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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
1. Sideroxylon, Linn
1. Sideroxylon, Linn.
Trees or shrubs, glabrous or pubescent. Leaves alternate, coriaceous, exstipulate. Flowers usually small, in axillary fascicles, sessile or pedicelled. Calyx-segments 5, much imbricated, subequal. Corolla subcampanulate; lobes 5, imbricated. Stamens 5, affixed to the throat of the corolla and opposite to the lobes; filaments short or long; anthers ovate or lanceolate. Staminodia 5, alternating with the stamens. Ovary glabrous or villous, 5- or rarely 2–4-celled; style cylindric, short or long. Berry ovoid or globose; seeds often solitary by abortion, sometimes 2–5, usually oblong, compressed; testa hard, crustaceous or bony; albumen fleshy; cotyledons flat, broad, often foliaceous; radicle short.
Species about 80, chiefly found in the tropical regions of both hemispheres.
| 1. | S. costatum, F. Muell. First Census Austral. PI. 92.—A handsome closely branched tree 20–40 ft. high; trunk 1–3 ft. diam.; branchlets clothed with appressed pubescence. Leaves 2–4 in. long, elliptic-obovate or oblong-obovate, obtuse, narrowed into petioles ¼–½ in. long, quite entire, coriaceous, shining, glabrous except the petiole and midrib, which are finely puberulous, primary veins parallel, diverging from the midrib almost at right angles. Flowers axillary or from the nodes below the leaves, solitary or 2 together, small, ⅛–⅙ in. diam., polygamous; peduncles stout, curved, ¼–½ in. long. Calyx-segments 4 or 5, broadly oblong or ovate, concave, ciliate. Corolla slightly exceeding the calyx, 4–5-partite to below the middle. Stamens as many as the corolla-segments; filaments short, thick. Staminodia subulate. Ovary 4–5-celled. Berry large, 1 in. long, broadly oblong or obovoid. Seeds 1 to 4, but usually 2 or 3, almost as long as the fruit, smooth page 436 and polished, bony, elliptical, curved.—Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 133. Sapota costata, A. D.C. in D.C. Prodr. viii. 175; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 174; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 186. Achras costata, Endl. Prodr. Fl. Ins. Norfl. 49; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 404; Raoul, Choix, 44. A. novo-zealandica, F. Muell. Fragm. ix. 72.
North Island: Islands and rocky headlands from the North Cape to the East Cape and Tolago Bay, not common. Ascends to 1500 ft. on the Little Barrier Island. Tawapou. Also on Norfolk Island, where the flowers are said to be uniformly pentamerous, while in New Zealand they are chiefly tetramerous, especially the females. The wood is bard, white, and durable; and the bony seeds were formerly used for necklaces by the Maoris. |