Rapanea, with nearly one hundred and fifty species, is widely distributed through the tropical and subtropical regions of the two hemispheres, one species reaching southern Florida.
The generic name is formed from the native name of Rapanea guianensis in British Guiana.
1. [Rapanea guianensis] Aubl.
Leaves crowded at the end of the branches, oblong-obovate, obtuse or retuse at apex, gradually narrowed and contracted at base, coriaceous, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, 2¾′—3½′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with thickened revolute margins, a thick midrib and obscure veins; petioles stout, narrowly wing-margined, ¼′—⅓′ in length. Flowers in November, minute, short-pedicellate in short pedunculate clusters usually 5, rarely 4-merous, white more or less marked with purple, about ⅙′ in diameter; calyx divided to the middle, the lobes broad-ovate, acute or rounded at apex, slightly ciliate, persistent under the fruit; corolla 2 or 3 times longer than the calyx, the lobes spreading, narrowed and rounded at apex, slightly ciliate on the margins; staminate flowers dimorphous; anthers sagittate-apiculate, inserted below the middle of the petals; ovary in one form crowned by a minute discoid sessile stigma and probably abortive, in the other form gradually narrowed into a slender style, terminating in an oblique stigma and fertile; pistillate flowers, anthers smaller and rudimentary; ovary crowned by a large nearly sessile irregularly lobed papillate stigma deciduous from the fruit. Fruit in clusters crowded on the elongated somewhat thickened spur-like peduncle of the flower-cluster covered with imbricated persistent bracts, dark blue or nearly black, tipped with the persistent style, ⅙′—⅕′ in diameter; exocarp thin and fleshy; endocarp crustaceous, white.
A tree, in Florida occasionally 18°—20° high, with a tall usually more or less crooked trunk 2′—3′ in diameter, small ascending branches forming an open irregular head, and slender gray or light red-brown branchlets roughened for a year or two by the persistent spur-like peduncles of the fallen fruit and later marked by circular scars in the axils of the small transverse leaf-scars; more often a shrub. Bark of the trunk thin, close, pale gray.
Distribution. Florida, shores of Indian River on the east coast and Palmetto, Manatee County, on the west coast, southward to the southern keys; common; on the Bahama Islands, Cuba, Porto Rico, Jamaica and Trinidad, to southern Brazil, and to Mexico and Bolivia.
LVI. SAPOTACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with milky juice. Leaves alternate, simple, entire, pinnately veined, mostly coriaceous, petiolate, without stipules. Flowers perfect, regular, small, in axillary clusters; calyx of 5-8 sepals imbricated in the bud, persistent under the fruit; corolla hypogynous, 5—8-cleft, the divisions imbricated in the bud, often with as many or twice as many internal appendages borne on its throat; disk 0; fertile stamens as many as and opposite the divisions of the corolla and inserted on its short tube, often with sterile filaments (staminodia) alternate with them; anthers generally extrorse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistil of united carpels; ovary sessile, usually 5-celled; style simple; ovules solitary in each cell, attached to an axile placenta, ascending, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle inferior. Fruit baccate, bearing at apex the remnant of the style, usually 1-celled and 1-seeded. Seed with or without albumen; embryo large; radicle terete, inferior.
This family with fifty genera is chiefly tropical and subtropical, with only Bumelia extending in North America into temperate regions. Some of the species produce valuable timber or edible and agreeable fruits. From Palaquium gutta Burkh., of the Malay Peninsula, gutta-percha is obtained. Five genera are represented by trees in the flora of the United States.