Ximenia americana var. americana
Content
Description
Glabrous sprawling or low-branching shrub or tree, up to 10 m;
Branchlets usually spiny, covered with red cork and roundish lenticels.
Leaves often closely arranged on short lateral twigs, deciduous in the dry season, variable in shape, size and texture, narrowly to broadly lanceolate, ovate, elliptic, obovate or sometimes suborbicular, generally obtuse on both ends, though apex generally minutely apiculate or mucronulate, and sometimes emarginate, (sub)coriaceous, yellowish green, turning brownish blackish and becoming brittle in drying, (2-) 2.5-5 (-8, -10) by (1-) 2-3 (-4, -6) cm;
Inflorescences axillary or near the ends of short lateral branchlets (brachyblasts) in form of sub-umbellate racemes or cymes, peduncled up to 1.5 cm, 3-9-flowered, up to 2.5 cm, pedicels ebracteolate, 3-7 (-12) mm.
Flowers usually bisexual, white to greenish, fragrant.
Petals 4 (5), linear-oblong, acute to rather obtuse, finally recurved for about half their length, white-barbate inside, (5-) 8-10 (-12) by 1.5-2 mm.
Stamens 8 (10);
Ovary ovoid-conical;
Seed 1, 1.5-2.5 by 1.2-2 cm.