CONSPECTUS OF THE GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Calyx of 5 sepals in a single series. Staminodia 1 in each sinus of the corolla. Appendages of the corolla 0; staminodia slender, scale-like.1. [Sideroxylum.] Appendages of the corolla present; staminodia petaloid. Staminodia linear, fimbriate; seeds, with copious albumen.2. [Dipholis.] Staminodia petaloid, entire or denticulate; seeds, without albumen.3. [Bumelia.] Staminodia and appendages of the corolla 0; leaves covered below with lustrous copper-colored or golden pubescence.4. [Chrysophyllum.] Calyx of 6—8 sepals in 2 series; corolla 6—8-lobed, with 2 appendages in each sinus inside of a scale-like or petaloid staminodia.5. [Mimusops.]
1. SIDEROXYLUM L.
Trees, with terete branchlets, naked buds, and long-petiolate persistent leaves, the veins remote and connected by reticulate veinlets. Flowers minute, on ebracteolate pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, in crowded many-flowered axillary fascicles; calyx 5-parted, the divisions in one series, nearly equal, corolla furnished with 5 or 6 staminodia, and 5 or rarely 6-lobed; filaments slender, elongated, bent outward at the apex; anthers oblong, the cells at first extrorse, sometimes becoming sublateral; staminodia linear, scale-like; ovary contracted into a subulate style tipped with a minute slightly 5-lobed stigma. Fruit dry, 1-seeded, oblong, with thin coriaceous flesh. Seed obovoid or oblong; seed-coat lustrous, light brown, folded on the inner face into 2 obscure lobes rounded at apex; hilum elevated, subbasilar or lateral, oblong or linear; embryo erect in thick fleshy albumen; radicle much shorter than the oblong fleshy cotyledons.
Sideroxylum with a hundred species is widely distributed through the tropics of the two hemispheres, and occurs also with a few species in Australia, Madeira, southern Africa, New Zealand, and Norfolk Island, a single species reaching the shores of southern Florida. Some of the species are large and valuable timber-trees, producing hard handsome durable wood.
The generic name, from σίδηρος and ξύλον, is in reference to the hardness of the wood.
1. [Sideroxylum fœtidissimum] Jacq. Mastic.
Sideroxylum Mastichodendron Jacq.
Leaves mostly clustered near the end of the branches, appearing irregularly from early spring until autumn, oval, acute or rounded and slightly emarginate at apex, and gradually narrowed at base, with thickened cartilaginous slightly involute margins, silky-canescent beneath when they unfold, and at maturity thin and firm, glabrous, bright green and lustrous above, lustrous and yellow-green below, 3′—5′ long and 1½′—2′ wide, with a broad pale conspicuous midrib deeply impressed on the upper side and inconspicuous primary veins arcuate near the margins; petioles slender, 1′—1½′ in length. Flowers usually appearing in Florida in the autumn and also in early spring and during the summer on stout orange-colored puberulous pedicels from the axils of minute acute scarious bracts usually deciduous before the opening of the flower-buds, from the axils of young leaves or on the branches of the previous year from leafless nodes; calyx yellow-green, puberulous on the outer surface and deeply divided into broad-ovate rounded lobes rather shorter than the oblong-ovate rounded divisions of the light yellow corolla; staminodia lanceolate, nearly entire, tipped with a subulate point and much shorter than the stamens; ovary oblong-ovoid, glabrous, gradually contracted into an elongated style stigmatic at apex. Fruit ripening in March and April on a much thickened woody stem erect or nearly at right angles to the branch, 1′ long, separating from the calyx in falling, with tough yellow skin, and thick juicy flesh of a pleasant subacid flavor; seed obovoid, rounded above, narrowed at base, ½′ long and ⅓′ wide.