RUTACE.3S.
87
CANOTIA.
Flowers perfect; calyx 5-lobed, imbricated in aestivation, persistent; petals 5,imbricated in aestivation, hypogynous. Fruit, a woody 5-celled capsule.
Canotia, Torrey, Pacific R. R. Rep. iv. 68. — Bentham & PI. vi. 42; Diet. i. 612. — Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. xii.
Hooker, Gen. i. 616. — Baillon, Adansonia, x. 18 ; Hist. 159. — Maximowicz, Act. Sort. St. Petersbourg, vi. 256.
A glabrous leafless tree, with light brown deeply furrowed bark. Branches stout, terete, alternate,terminated in rigid spines, pale green, striate, their bases and those of the peduncles surrounded withblack triangular persistent cushion-like processes, with a minutely papillose surface having the appear-ance of appressed scales. Flowers three to seven together in short-stemmed fascicles or corymbs nearthe extremities of the branches, from the axils of minute ovate subulate bracts. Pedicels slender, spread-ing, jointed below the middle. Calyx minute, the lobes much shorter than the oblong obtuse sessilewhite petals reflexed at maturity above the middle, deciduous. Stamens five, hypogynous, opposite thelobes of the calyx; filaments awl-shaped, rather shorter than the petals, persistent on the fruit; anthersoblong, cordate, introrse, minutely apiculate, attached below the middle, grooved on the back, two-celled,the cells opening longitudinally. Ovary raised upon and confluent with a fleshy slightly ten-angledgynophore, papillose-glandular on the surface, five-celled, the cells opposite the petals, terminated in afleshy elongated style; stigma slightly five-lobed; ovules six in each cell, inserted in two ranks on itsinner angle, sub-horizontal; the micropyle inferior. Capsule terete, oblong, tapering at each end,crowned with a subulate persistent style, five-celled, septicidally five-valved, the valves two-lobed at theapex; epicarp thin, fleshy; endocarp woody. Seed solitary or in pairs, ascending, subovate, flattened;testa subcoriaceous, papillate, produced below into a broad subfalcate membranaceous wing. Embryosurrounded by thin fleshy albumen, erect; cotyledons oval, compressed; the radicle very short, inferior.
The wood of Canotia is heavy, hard, and close-grained, with numerous thin rather obscure medul-lary rays. It is light brown with thick lighter colored sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutelydry wood is 0.6885, a cubic foot weighing 42.91 pounds.
The generic name Canotia, 1 given to this tree by Torrey, is the name by which it was known to theMexicans of Arizona at the time of its discovery. The genus is represented by a single species.
1 Canotia was compared by Torrey, who knew the fruit only with Gray, relying on the structure of the gynobase and the faint tracesits persistent calyx and filaments, to Euchryphia, which Lindley, of Rutaceous oil-glands in the bracts of the inflorescence, the sepalsfollowing Choisy, had referred to Hypericacea. Bentham & Hooker, and petals, placed it in Rutacece in spite of the inferior radicle,to whom the flowers were also unknown, placed it with Euchryphia (JProc. Am. Acad. xii. 160.)in Rosacece. Baillon referred the genus to Celastracece, and finally