Part 85

Distribution. Colorado Desert, between Fish Creek and Carriso Creek about twenty-five miles from the Mexican Boundary, on “banks of dry washes, in hard sterile soil covered with boulders” (_E. H. Davis_), Imperial County, California; near Maricopa, Pinal County, Arizona, and in Lower California and Sonora; reported as a tree only from California.

XXIX. MELIACEÆ.

Trees or shrubs, with hard wood and alternate pinnate leaves, without stipules. Flowers in panicles, perfect, regular; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes contorted (in _Swietenia_) in the bud, persistent; petals 5, convolute in the bud; stamens inserted at the base of the disk; filaments united into a tube; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 3—5-celled, free, surrounded at base by an annular or cup-shaped disk; styles united, dilated into a 5-lobed stigma; ovules numerous in each cell, suspended, semianatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a capsule (in _Swietenia_) or drupe. Seeds often winged; embryo with leafy cotyledons.

A family with about forty genera chiefly confined to the tropics, with a single representative, Swietenia, in southern Florida. _Melia Azedarach_ L., of this family, the China-tree or Pride of India, with drupaceous fruits, has long been cultivated in the southern states, where it now often grows spontaneously.

1. SWIETENIA Jacq.

Trees, with heavy dark red wood. Leaves abruptly pinnate, glabrous, long-petiolate, persistent; leaflets opposite, petiolulate, usually oblique at base. Flowers small, in axillary or subterminal panicles produced near the end of the branches; calyx minute; petals spreading; staminal tube urn-shaped, connate with the petals, 10-lobed, the lobes convolute in the bud; anthers 10, fixed by the back below the sinuses of the staminal tube, included; ovary ovoid, 5-celled, the cells opposite the petals; style erect, longer than the tube of the stamens; stigma discoid, 5-rayed. Fruit a 5-celled 5-valved capsule septicidally dehiscent from the base, the valves separating from a persistent 5-angled axis thickened toward the apex and 5-winged toward the base. Seeds suspended from near the summit of the axis, imbricated in 2 ranks, compressed, emarginate, produced above into a long membranaceous wing with the hilum at its apex and transversed by the raphe; embryo transverse; cotyledons conferruminate with each other and with the thin fleshy albumen; radicle short, papillæform.

Swietenia with five species is confined to tropical America from southern Florida where one species occurs, to Venezuela, western and southwestern Mexico, and the east coast of Central America.

The generic name is in honor of Baron von Swieten (1700—1772), the distinguished Dutch physician, founder of the Botanic Garden and of the Medical School at Vienna.

1. Swietenia mahagoni Jacq. Mahogany.

Leaves 4′—6′ long, with a slender glabrous petiole thickened at base and 3 or 4 pairs of ovate-lanceolate leaflets rounded at base on the upper side, narrow-cuneate or nearly straight on the lower side, entire, coriaceous, pale yellow-green or slightly rufous on the under surface, 3′—4′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, with a prominent reddish brown midrib, conspicuous reticulate veins, and a stout grooved petiolule ¼′ long. Flowers appearing in July and August on slender puberulous pedicels, bibracteolate near the middle, 1 or 2 together at the end of the branches of slender panicles in the axils of leaves of the year; calyx glabrous, cup-shaped, much shorter than the ovate elliptic petals ⅛′ long and slightly emarginate at apex. Fruit ripening in the autumn or early winter, long-stalked, ovoid, rounded at apex narrowed at base, 4′—5′ long and 2½′ broad, with thick dark brown valves rugose and pitted on the surface, its axis obovoid 3′ or 4′ long, 1′—1½′ thick, dark red-brown, marked near the apex by the dark scars left by the falling seeds; seeds ¾′ long, almost square, thickened at base and nearly one fourth as long as their ovate rugose red-brown wings rounded or truncate at apex and gradually contracted below.

A tree, in Florida rarely more than 40°—50° high or with a trunk exceeding 2° in diameter, and slender glabrous angled branchlets covered during their first season with pale red-brown bark, becoming lighter or gray faintly tinged with red and thickly covered with lenticels during their second year; much larger in the West Indies. Winter-buds about ⅛′ long, with broad-ovate minutely apiculate loosely imbricated light red scales. Bark of the trunk in Florida ½′—⅔′ thick, with a dark red-brown surface broken into short broad rather thick scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard and strong, close-grained, very durable, rich red-brown, becoming darker with age and exposure, with thin yellow sapwood of about 20 layers of annual growth; the most esteemed of all woods for cabinet-making, and also largely used in the interior finish of houses and railroad cars, and formerly in ship and boat-building. The bark is bitter and astringent and has been used as a substitute for quinine in the treatment of intermittent fevers.

Distribution. Florida, hummocks, shores of Bay Biscayne on the Everglade Keys and near Flamingo on White Water Bay, Dade County, on Elliotts Key, Key Largo and Upper Matacombe Key; rare and now nearly exterminated except in the region of Cape Sable; on the Bahama and many of the West Indian islands.

XXX. EUPHORBIACEÆ.

Trees, shrubs, or herbs, with acrid juice, and alternate stipular leaves. Flowers monœcious or diœcious; calyx 3—6-lobed or parted, the divisions imbricated in the bud, or wanting; corolla 0; stamens 2 or 3, or as many or twice as many as the calyx-lobes; anthers 2-celled, opening longitudinally; ovules 1 or 2 in each cell, suspended, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a drupe or capsule. Seeds albuminous; cotyledons flat, much longer than the superior radicle.

The Euphorbia family, widely distributed over tropical and temperate regions, with some one hundred and thirty genera and over three thousand species, is represented in the United States by three arborescent genera, with only five species, and by many shrubby herbaceous and annual plants.

CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.

Fruit drupaceous. Nutlets usually 1-celled and 1-seeded; stamens as many or twice as many as the calyx-lobes, free. 1. Drypetes. Nutlets 6—8-celled and 6—8-seeded; stamens 2 or 3, united into a column. 2. Hippomane. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule splitting into three 2-valved 1-seeded carpels.

1. DRYPETES Vahl.

Trees or shrubs, with thick juice, and terete branchlets. Leaves involute in the bud, petiolate, penniveined, coriaceous, persistent; stipules minute, caducous. Flowers axillary, sessile or pedicellate, their pedicels from the axils of minute deciduous bracts, ebracteolate, the males in many-flowered clusters, the females solitary or in few-flowered clusters; calyx divided nearly to the base into 4 or 5 lobes rounded or acute at apex, deciduous or persistent under the fruit; stamens inserted under the margin of a flat or concave slightly lobed disk, 0 in the pistillate flower; filaments filiform; anthers ovoid, emarginate, attached on the back near the base, extrorse or introrse, 2-celled, the cells affixed to a broad oblong connective; ovary sessile, ovoid, 1 or rarely 2-celled, with 1 or 2 sessile or subsessile peltate or reniform stigmas, rudimentary or wanting in the staminate flower; ovules collateral, descending, attached to the central angle of the cell, operculate, with a hood-like body developed from the placenta. Fruit drupaceous, ovoid or subglobose, tipped with the withered remnants of the stigmas; flesh thick and corky or thin and crustaceous; stone thick or thin, bony or crustaceous, 1-celled and 1-seeded, or rarely 2-celled and 2-seeded. Seed filling the cavity of the nut; seed-coat crustaceous or membranaceous; embryo erect in thin fleshy albumen.

Drypetes is confined to the tropical regions of the New World, and is distributed from southern Florida through the West Indies to eastern Brazil. Of the eleven species now distinguished, two inhabit the coast-region of southern Florida.

The generic name, from δρύππα, relates to the character of the fruit.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.

Calyx 5-lobed; stamens 8; ovary 1-celled; fruit oblong, ivory-white; outer coat thick and mealy; stone thick-walled. 1. D. diversifolia (D). Calyx 4-lobed; stamens 4; ovary 2-celled; fruit subglobose, bright red; outer coat thin, crustaceous; stone thin-walled. 2. D. lateriflora (D).

1. Drypetes diversifolia Krug & Urb. White Wood.

_Drypetes keyensis_ Krug & Urb.

Leaves appearing in early spring and falling during their second year, entire, oval or oblong, often more or less falcate, acute, acuminate, rounded or rarely emarginate at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, on young plants often spinose-dentate, when they unfold thin and membranaceous, light green or green tinged with red and pilose with scattered pale hairs, and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and lustrous, rather paler on the lower surface than on the upper surface, 3′—5′ long and 1′—2′ wide, with a broad thick pale midrib raised and rounded on the upper side and obscure primary veins arcuate and united near the thick revolute cartilaginous margins and connected by conspicuous coarsely reticulated veinlets; petioles stout, yellow, grooved above, ½′ long; stipules nearly triangular, rather less than 1/16′ long, caducous. Flowers on pedicels rather shorter than the petioles, opening in early spring from the axils of leaves of the previous year, the staminate in many-flowered clusters, the pistillate usually solitary or occasionally in 2—3-flowered clusters; calyx yellow-green, hirsute on the outer surface, 1/16′ long, and divided nearly to the base into 5 ovate acute boat-shaped lobes deciduous from the fruit; stamens about 8, inserted on the borders of the slightly lobed pulvinate concave disk; filaments unequal in length, rather longer than the calyx-lobes and a little longer than the broad-ovoid emarginate pilose extrorse anthers, with broad ovate acute connectives; ovary sessile, hirsute, 1-celled, crowned with a broad sessile slightly stalked oblique pulvinate stigma, wanting in the staminate flower. Fruit ripening in the autumn, deciduous at maturity from its stout erect stalk much enlarged at apex and ⅓′ long, ovoid, 1′ long, ivory-white, with thick dry mealy flesh closely investing the light brown stone narrowed at base into a long point, with bony walls ⅛′ thick and penetrated longitudinally by large fibro-vascular bundle-channels; seed oblong, rounded at the ends, nearly ½′ long, covered with a thin membranaceous light brown coat marked by conspicuous veins radiating from the small hilum.

A tree, occasionally 30°—40° high, with a trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, stout usually erect branches forming an oblong round-topped head, and stout branchlets light green tinged with red and covered with pale scattered caducous hairs when they first appear, becoming ashy gray and roughened by numerous elevated circular pale lenticels and later by the large prominent orbicular leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 conspicuous fibro-vascular bundles. Winter-buds minute, obtuse, partly immersed in the bark and coated with brown resin. Bark of the trunk about ½′ thick, smooth, milky white and often marked by large irregular gray or pale brown patches. Wood heavy, hard, not strong, brittle, close-grained, and brown streaked with bright yellow, with thick yellow-brown sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, Flamingo near Cape Sable (_C. T. Simpson_), Cocoanut Grove (_Miss O. Rodham_), Dade County, on Key West, Key Largo, Elliotts, Lower Metacombe and Umbrella Keys. One of the rarest of the tropical trees of Florida; on the Bahamas.

2. Drypetes lateriflora Urb. Guiana Plum.

Leaves appearing in Florida in early spring and falling during their second year, oblong, acute or acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed at base, and entire, when they unfold thin and covered with scattered pale hairs, and at maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous, 3′—4′ long and ½′—1½′ wide, with a conspicuous light-colored midrib, rounded above, and pale obscure primary veins arcuate and united near the slightly thickened revolute margins and connected by slender reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, grooved, ¼′ in length. Flowers on pedicels shorter than the petioles, opening late in the autumn or in early winter on branches one or two years old, in the axils of leaves or from leafless nodes, in many or few-flowered clusters; calyx greenish white, hirsute on the outer surface, divided to the base into 4 ovate rounded lobes, persistent under the fruit; stamens 4, inserted under the margin and between the lobes of the flat tomentose disk; filaments slender, exserted; anthers introrse, emarginate, pilose, wanting in the pistillate flower; ovary ovoid, tomentose, 2-celled, with 2 nearly sessile oblique spreading cushion-like stigmas. Fruit ripening during the spring and early summer, subglobose, ⅓′ in diameter, tipped with the conspicuous blackened remnants of the stigmas, bright red, covered with soft pubescence, solitary or in clusters of 2 or 3, deciduous at maturity from its stout stalk enlarged at apex and ¼′ long; flesh thin and crustaceous, closely investing the thin-walled crustaceous stone; seed usually solitary by abortion, obovoid, gibbous, ⅛′ long, narrowed below, narrowed and marked at apex by the elevated pale hilum and on the inner surface of the seed-coat by the broad conspicuous raphe.

A tree, 20°—30° high, with a short trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, small erect branches, and slender branchlets, light green tinged with red when they first appear, becoming in their first winter ashy gray and marked by scattered pale lenticels, and at the end of their second year by the small elevated oval leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 fibro-vascular bundles. Winter-buds minute, acute or obtuse, chestnut-brown, and covered with pale hairs. Bark of the trunk about 1/16′ thick, light brown tinged with red, the generally smooth surface separating into small irregular scales. Wood heavy, hard, brittle, close-grained, rich dark brown, with thick yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, shores of Bay Biscayne, Dade County, and on many of the southern keys; common on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.

2. HIPPOMANE L.

A glabrous tree, with thick acrid juice, scaly bark, and stout pithy branchlets marked by circular raised lenticels, and oblong or semiorbicular horizontal elevated leaf-scars displaying a row of obscure fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and nearly encircled at the nodes by ring-like scars left by the falling of the stipules. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, covered by many loosely imbricated long-pointed chestnut-brown scales. Leaves alternate, involute in the bud, tardily deciduous, broad-ovate, rounded and abruptly narrowed at apex into a broad point terminating in a slender mucro, rounded or subcordate at base, remotely crenulate-serrate with minute gland-tipped teeth, penniveined, long-petiolate, at first pilose with occasional long pale hairs, soon becoming glabrous, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark yellow-green and lustrous above, paler and dull below, with a stout light yellow midrib raised and rounded on the upper side, and slender primary veins remote, arcuate, and united at some distance from the margins and connected by conspicuous coarsely reticulate veinlets more prominent on the upper than on the lower side; their petioles elongated, slender, rigid, light yellow, rounded below, obscurely grooved above, marked at the apex by large orbicular dark red glands; stipules ovate-lanceolate, abruptly narrowed from a broad base, slightly laciniate near the apex, membranaceous, light chestnut-brown, caducous. Inflorescence terminal, spicate, appearing in early spring usually before the unfolding leaves, the stout fleshy rachis often bearing at the base acute sterile deciduous bracts, or 1 or 2 small leaves, the minute pistillate flowers solitary in their axils or in the axils of ovate acute lanceolate bracts furnished with 2 lateral glandular bractlets; staminate flowers minute, articulate on slender pedicels clustered in 8—15-flowered fascicles in the axils of simple bracts higher on the rachis and extending to its apex; calyx usually 3-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, that of the staminate flower yellow-green, membranaceous, divided below into 3 or sometimes into 2 acute lobes; calyx of the pistillate flower, ovoid, yellow-green, divided nearly to the base into 3 ovate acute concave divisions rounded on the back; stamens 2 or often 3, exserted, more or less connate by their filaments into a stout column, free and spreading at apex; anthers ovoid, light yellow, surmounted by the short prolonged connective, attached on the back below the middle, erect, extrorse; ovary 6—8-celled, narrowed at base, gradually contracted above into a short simple cylindric style separating into 6—8 long radiating flattened abruptly reflexed lobes stigmatic on the inner face; ovule solitary in each cell. Fruit drupaceous, pome-shaped, obscurely 6—8-lobed, raised on a thickened woody stem; skin thin, light yellow-green or yellow and red; flesh thick, lactescent, adherent to the thick-walled rugose deeply winged 6—8-celled, 6—8-seeded subglobose stone flattened at the ends, the cells divided throughout by thin dark radial plates, ultimately separable, penetrated near the summit by oblique canals filled by the funicles of the seeds. Seeds oblong-ovoid, marked by a minute slightly elevated hilum and on the ventral face by an obscure raphe; seed-coat membranaceous, separable into 2 layers, the outer dark, the inner thinner, light brown; embryo surrounded by thick fleshy albumen.

The genus is represented by a single species abounding in exceedingly poisonous caustic sap which produces cutaneous eruptions and when taken internally destroys the mucous membrane; formerly employed by the Caribs to poison arrows.

The generic name is from ἵππος and µανία, and was first used by the Greeks to distinguish some plant with properties excitant to horses.

1. Hippomane Mancinella L. Manchineel.

Leaves 3′—4′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, unfolding in early spring and persistent in Florida until the spring of the following year; petioles 2½′—4′ in length. Flowers opening in March before the leaves of the year; rachis of the inflorescence 4′—6′ long, dark purple, more or less covered with a glaucous bloom. Fruit ripening in the autumn or early winter and often persistent on the branches until after the appearance of the flowers of the following year, 1′—1½′ in diameter, light yellow-green, with a bright red cheek; seeds about ¼′ long.

A tree, in Florida rarely more than 12°—15° high, with a short trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, long spreading pendulous branches forming a handsome round-topped head; in the West Indies often 50°—60° tall, with a trunk occasionally 3° in diameter. Bark of the trunk ¼′—½′ thick, dark brown and broken on the surface into small thick appressed irregularly shaped scales; in the West Indies sometimes smooth, light gray or nearly white. Wood light and soft, close-grained, dark brown, with thick light brown or yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Florida, sandy beaches and dry knolls in the immediate neighborhood of the ocean, shores of White Water Bay and on many of the southern keys; on the Bahama Islands, through the Antilles to the northern countries of South America, and to southern Mexico and the eastern and western coasts of Central America.

3. GYMNANTHES Sw.

Glabrous trees or shrubs, with milky juice and slender terete branchlets. Leaves conduplicate in the bud, petiolate, entire or crenulate-serrate, coriaceous, penniveined, persistent; stipules membranaceous, minute, caducous. Flowers monœcious or rarely diœcious; inflorescence buds covered with closely imbricated chestnut-brown scales, lengthening in anthesis, bearing in the upper axils numerous 3-branched clusters of staminate flowers, their branches furnished with minute ovate bracts, and in the lower axils 2 or 3 long-stalked pistillate flowers; calyx of the staminate flower minute or 0; stamens 2 or rarely 3; filaments filiform, inserted on the slightly enlarged torus, free or slightly connate at base; anthers attached on the back below the middle, erect, ovoid, 2-celled, the cells parallel; calyx of the pistillate flower reduced to 3 bract-like scales; ovary ovoid, 3-celled, narrowed into 3 recurved styles free or slightly united at base, stigmatic on their inner face; ovule solitary in each cell. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule separating from the persistent axis into three 2-valved 1-seeded carpels dehiscent on the dorsal suture and partly dehiscent on the ventral suture. Seed ovoid or subglobose, strophiolate; seed-coat crustaceous; embryo erect in fleshy albumen.

Gymnanthes with about ten species is confined to the tropics of the New World and is distributed from southern Florida, where one species occurs, through the West Indies to Mexico and Brazil.

The generic name, from γυµνός and ἄνθος, relates to the structure of the naked flowers.

1. Gymnanthes lucida Sw. Crab Wood.

Leaves oblong-ovate or ovate-lanceolate, obscurely and remotely crenulate-serrate or often entire, when they unfold thin and membranaceous, deeply tinged with red, and glandular on the teeth with minute caducous dark glands, and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface and pale and dull on the lower surface, 2′—3′ long, ⅔′—1½′ wide, with a broad pale midrib raised and rounded on the upper side, obscure primary veins arcuate and united near the margins and connected by prominent coarsely reticulate veinlets; appearing in Florida in early spring and remaining on the branches through their second summer; petioles broad, slightly grooved, about ¼′ in length; stipules ovate, acute, light brown, clothed on the margins with long pale hairs, about 1/16′ long. Flowers: inflorescence buds appearing in Florida late in the autumn in the axils of leaves of the year and beginning to lengthen in spring, the inflorescence becoming 1½′—2′ long, with a slender glabrous angled rachis, the scales broad-ovate, pointed, concave, rounded and thickened at apex, puberulous and ciliate on the margins, those inclosing the male flowers connate with the flowers and persistent under the calyx, those subtending the female flowers at the base of the inflorescence and not raised on their peduncle. Fruit produced in Florida sparingly, ripening in the autumn, slightly obovoid, dark reddish brown or nearly black, ⅓′ in diameter, covered with thin dry flesh, and pendent on a slender stem 1′ or more in length; seeds ovoid.