Leaves simple or very rarely 3-foliolate, persistent, acute or rounded at apex, with thickened revolute, or spinosely toothed margins (var. serrata Engler), puberulous when young, and at maturity 1½′—3′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, thick and coriaceous, dark yellow-green above, paler below, and glabrous with the exception of the stout petiole, broad thick midrib, and prominent reticulate veins. Flowers appearing from February to April, ¼′ in diameter when expanded, on short stout pedicels, with 2—4 broad-ovate pointed persistent scarious ciliate pubescent bractlets, in short dense racemes forming hoary-pubescent terminal panicles 1′—3′ in length; sepals rose-colored, orbicular, concave, ciliate on the margins, rather less than half the length of the rounded ciliate reflexed rose-colored petals; stamens as long as the petals, with slender filaments and pale anthers, minute and rudimentary in the pistillate flower; ovary broad-ovoid, pubescent, with 3 short thick connate styles and very large 3-lobed capitate stigmas, rudimentary in the staminate flower. Fruit ½′ long, ovoid, flattened, more or less gibbous, thick, dark red, densely pubescent; stone kidney-shaped, smooth, light chestnut-brown, with thick walls; seed flattened, pale, with a broad dark-colored funicle covering its side.
A tree, rarely 30° high, with a short stout trunk 2°—3° in diameter, numerous spreading branches, and stout branchlets covered when they first appear with thick pale pubescence disappearing in their second and third years, and bright reddish brown and marked by numerous small elevated lenticels; or usually a small often almost prostrate shrub. Winter-buds small, obtuse, covered with a thick coat of pale tomentum. Bark of the trunk ¼′—½′ thick, bright reddish brown, exfoliating in large plate-like scales. Wood hard, heavy, bright clear red, with thin pale sapwood of 8—10 layers of annual growth; valued and largely used as fuel. The fruit is occasionally employed in the preparation of a cooling beverage.
Distribution. Sandy sterile soil along sea beaches, and bluffs in the immediate vicinity of the ocean; neighborhood of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, California, to the shores of Magdalena Bay, Lower California, and on the Santa Barbara and Cedros islands; on the mainland usually shrubby, forming close impenetrable thickets; in more sheltered situations and on the islands becoming arborescent; probably of its largest size on the shores of Todos Santos Bay, Lower California.
XXXII. CYRILLACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with small scaly buds and watery juice. Leaves alternate, entire, subcoriaceous, without stipules, persistent or tardily deciduous. Flowers small, regular, perfect, on slender bibracteolate pedicels, in terminal or axillary racemes; calyx 5—8-lobed, persistent, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 5—8, hypogynous; stamens 5—10, hypogynous, those opposite the petals shorter than the others; anthers oblong, introrse, 2-celled, the cells laterally dehiscent, opening longitudinally; ovary 2—4-celled; ovules suspended, anatropous; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit an indehiscent capsule. Seed suspended; seed-coat membranaceous; albumen fleshy, radicle superior.
A family confined to the warmer parts of America, with three genera, of which two are represented by small trees in the southern states.
CONSPECTUS OF THE GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Flowers in axillary racemes; calyx 5-lobed; petals 5 contorted in the bud; fruit without wings, 2-celled, with 2 seeds in each cell.1. [Cyrilla.] Flowers in terminal racemes; calyx 5—8-lobed; petals 5—8 imbricated in the bud; fruit with 2—4 wings, 3 or rarely 4-celled, with 1 seed in each cell.2. [Cliftonia.]
1. CYRILLA L.
A glabrous tree or shrub, with spongy bark, slender terete branchlets conspicuously marked by large leaf-scars, and narrow acute winter-buds covered with chestnut-brown scales. Leaves usually clustered near the end of the branches, oblong or oblong-obovate, pointed, rounded, or slightly emarginate at apex, conspicuously reticulate-veined, short-petiolate. Flowers on pedicels from the axils of narrow alternate persistent bracts, in slender racemes from the axils of fallen leaves or of small deciduous bracts near the end of the branches of the previous year; calyx minute, divided nearly to the base into 5 ovate-lanceolate acute coriaceous lobes; petals 5, contorted in the bud, white or rose color, inserted on an annular disk, three or four times longer than the calyx-lobes, oblong-lanceolate, acute, concave, subcoriaceous, furnished below the middle on the inner surface with a broad glandular nectary; stamens 5, opposite the divisions of the calyx, inserted with and shorter than the petals; filaments subulate, fleshy; anther-cells united above the point of attachment, free below; ovary ovoid, free, sessile, pointed, 2-celled; styles short, thick; stigma 2-lobed, with spreading lobes; ovules 3 in each cell, suspended from an elongated placental process developed from the apex of the cell. Fruit 2-celled, broad-ovoid, crowned with the remnants of the persistent style; pericarp spongy. Seeds 2 in each cell, elongated, acuminate; embryo minute, cylindric, 2-lobed.