Trees and shrubs, with terete armed or unarmed branchlets. Leaves entire, subcoriaceous, often fascicled, short-petiolate. Flowers perfect, white, on slender pedicels, in short axillary cymes or rarely solitary; calyx small, 4-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, persistent; petals 4 or 5, hypogynous, narrow, bearded on their inner face, valvate in the bud, reflexed above the middle; stamens twice as many as the petals; filaments free, filiform; anthers linear, attached on the back near the base, 2-celled, the cells opening laterally, their connective apiculate at apex; ovary 4-celled below, only the apex 1-celled, externally 4-grooved, glandular at base, gradually narrowed into the slender style; stigma entire, subcapitate; ovules linear, solitary in each cell, pendulous from the apex of the axile placenta, anatropous; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit ovoid or globose; exocarp thick and succulent, endocarp crustaceous or subligneous; seed filling the cavity of the endocarp, pendulous, surrounded by a thin spongy coat; testa membranaceous; cotyledons elliptic; embryo minute, erect; raphe terete.
Ximenia with four or five species is widely distributed on tropical shores of the two worlds.
Ximenia commemorates the name of Francisco Ximenes, a Dominican priest who published in Mexico in 1615 a work on the plants and animals of that country.
1. [Ximenia americana] L.
Leaves oblong or elliptic, rounded and often emarginate and apiculate at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, glabrous, bright green and lustrous above, pale below, 1¼′—2½′ long, ⅗′—1¼′ wide, with slightly thickened revolute margins, a prominent midrib and obscure primary veins; petioles slender, narrow wing-margined at apex, ⅕′—⅖′ in length. Flowers bell-shaped, fragrant, about ¼′ long, on slender pedicels in the axils of minute acuminate caducous bractlets, in 3 or 4-flowered clusters on peduncles ⅕′—⅓′ long; calyx-lobes acute, petals elliptic and rounded or obtusely pointed at apex, yellowish white, leathery, conspicuously bearded on the inner surface from base nearly to apex. Fruit broad-ovoid to subglobose, bright yellow, with thin acid flesh, 1′—1¼′ long, on slender pedicels about ⅓′ in length, in usually 2 or 3-fruited drooping clusters; stone ovoid, apiculate at apex, covered with minute pits, light red; seed yellow, with bright orange-colored cotyledons.
A tree, occasionally 30° high, with a tall trunk 2½′—3½′ in diameter, spreading branches armed with stout straight spines usually ¾′—1′ in length, and slender branchlets slightly angled and light reddish brown when they first appear, becoming terete and light gray or red-brown and marked by numerous lenticels; more often a shrub with long vine-like stems. Bark close, dark red, astringent. Wood very heavy, tough, hard, close-grained, compact, brown tinged with red with lighter-colored sapwood. Hydrocyanic acid has been obtained from the fruit.
Distribution. Florida, near Eustis Lake, Lake County, to the southern keys, attaining its largest size on the west coast and on Long Key in the Everglades; common on the shores of the Antilles and southward to Brazil, and on those of west tropical Africa, the Indian peninsula, the islands of the Malay Archipelago, New Guinea, Australia, and on those of many of the islands of the south Pacific Ocean.
Section 3. Flowers perfect or unisexual; calyx 5-lobed; ovary superior, 1-celled; ovule solitary, rising from the bottom of the cell; fruit inclosed in the thickened calyx; leaves persistent.