CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT GENERA.
Leaves entire, persistent; stamens 12, those of the inner row reduced to staminodes. Calyx-lobes persistent under the fruit, in our species.1. [Persea.] Calyx-lobes deciduous. Flower cymose in axillary or subterminal panicles.2. [Ocotea.] Flowers in axillary many-flowered umbels inclosed before anthesis in an involucre of deciduous scales.3. [Umbellularia.] Leaves entire or lobed, deciduous; stamens 9 in the American species; flowers in few-flowered drooping racemes.4. [Sassafras.] Leaves entire, persistent; stamens 9, those of the outer row fertile and united in a column inclosing the pistil; flowers in terminal or axillary cymose panicles.5. [Misanteca.]
1. PERSEA Mill.
Trees, with naked buds. Leaves revolute in the bud, alternate, scattered, penniveined, subcoriaceous, rigid, tomentose or rarely glabrous, persistent. Flowers perfect, vernal, in short axillary or axillary and terminal panicles on slender peduncles from axils of the leaves of the year, pedicellate, their pedicels bibracteolate near the middle, the lateral flowers of the ultimate divisions of the inflorescence in the axils of small deciduous lanceolate acute bracts; calyx campanulate, divided nearly to the base into 6 lobes, those of the outer series shorter than the others, deciduous, or enlarged and persistent under the fruit; stamens about as long as the inner lobes of the calyx; filaments flattened, longer than the anthers, hirsute, those of the third series furnished near the base with 2 nearly sessile orange-colored glands rounded on the back and slightly 2-lobed on the inner face; anthers ovoid, flattened, erect, those of the outer series introrse or subintrorse, those of the third series extrorse or laterally dehiscent, the upper cells rather larger than the lower; staminodes large, sagittate, stipitate, 2-lobed on the inner face, beaded at apex; ovary sessile, subglobose, glabrous, narrowed into a slender simple style gradually enlarged at apex into a discoid obscurely 2-lobed stigma. Fruit ripening in the autumn, oblong-obovoid to subglobose, more or less fleshy. Seed globose, pendulous, without albumen; testa thin and membranaceous, separable into 2 coats, the outer cartilaginous, grayish brown, the inner gray or nearly white, closely adherent to the thick dark red cotyledons.
About one hundred species of Persea are distinguished. They are distributed in the New World, from the coast region of the southeastern United States and Texas to Brazil and Chile, and occur in the Canary Islands and in tropical and subtropical Asia. Persea americana Mill., the Avocado or Alligator Pear, a native of the Antilles and cultivated for its edible fruit in all tropical countries, is now sparingly naturalized in southern Florida. Many species yield hard dark-colored handsome wood valued in cabinet-making.
Persea was the classical name of a tree of the Orient, transferred by Plumier to one of the tropical species of this genus.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Calyx persistent under the fruit (Tamala Raf. Persea, sec. Eupersea Benth. Notaphoebe sec. Eriodaphne Meisn.) Peduncles short; leaves oblong to oblong-lanceolate, obscurely veined, glabrous; branchlets puberulous.1. [P. Borbonia] (C). Peduncles elongated; leaves elliptic to lanceolate, conspicuously veined, tomentose on the lower surface; branchlets tomentose.2. [P. palustris] (C).
1. [Persea Borbonia] Spreng. Red Bay.
