222 THE PLANT WORLD 



Its smooth, brownish-ved bark has popular fame as a hydragogue 

 cathartic. Its whitish wood is so worthless as to be slighted even by 

 the charcoal burners, so that it is generally the only tree left standing 

 in the stunted woods or jungles in the vicinity of Santiago. 



Cordia alha, varia blanca, is very common along roads in the prov- 

 ince of Santiago. It has a bushy, si)reading head, an abundance of 

 snow-white blossoms in summer, and white, transparent berries. 



Spoudias hitea, the hog plum, has already been noticed. 



Eupliorhia Ganariensis, cordon, much planted around fields and 

 gardens in the western provinces, especially about Havana, becomes 

 arborescent when left alone, but submits easily to any amount of trim- 

 ming, and forms a tight, forbidding hedge. It leafs freely, but has 

 never been known to blossom on the island; An abundant milky and 

 very corrosive juice flows from all cuts and breaks. 



Much less common is Yucca gloriosa. 



Another plant worth mentioning, although not arborescent, is Bro- 

 ■melia pingaia, maya, or piiia de ratou of the Cubans, looking somewhat 

 like its relative the pineapple, but with stronger, stiffer, sj^iny leaves, 

 four to six feet long, which, interlacing, form a dangerous hedge, the 

 kind our soldiers had often to cut their way through in the Santiago 

 campaign. The spike of the pink flowers in spring is quite pretty, and 

 the acidulous berries very palatable. 



Let us add to the list two shrubs of the orange family, used here 

 and there for ornamental hedges, Triphasia trifoUata with yellow fruit, 

 and Murraya exotica, a handsome evergreen with red berries. 



Miscellaneous Cuban Trees. 



Widespread over the whole island, and conspicuous round about 

 Havana is the ceiba or silk-cotton tree {EHodendron anfractuosum), a 

 giant among Cuban trees, its straight columnar trunk sometimes seventy- 

 five feet high before breaking, and seven or eight feet in diameter be- 

 low, with strong, twisted, wing-like buttresses at base, the huge 

 branches spreading out horizontally above and often giving the whole 

 tree, especiallj^ when much exposed to the wind,- the aspect of a huge 

 parasol. This is the historical tree of Cuba; under it, in 1519, was cel- 

 ebrated the first mass in Havana, a descendant of the original tree now 

 growing luxuriantly on the very same spot, in front of the Templete. 

 Under a ceiba, also. General Shafter received the surrender of the 

 Spaniards at Santiago in 1898. The wood is worthless, but the trunk 

 was formerly hollowed into large canoes. The abundant wool in the 

 capsules is sometimes used by upholsterers. 



Another large tree, also with palmate leaves and strong buttresses 

 at the base, but the trunk divided a few feet from tlie ground, is Ster- 



