594 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



bibracteolate near the middle, 1 or 2 together at the ends of the branches of slender 

 panicles in the axils of leaves of the year; calyx glabrous, cup-shaped, much shorter 

 than the ovate elliptical petals ^ long and slightly emarginate at the apex. Fruit 

 ripening in the autumn or early winter, long-stalked, 4-5' long, and 2i' broad, with 



|^4^7 



thick dark brown valves rugose and pitted on the surface ; its axis 3' or 4' long, 

 I'-ll' thick, dark red-brown, marked near the apex by the dark scars left by the 

 falling seeds; seeds |' long, almost square, thickened at the base and nearly one 

 fourth as long as their ovate rugose red-brown wings rounded or truncate at the 

 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 In- 

 dies and Central America. Winter-buds about |' long, with broadly ovate minutely 

 apiculate loosely imbricated light red scales. Bark of the trunk in Florida ^'-|' 

 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 boatbuilding. The bark is bitter and astringent and has been used as 

 a substitute for quinine in the treatment of intermittent fevers. 



Distribution. In Florida only on Key Largo and Elliott's Key; rare and now 

 nearly exterminated; on the Bahama and many of the West Indian islands; widely 

 distributed through tropical Mexico and Central America, and in Peru. 



XXVIII. EUPHORBIACEiE. 



Trees or shrubs, with milky acrid juice, ?lnd alternate leaves, with stipules. 

 Flovrers monoecious or dioecious ; calyx 3-6-lobed or parted, the divisions im- 

 bricated in the bud, or wanting ; corolla ; stamens 2 or 3, or as many or 

 twice as many as the calyx-lobes ; anthers 2-celled, opening longitudinally ; 



