Description: Xylopia's trunk (25 cm) is straight, cylindrical and clad in smooth, dark-gray bark.
Branches
diverge from the bole only along the upper third of its length,
lower ones having died away as the tree grew taller. (Circular
scars impressed into the bark bear witness to these old limbs).
Emerging at right angles, these slim branches tend to droop as
they extend laterally away from the pole-like bole, and they end
as fine twigs thinner than a toothpick. The Xylopia crown
is pyramidal in shape, though narrow, and it is made moderately
dense by the tree's finely textured, but abundant dark green foliage.
Leaves (6 cm by 1.5 cm) are simple, alternate, and smooth.
Very narrowly elliptical in shape, the blades are marked by pronounced
mid-ribs that end in short, 3 mm petioles. New twig and foliage
growth begins in July and lasts through September. Xylopia's
creme-colored flowers appear in small panicles from leaf axils.
Each blossom consists mainly of three, thick, spongy petals covered
with a fine, velvety pubescence and fused at the base. Set in
a small green calyx of three triangular sepals, the corolla maintains
a roughly cylindrical shape (actually resembling a minute bowling
pin) since the long (1 cm) but narrow petals are closed most of
the time - hiding the stamens and pistil within. Flowering periods
are annual, precisely timed, and well synchronized events that
last from May though June. Almost immediately thereafter, small
green knobs become visible along the branches and amid the foliage.
These immature fruits remain more or less dormant until October,
when they finally begin to enlarge rapidly. Still, they do not
ripen until eight months after flowering ends. Mature fruits
(1 cm) are capsules borne in small clusters located largely on
the bare portions of the twigs behind the flush of new leaves.
(Though the flowers were formed in current leaf axils, the continued
growth of the twig during the protracted interval before fruit
development left these latter structures behind on the branches.)
In form, each capsule resembles the fattened head of a golf club.
Turning from green to yellow, ripe fruits split longitudinally
and reveal a nearly-fluorescent pink interiors with two, small
(6 mm by 3 mm) rod-like, black seeds embedded in each. Harvests
last from late January or early February though March, and they
are consistent in annual timing and size.
