Cyrilla is represented by a single species of the coast region of the south Atlantic and Gulf states and of the Antilles and eastern tropical South America.
The name commemorates the scientific labors of Dominico Cirillo (1734—1799), the distinguished Italian naturalist and patriot.
1. [Cyrilla racemiflora] L. Ironwood. Leather Wood.
Leaves 2′—3′ long and ¼′—1′ wide, with a stout petiole ⅛′—1′ in length; turning late in the autumn and early winter to brilliant shades of orange and scarlet and then deciduous, or southward persistent with little change of color until the beginning of the following summer. Flowers appearing late in June or early in July, in racemes usually 6—10 together and 4′—6′ long, at first erect, becoming pendulous before the fruit ripens. Fruit ripening in August and September, rarely more than 1/16′ long; seeds light brown.
A slender tree, occasionally 30°—35° high, with a stout often eccentric trunk 10′—14′ in diameter, dividing several feet above the ground into numerous wide-spreading branches, and slender branchlets bright brown during their first season and ultimately ashy gray; often a broad bush sending up many slender stems 15°—20° high. Winter-buds about ⅛′ long. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ½′ thick except near the base of old trees, and covered by large thin bright red-brown scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, not strong, brown tinged with red, with rather lighter colored sapwood. The spongy bark at the base of the trunk is pliable, absorbent, and astringent, and has been recommended as a styptic.
Distribution. Rich shaded river-bottoms, the borders of sandy swamps and shallow ponds of the coast Pine-belt, or on high sandy exposed ridges rising above streams near the Gulf coast; southeastern Virginia southward near the coast to northern Florida and westward along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Neches River, Texas; in Lake County, Florida, and ranging northward in Mississippi to Forrest County (near Hattiesburg, T. G. Harbison), and in Alabama to Dallas County; in swamps near the coast of western Florida often a low shrub with smaller leaves and shorter racemes (var. parviflora Sarg.); in Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico, Demarara, and Brazil (var. racemifera Sarg.).
2. CLIFTONIA Gærtn. f.
A glabrous tree or shrub, with thick dark brown scaly bark, slender terete branchlets marked by conspicuous leaf-scars, and small acuminate buds covered by chestnut-brown scales. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, rounded or slightly emarginate at apex, glandular-punctate, short-petiolate, persistent. Flowers on pedicels from the axils of large acuminate membranaceous alternate bracts deciduous before the opening of the flowers, in short terminal erect racemes; calyx 5—8-lobed, equal or unequal, broad-ovoid, rounded or acuminate at apex, much shorter than the 5—8 obovate unguiculate concave white or rose-colored sepals; stamens 10, opposite and alternate with the sepals, inserted with and shorter than the petals, 2-ranked, those of the outer rank longer than the others; filaments laterally enlarged near the middle, flattened below, subulate above; disk cup-shaped, surrounding the base of the oblong 2—4-winged 2—4-celled ovary; stigma subsessile, obscurely 2—4-lobed; ovules 2 in each cell, suspended from its apex. Fruit oblong, 2—4-winged, crowned with the remnants of the persistent style, 3 or rarely 4-celled; pericarp spongy, the wings thin and membranaceous. Seed 1 in each cell, terete, tapering to the ends, suspended; cotyledons very short.
Cliftonia is represented by a single species of the south Atlantic and Gulf states.