The generic name, from ἔξω and στῆμα, relates to the long exserted stamens.
1. [Exostema caribæum] R. & S. Prince Wood.
Leaves oblong-ovate to lanceolate, contracted into a slender point and apiculate at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, entire, thick and coriaceous, dark green on the upper surface and yellow-green on the lower surface, 1½′—3′ long and ½′—1¼′ wide, with a prominent orange-colored midrib and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; unfolding in the autumn and in early spring and summer, and persistent for 1 or 2 years; petioles slender, orange-colored, ¼′—½′ in length; stipules nearly triangular, apiculate, with entire dentate or ciliate margins, about 1/16′ long, and in falling marking the branchlets with ring-like scars. Flowers axillary, solitary, appearing from March until June, about 3′ long, on slender pedicels spirally twisted before the flowers open; calyx-tube ovoid; corolla glabrous; filaments united into a short tube. Fruit ⅔′ long, becoming black in drying; seeds oblong, ⅛′ long, with a dark brown papillose coat and a light brown wing.
A glabrous tree, in Florida sometimes 20°—25° high, with a trunk 10′—12′ in diameter, slender erect branches forming a narrow head, and terete branchlets dark green at first, soon becoming dark red-brown and covered with pale lenticels, and in their second year ashy gray and conspicuously marked by the elevated leaf-scars. Bark of the trunk about ⅛′ thick, and divided by deep fissures into square smooth pale or nearly white plates. Wood very heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, close-grained, light brown handsomely streaked with different shades of yellow and brown, with bright yellow sapwood of 12—20 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Florida, shores of Bay Biscayne and on the Everglade Keys, Dade County, and on the southern keys; abundant on Key West and Upper Metacombe Key; on many of the Antilles, in southern Mexico, and on the west coast of Nicaragua.
3. CEPHALANTHUS L.
Small trees or shrubs, with opposite or verticillate petiolate leaves, interpetiolar stipules, and scaly buds. Flowers nectariferous, yellow or creamy white, sessile in the axils of glandular bracts, in dense globose pedunculate terminal or axillary solitary or panicled heads; receptacle globose, setose; calyx-tube obpyramidal, with a short limb unequally 4 or 5-toothed or lobed; corolla tubular salver-form, divided into 4 or 5 short spreading or reflexed lobes usually furnished with a minute dark gland at the base or on the side of each sinus, puberulous on the inner surface of the tube, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens inserted on the throat of the corolla; filaments short; anthers linear-oblong, sagittate, apiculate at base; pistil of 2 carpels; ovary 2-celled; style filiform, elongated; stigma clavate, entire; ovule solitary in each cell, suspended from the apex of the cell on a short papillose funicle, anatropous. Fruit obpyramidal, coriaceous, 2-coccous. Seeds oblong, pendulous, covered at apex by a white spongy aril; embryo straight in cartilaginous albumen; cotyledons oblong, obtuse; radicle elongated, superior.
Cephalanthus with seven species is widely distributed in North and South America, and in southern and eastern Asia, and the Malay Archipelago.
The generic name, from κεφαλή and ἄνθος, relates to the capitate inflorescence.