate on the upper surface, lighter colored and pubescent on the lower surface, especially along the stout midrib and in the axils of the 4—6 pairs of primary veins, ¾′—2½′ long and ½′—1′ wide; unfolding in Florida in May and June and persistent on the branches until the trees begin their growth the following year; petioles stout, hairy, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers pedicellate, appearing in Florida in June, yellowish white, ¼′ long, in slender hairy-stemmed cymes from the axils of leaves of the year near the end of branches, or from bud-scales at base of young shoots, their peduncle shorter than the leaves, forked near the apex, often with a flower in the fork and 3 at the end of each branch, or the lateral flowers of these clusters replaced by branches producing 3 flowers at their apex, the bractlets subtending the branches of the peduncle, and the lateral flowers of the ultimate divisions of the inflorescence linear-lanceolate, acute, coated with hairs, about 1/16′ long, deciduous; calyx-lobes nearly triangular, acute, coated on the outer surface with long pale hairs, and half as long as the erect corolla canescent externally, with rounded lobes. Fruit ripening in November, dark purple, pilose, ⅓′ in diameter, crowned with the remnants of the persistent calyx-tube, the flesh sweet and mealy; stone obscurely ridged and usually 2—4-seeded; seeds oblong-lanceolate, compressed, nearly straight, with a thin pale coat.
A tree, in Florida occasionally 18°—20° high, with an irregularly buttressed or lobed trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, the deep depressions between the lobes continuous or often interrupted, small upright branches, and thin terete branchlets coated when they first appear with long pale or rufous hairs and light red-brown or ashy gray and conspicuously marked by pale lenticels, and in their second year by large elevated orbicular leaf-scars. Winter-buds acuminate, light brown, coated with pale pubescence, and about ⅛′ long. Bark of the trunk about 1/16′ thick, with a smooth dark brown surface covered with large irregularly shaped pale blotches and numerous small white spots. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thin sapwood of 6—10 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Florida, coast of the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands and in Jamaica.
2. [Guettarda scabra] Lam.
Leaves oval, oblong or ovate, acuminate or rounded and apiculate at apex, gradually narrowed or broad at the rounded or subcordate base, entire, coriaceous, dark green, hispidulose-papillose and scabrate on the upper surface, pale and soft-pubescent on the lower surface, 2′—5′ long and 1¼′—3¼′ wide, with thickened slightly revolute margins, a stout midrib, usually 8—11 pairs of prominent primary veins and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; petioles stout, rusty-pubescent, ⅓′—¾′ in length; stipules concave at base, gradually narrowed above into a long slender point, pubescent, as long as the petioles. Flowers produced irregularly during the winter and early spring, sessile or short-pedicellate in the axils of acute bracts, in pedunculate cymes on slender rusty-pubescent peduncles 1½′—2′ in length; calyx short-oblong, densely pubescent on the outer surface; corolla often 1′ in length, the slender tube retrorsely silky-villose on the outer surface, the lobes 5—7, usually 5, oblong-obtuse; filaments free, short; anthers oblong-linear, included, style shorter than the tube of the corolla; stigma capitate. Fruit ripening in the autumn, subglobose, pubescent, ¼′ in diameter, and crowned by the persistent tube of the calyx; flesh thin and dry; stone slightly angled thick-walled, 4—9-seeded.
A tree, in Florida sometimes 20°—25° high, with a tall trunk 2′—2½′ in diameter, small ascending branches forming an open irregular head, and stout or slender branchlets densely covered during their first season with rufous pubescence, and light reddish brown, slightly pubescent and marked by conspicuous leaf-scars in their second year; often a shrub.
Distribution. Florida, near Miami and on the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.