LEGUMINOS^ 



533 



and twice as long as broad, indehiscent or finally separating into 5 or 6 valves, the 

 walls composed of a thin red-brown dry outer layer and a thick interior layer of hard 

 woody fibre ; seed-coat lined with a thick white reticulated fibrous coat. 



A tree, 25-30 high, with a long straight trunk occasionally a foot in diameter, 

 and dark reddish brown branches glabrous or sometimes slightly pilose at first, 

 bscoming brown or gray-brown in their second year; more often a tall broad bush 



with many upright spreading branches, or often in exposed situations a semiprostrate 

 shrub l-2 high. Bark of the trunk i' thick, with a light gray surface tinged with 

 red, separating into long thin scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, light 

 brown often tinged with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood of about 10 layers of 

 annual growth. The insipid fruit is eaten by negroes; the seeds contain a consider- 

 able quantity of oil; and the astringent bark, leaves, and roots have been used medi- 

 cinally. 



Distribution. Usually on saline shores in Florida; Cape Canaveral to Bay Bis- 

 cayne, and on the west coast from Caximbas Bay to the southern keys; generally 

 shrubby; arborescent only on the islands of the Everglades near Bay Biscayne, and 

 on the Miami River; through the West Indies to southern Brazil, and on the west 

 coast of Africa from Senegambia to the Congo Free State. 



XXII. LEGUMINOS^. 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate usually compound leaves, regular or papil- 

 ionaceous usually perfect flowers ; stamens 10 or indefinite, with diadelphous 

 or distinct filaments and 2-celled anthers, the cells opening longitudinally ; 

 ovary superior, 1 or many-celled, inserted on the bottom of the calyx. Fruit 

 a legume. Of the four hundred and thirty genera of the Pea family now 

 recognized and widely distributed in all temperate and tropical regions, seven- 

 teen have arborescent representatives in the United States. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ABORESCENT GENERA. 



Subfamily 1. Mimosolde^. Calyx 4-6-toothed, the teeth valvate in the bud ; petals as many 

 as the teeth of the calyx, valvate in the bud ; ovules numerous, suspended in 2 ranks 

 from the inner angle of the ovary, superposed, anatropous, the micropyle superior ; sta- 



