Ardisia with about two hundred species inhabits tropical and subtropical regions of the two hemispheres. The genus has few useful properties, but a number of species are cultivated for the beauty of their handsome evergreen foliage and bright-colored fruits.
The generic name is from ἀρδις, in reference to the pointed anthers.
1. [Ardisia paniculata] Nutt. Marlberry. Cherry.
Icacorea paniculata Sudw.
Leaves ovate to oblong-lanceolate or lanceolate-obovate, acute or rounded at the narrow apex, cuneate and gradually contracted at base, entire, with thickened and slightly revolute margins, thick and coriaceous, glabrous, marked by minute scattered dark dots, dark yellow-green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 3′—6′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with a broad midrib yellow and conspicuous on the under side, slender primary veins and reticulate veinlets; appearing in the summer or early autumn and falling before the appearance of the flowers the following year; petioles stout, grooved, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers fragrant, usually opening in November or occasionally as early as July, ¼′ in diameter, on slender elongated pedicels without bractlets, from the axils of linear acute caducous bracts, in terminal rusty brown puberulous panicles 3′—4′ long and broad, their lower branches often from the axils of upper leaves; calyx ovoid, divided nearly to the base into 5 ovate acute lobes scarious and ciliate on the margins and marked on the back with dark lines; corolla 5-parted, with oblong rounded divisions sinistrorsely overlapping, or with 1 lobe wholly outside and 1 inside in the bud, conspicuously marked with red spots on the inner surface near the base, becoming reflexed; stamens, with short broad filaments, contracted by a geniculate fold in the middle, and large orange-colored anthers longer than the filaments, their cells opening almost to the base; ovary globose, glandular, gradually contracted into a long slender style ending in a simple stigma. Fruit ripening in early spring, globose, ¼′ in diameter, tipped with the remnants of the style, and roughened by resinous glands, dark brown at first when fully grown, ultimately becoming black and lustrous; stone brown, thin-walled, crustaceous; seed conspicuously lobed at base, bright red-brown, about ⅛′ in diameter.
A slender tree, in Florida rarely more than 20° high, with a short trunk 4′—5′ in diameter, numerous thin upright branches forming a narrow head, and stout terete often contorted branchlets, rusty brown or dark orange-colored and slightly puberulous when they first appear, becoming in their second year dark brown or ashy gray, and marked by many minute circular lenticels and by thin nearly orbicular flat leaf-scars displaying in the centre a group of fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds rusty brown; terminal slender, acuminate, ⅛′—¼′ long; axillary globose, minute, nearly immersed in the bark. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, light gray or nearly white, roughened by minute lenticels, and separating into large thin papery plates. Wood heavy, hard, very close-grained, rich brown beautifully marked by darker medullary rays, with thick lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Florida, from Mosquito Inlet to the southern keys on the east coast, and from the shores of the Caloosahatchee River to Cape Romano on the west coast; usually a shrub, occasionally arborescent on the shores of Bay Biscayne and on some of the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands, in Cuba, and southern Mexico.
2. RAPANEA Aubl.
Trees or shrubs, with watery juices and terete branchlets. Leaves alternate, entire or rarely dentate, usually distinctly lepidote, persistent, without stipules. Flowers perfect or unisexual by abortion, minute, 4 or 5, or rarely 6 or 7-merous, sessile or pedicellate, in small axillary sessile or pedunculate fascicles, their bracts deciduous; calyx free, persistent, the sepals imbricate-valvate in the bud, ciliate, usually glandular-punctate; corolla hypogynous, the lobes more or less connate at base, ovate or elliptic, spreading or recurved, glandular-punctate, papillate on the margins, imbricate or rarely convolute in the bud; stamens inserted on the base of the corolla opposite its lobes; filaments 0; anthers short, connate to the corolla, acuminate and papillate at apex, introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary globose or ellipsoidal, 1-celled; stigma capitate, irregularly lobed; ovules few, peltate, immersed in one series near the middle of the free fleshy globose placenta. Fruit dry or fleshy, seed filling the cavity of the fruit, globose, intruded at base; testa thin; albumen copious, corneous, rarely slightly ruminate; embryo cylindric, elongated, transverse, usually curved; cotyledons small, radicle elongated.