CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Fruit drupaceous. Nutlets usually 1-celled and 1-seeded; stamens as many or twice as many as the calyx-lobes, free.1. [Drypetes.] Nutlets 6—8-celled and 6—8-seeded; stamens 2 or 3, united into a column.2. [Hippomane.] Fruit a 3-lobed capsule splitting into three 2-valved 1-seeded carpels.
1. DRYPETES Vahl.
Trees or shrubs, with thick juice, and terete branchlets. Leaves involute in the bud, petiolate, penniveined, coriaceous, persistent; stipules minute, caducous. Flowers axillary, sessile or pedicellate, their pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, ebracteolate, the males in many-flowered clusters, the females solitary or in few-flowered clusters; calyx divided nearly to the base into 4 or 5 lobes rounded or acute at apex, deciduous or persistent under the fruit; stamens inserted under the margin of a flat or concave slightly lobed disk, 0 in the pistillate flower; filaments filiform; anthers ovoid, emarginate, attached on the back near the base, extrorse or introrse, 2-celled, the cells affixed to a broad oblong connective; ovary sessile, ovoid, 1 or rarely 2-celled, with 1 or 2 sessile or subsessile peltate or reniform stigmas, rudimentary or wanting in the staminate flower; ovules collateral, descending, attached to the central angle of the cell, operculate, with a hood-like body developed from the placenta. Fruit drupaceous, ovoid or subglobose, tipped with the withered remnants of the stigmas; flesh thick and corky or thin and crustaceous; stone thick or thin, bony or crustaceous, 1-celled and 1-seeded, or rarely 2-celled and 2-seeded. Seed filling the cavity of the nut; seed-coat crustaceous or membranaceous; embryo erect in thin fleshy albumen.
Drypetes is confined to the tropical regions of the New World, and is distributed from southern Florida through the West Indies to eastern Brazil. Of the eleven species now distinguished, two inhabit the coast-region of southern Florida.
The generic name, from δρύππα, relates to the character of the fruit.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Calyx 5-lobed; stamens 8; ovary 1-celled; fruit oblong, ivory-white; outer coat thick and mealy; stone thick-walled.1. [D. diversifolia] (D). Calyx 4-lobed; stamens 4; ovary 2-celled; fruit subglobose, bright red; outer coat thin, crustaceous; stone thin-walled.2. [D. lateriflora] (D).
1. [Drypetes diversifolia] Krug & Urb. White Wood.
Drypetes keyensis Krug & Urb.