5. MIMUSOPS L.
Trees or rarely shrubs, with stout terete branchlets, small naked buds, and sweet juice. Leaves usually clustered at the end of the branches, with slender inconspicuous transverse veins and minute reticulate veinlets, persistent. Flowers on clavate pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts; calyx 6—8-parted, the divisions in 2 series, those of the exterior series almost valvate in the bud; corolla white, barely longer than the calyx, subrotate, usually dilated at the throat, 6—8-lobed, the lobes furnished at base with a pair of petal-like appendages; stamens as many as the lobes of the corolla; filaments short, dilated; anthers lanceolate, their connectives excurrent, acute, or sometimes aristate at apex; staminodia as many as the lobes of the corolla, scale-like or petaloid, entire, 2-lobed or laciniate; ovary ovoid, hirsute or puberulous, gradually narrowed into a slender style stigmatic at apex. Fruit globose, 1 or 2-seeded, tipped with the much thickened elongated style; skin crustaceous, indurate; flesh thick and dry. Seed oblong-ovoid, slightly compressed; seed-coat crustaceous, chestnut-brown and lustrous; hilum elongated, lateral or minute, basilar; embryo surrounded by thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons flat, thick and fleshy, much longer than the short erect radicle.
Mimusops with thirty or forty species is widely distributed through the tropics of the two hemispheres, a single species reaching the shores of southern Florida. Several species produce hard heavy timber, edible fruits, or valuable milky juices.
The significance of the generic name, from μιμώ and ὄψις in allusion to the shape of the corolla, is not apparent.
1. [Mimusops emarginata] Britt. Wild Dilly.
Mimusops Sieberi Chap., not A. DC.
Leaves clustered at the end of the branches, involute in the bud oblong-elliptic, or occasionally slightly obovate, rounded or retuse at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, with slightly thickened revolute margins, bright red when they unfold, and slightly puberulous on the under surface of the midrib, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, bright green and lustrous, covered on the upper surface with a slight glaucous bloom, conspicuously reticulate-venulose, 3′—4′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with a stout midrib glabrous, or puberulous with rusty hairs below, and deeply impressed above; appearing in Florida in April and May and deciduous during their second year; petioles slender, grooved, rusty-pubescent, especially while young, ½′—1′ in length. Flowers opening in the spring on slender pedicels near the end of the branches, coated with rusty tomentum and 1′ or more long, from the axils of leaves of the year or from those of fallen leaves of the previous year; calyx narrow-ovoid, divided nearly to the base into 6 lobes, those of the outer row lanceolate, acute, covered on the outer surface with rusty brown tomentum and on the inner surface with pale pubescence, thickened and usually marked at the base on the outer surface by black spots, those of the inner row ovate, acute, keeled toward the base, light greenish yellow and pale-pubescent; corolla light yellow tinged with green, ⅔′ in diameter, with 6 spreading lanceolate acute divisions entire or erosely toothed toward the apex, their appendage slender, acute and from one half to two thirds their length; staminodia minute, nearly triangular, entire; ovary narrow-ovoid, dark red, puberulous toward the base with pale hairs, and gradually narrowed into an elongated exserted style stigmatic at apex. Fruit ripening at the end of a year, in the spring or in early autumn, on a stout erect stem about 1′ long, and persistent until after the tree flowers the following year, subglobose to slightly obovoid, flattened and compressed at apex, 1′—1½′ in diameter, usually 1-seeded by abortion, with a thick dry outer coat roughened by minute rusty brown scales, and thick spongy flesh filled with milky juice; seed ½′ long, with an elongated lateral hilum.
A tree, in Florida rarely more than 30° high, with a short gnarled trunk 12′—15′ in diameter and usually hollow and defective, thick branches forming a compact round head, and stout branchlets clustered at the end of the branches of the previous year, coated when they first appear with dark rufous pubescence, becoming glabrous and light orange-brown at the end of a few weeks, and in their second year covered with thick ashy gray or light red-brown scaly bark and marked by elevated obcordate leaf-scars displaying 3 large dark conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, rusty-tomentose. Bark of the trunk about ¼′ thick and irregularly divided by deep fissures into ridges rounded on the back and broken into small nearly square plates. Wood very heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, rich very dark brown, with light-colored sapwood.
Distribution. Florida, only on the southern keys; not common; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba.