Leaves ovate or obovate, acute or rounded and occasionally emarginate at apex, cuneate at base, chartaceous when they unfold, becoming subcoriaceous, glabrous, covered with minute black dots, 1′—1¼′ long and ½′—⅔′ wide, with a stout midrib; petioles stout, enlarged at base, coated at first with silky hairs, finally glabrous. Flowers appearing in Florida in May, ¼′ in diameter, in cymes produced near the end of the branches, in the axils of leaves of the year, on slender peduncles coated with pale silky hairs, sometimes 1-flowered and not longer than the leaves, more often longer than the leaves, dichotomously branched and 3-flowered, with 1 flower at the end of the principal division in the fork of its branches, or occasionally 5—7-flowered by the development of peduncles from the axils of the bracts of the secondary divisions of the inflorescence, each branch of the inflorescence furnished immediately beneath the flower with 2 lanceolate acute bractlets nearly as long as the calyx-tube; calyx hoary-tomentose, the lobes ovate, rounded at apex and much shorter than the ovate acute glandular-punctate white petals. Fruit ripening in Florida in August, reddish brown, ¼′ long, obliquely oblong, obovate or subglobose, roughened by minute glands; flesh thin, rather dry and aromatic; seeds reniform, light brown, exceedingly fragrant.
A tree, 20°—25° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, and slender terete branchlets light red and coated with pale silky hairs when they first appear, becoming glabrous in their second year and covered with light or dark brown bark separating into small thin scales; or often a shrub, with numerous slender stems. Bark of the trunk 1/16′—⅛′ thick, with a smooth light red or red-brown surface separating into minute thin scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, light brown or red, with thick yellow sapwood of 40—50 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Florida, rocky woods, Mosquito Inlet to Cape Canaveral on the east coast, and from the banks of the Caloosahatchee River to the shores of Cape Romano on the west coast, on Key West, and in the neighborhood of Bay Biscayne, Dade County; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.
6. [Eugenia Simpsonii] Sarg.
Anamomis Simpsonii Small.
Leaves oblong, rounded and abruptly short-pointed or occasionally emarginate at apex, cuneate at base, or broad-elliptic, silky pubescent and ciliate on the margins when they unfold, soon glabrous, and at maturity coriaceous, dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler and dull on the lower surface, 1½′—2′ long and ½′—1′ wide, with a prominent midrib impressed on the upper side and obscure spreading primary veins united before reaching the thickened revolute entire margins of the leaf; petioles covered at first with snowy white tomentum, soon glabrous, slender, ⅛′—¼′ in length. Flowers fragrant, about ½′ in diameter, sessile in lateral 3—15-flowered cymes on slender finely appressed-pubescent peduncles longer or shorter than the subtending leaves, their bractlets acuminate and ⅓′ long; calyx-tube short-obconic, thickly covered with silky white hairs, the lobes rounded at apex, green, punctate, two of them orbicular-reniform, the others orbicular-ovate, shorter than the white concave, obovate to suborbicular erose ciliate sparingly punctate petals. Fruit ellipsoid, red, mostly ⅓′—⅖′ long; seed reniform, usually solitary.
A tree, occasionally 60°—70° high, with a trunk 15′—16′ in diameter, small erect and spreading smooth gray-brown or reddish brown branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender branchlets covered when they first appear with snowy white tomentum, soon glabrous, and bright or dull reddish brown, and marked in their second year with the nearly orbicular elevated conspicuous scars of fallen leaves. Bark of the trunk thin, smooth, reddish, marked by pale blotches.
Distribution. Florida, Arch Creek Hummock north of Little River, and on Paradise and Long Keys in the Everglades, Dade County.