ILLUSTRATIONS OF A " STRANGLING " FIG TREE. 



BY WILLIAM TRELEASE. 



Visitors to the tropical Atlantic American coast region 

 frequently speak of the curious sight of a large deciduous 



X^ 



l O 



netted 



that of some other tree, commonly a palm, which they 



smothered to d 



English speaking people sometimes call the attacking tree 



The Mexican country people have for it 



" the stransjler." 



the name higo, or its augmentative higon, into which the 

 Latin ficus, chans 



into fig, h 

 mentioned 



been 



it 



• 



more commonly and properly called 



hig 



or 



higuerdn, the name of the tree, — the preceding words 

 pertaining rather to its fruit. 



The species illustrated in the accompanying plates 39 to 

 45 is very abundant in the vicinity of Rascon, on the 



Tampico 



h 



'G 



ie Mexics 



Huasteca 



at the 



When 



is a large wide-spreading tree with thick irregular trunk, 

 shortly petioled coriaceous elliptical or ovate rather round- 

 based mostly bluntly acuminate glabrous leaves paler be- 

 neath, and short-stalked coarsely pale-warty somewhat 

 turbinate solitary fruits with a rather large sunken apical 



It 



(plate 



might be assumed to be this species that Prinze 



(no. 3554) distributed from the Tamosopo canon, a few 

 miles up the mountain from Kascon, which, with speci- 

 mens collected elsewhere in the Huasteca by other botan- 



ists, is ranged by Watson 



Ficus ft 



* Watson, Proc. Amer. Acad. 26: 152 



11 



(161) 



