Common Trees of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

SAPODILLA FAMILY (SAPOTACEAE)
207. Caimitillo de perro, satinleaf Chrysophgllum oliviforme L.
A small tree, with milky sap, resembling starapple
or caimito (ChrysophyUum cainito L.) and
easily recognized by the similar elliptic leaves
with lover surfaces pretty reddish brown (copper
colored) fine1 satiny or silky hairy. .It differs in
the smailer efiiptic dark purple berry about $/1
inch (to 1% inches) long with usually only I
seed. Other distinguishing characters are: (1)
young twigs, buds, etioles, flower stalks, and
calyx fine1 reddish- rown hairy. and (2) the
I
B
small tubu ar bell-shaped 5-lobed dowers s/le inch
long and broad, whitish green, a few together on
short stalks at base of leaves.
An evergreen tree 12-30 feet high with trunk to
1 foot in diameter. The gray-brown bark is rough
and much fissured into irregular plates and thin
scales. Inner bark is light ink and contains
milky latex. The slender red d! ish-brown or rusty
young twigs later become light gray.
The alternate leaves have petioles inch
. Blades are 1%-3 inches long and %-I%
lonf inc es wide, short-pointed at apex, rounded or
short-pointed at base, slightly thickened, above
shiny green with inconspicuous veins and hairless
except when young.
There are a few flowers clustered together at
the base of a leaf on slender reddish-brown hairy
stalks Y8-% inch long. The calyx consists of 5
rounded, reddish-brown hairy and greenish sepals
more than I/la inch long; the whitish-green tubu-
lar corolla inch long with 5 rounded lobes and
bearing 5 minute stamens at apex of tube opposite
the lobes; and light green pistil 1/8 inch long with
hairy 5-celled ovary, short style, and minutely
5-lobed stigma.
The elliptic fleshy fruit resembles an olive, as
the specific name indicates. It retains the caI x
at base and has a minute style point at apex. TK~
light purple to whitish flesh is sweetish and edible,
but the skin is gummy or rubbery with milky sap.
The large seed is shiny light brown. Collected In
flower from July to October and with mature
fruits in February.
The light brown mood is hard, very heavy (specific
gravity O,9), and stron . In Cuba it is used
for construction, beams, an % doors and windo\vs.
Planted in southern Florida as an ornamental
for the beautiful foliage. Jelly can be prepared
from the fruits.
The moist limestone region of northern and
western Puerto Rico.
PUBLIC FORWTS.-Cambalache, Ve a.
RANGE.-Southern Florida inclufing Florida
Keys, Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola,
Mona (possibly introduced), and Puerto Rico.
OTHER COJZBION ~~x~~.-caimitillo, cnimito de
perro (Dominican Republic) ; caimitillo, caimito,
caimito cimarrhn, macanabo (Cuba) ; satinleaf
(United States) ; satinleaf, saffron-tree (Bahamas)
; ca'irnite marron (Haiti).
A related species of caimitillo (Chryaophyllum
bicolor Poir.; synonym 0. eggersii Pierre) is
called also wild cainit and lechecillo. It has elliptic
leaves with lower surfaces reddish brown and
finely satiny or silky hairy when young but later
nearly hairless. It differs from the above species
in the-flower with kg-celled ovary and in the fruit
with 1 to few seeds. Besides Puerto Rico, it is
found in St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John.