594 BOWMAN— ECOLOGY AND 



explains its xerophytic structure as due to the physiological dryness 



Ot its habitat ; orjXdl oe r} aT€vocf>vWid • . . , Travra yap ravTa ^rjpoTrjTO'i, 

 "it is clear the narrowness of the leaf is due to the dryness." 



Besides the many fragmentary references in Theophrastus to the 

 mangrove, similar to those given above, he gives a very complete 

 picture in Sec. 4, 7, 5, where, after mentioning the evergreen ap- 

 pearance of the trees and the times of fruiting and flowering, he 

 says : " and there are other trees growing in the sea, evergreens, 

 and they have fruit like beans and about the Persian Gulf, in the 

 part toward Karmania, as far as the flood tide reaches, there are 

 trees of quite some size, with leaves shaped like purslane, and it 

 has a fruit much like an almond in color on the outside, but it is 

 rolled together as if it were contracted ; and these trees are all 

 watered up to their middle by the sea and are held up by their roots 

 like a polyp. For whenever there is an ebb tide these can be seen 

 and the water is not wholly in this place and there are left certain 

 channels through which they (the natives) sail, these are of sea 

 water from which it is clear as some think, that they (the trees) 

 are nourished by it and not by fresh water unless some is drawn 

 by the roots from the earth, and that salt water is beneficial for 

 them, for the roots go to no great depths." 



This description might describe the mangrove thickets and 

 swamps of the Florida Keys just as accurately as it fits those of the 

 Persian Gulf and shows how observant were these early Greeks. 

 Not only is it accurate as to general description, but Bretzl has been 

 able to locate the actual stations for present species by these descrip- 

 tions in Alexander's march. 



Pliny the Elder {77 A.D.)o in his "Natural History," XII., 

 IX.,-° " Gentis supra dictas Persis attinget . . . intus contortis 

 nucleis," does not contribute anything to the account of the Alex- 

 andrine companions and the above passage shows the influence of 

 Theophrastus (325 B.C.) even to the very phrases. "Adjoining 

 the countries which we have previously mentioned is Persis, lying 

 along the shores of the Red Sea, which, when describing it, we have 

 mentioned as the Persian Sea, the tides of which penetrate far into 

 the land. The trees in these regions are of a marvelous nature, for, 



« Pliny, S. C, "Nat. Hist," XII., IX., 20 {27), Bohn trans., III., p. 117. 



