Leaves obovate, rounded at apex, and gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, with slightly thickened revolute margins, glabrous, thick and coriaceous, pale blue-green on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, 1′—1½′ long and ¼′—1¼′ wide, with a pale slender midrib, and very obscure veins and veinlets; usually persistent on the branches until the end of their second winter; petioles stout, grooved, rarely ¼′ in length. Flowers generally appearing in October and November, on slender glabrous pedicels seldom more than ½′ in length, in few or many-flowered crowded fascicles; calyx glabrous, divided nearly to the base into narrow-ovate lobes rounded at apex and half as long as the divisions of the corolla furnished with linear-lanceolate appendages as long as the ovate acute denticulate staminodia; ovary narrow-ovoid, slightly hairy at base only, gradually contracted into an elongated style. Fruit ripening in the spring, on slender drooping stems, usually 1 fruit only being developed from a fascicle of flowers, oblong or slightly obovoid, rounded at the ends, ½′—¾′ long and ¼′ in diameter, with thick sweet flesh; seed oblong, rounded at apex, ½′ long.
A tree, sometimes 20° high, with a short trunk rarely exceeding 6′—8′ in diameter, graceful pendulous branches forming a compact round head, and rigid spinescent divergent lateral branchlets often armed with acute slender spines sometimes 1′ in length, and when they first appear thickly coated with loose pale or dark brown deciduous tomentum, becoming light brown tinged with red or ashy gray. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, and covered with rufous tomentum. Bark of the trunk ⅓′—½′ thick, gray tinged with red, and deeply divided by longitudinal and cross fissures into oblong or nearly square plates. Wood heavy, hard, although not strong, very close-grained, light brown or orange-colored, with thick lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Florida, shores of Indian River to the southern keys, and on the west coast from Cedar Keys to East Cape, and here less abundant and usually on rocky shores and in the interior of low barren islands; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba.
4. CHRYSOPHYLLUM L.
Trees, with terete branchlets usually coated while young with dense tomentum, and naked buds. Leaves short-petiolate, bright green and glabrous on the upper surface and coated on the lower surface with brilliant silky pubescence or tomentum, persistent. Flowers on pedicels from the axils of minute acute bracts, in dense many-flowered fascicles; calyx usually 5-parted, the divisions nearly equal, obtuse; corolla 5 or rarely 6 or 7-lobed, tubular, campanulate or subrotate, white or greenish white; filaments short, subulate or filiform, enlarged into broad connectives; anthers ovoid or triangular, extrorse or rarely partly introrse, the cells spreading below; ovary usually 5-celled, style crowned by a 5-lobed stigma. Fruit short-oblong, ovoid or globose. Seed ovoid; seed-coat coriaceous, dull or lustrous; hilum subbasilar, elongated, conspicuous; embryo erect, surrounded by more or less pungent fleshy albumen; cotyledons oblong, foliaceous.
Chrysophyllum is tropical, with fifty or sixty species most abundant in the New World, with a small number of species in western and southern tropical Africa, southern Asia, Australia, and the Hawaiian Islands, and with one species in southern Florida. The most valuable species, Chrysophyllum Cainito L., a native of the West Indies and now cultivated in all tropical countries and naturalized in many parts of Central and South America, produces the so-called star-apple, a succulent edible blue or purple and green fruit the size and shape of a small apple.
The generic name, from χρυσός and φύλλον, is in allusion to the golden covering of the under surface of the leaves.
1. [Chrysophyllum oliviforme] Lam. Satin-leaf.
