POLYGONACEAE. 45 
CoccoLoBa. Sea Grape. 
(Family Polygonaceae). 
Tender trees: evergreen. Twigs 
moderate, more or less grooved or 
nearly terete: pith round, in some 
species continuous, in others 
spongily excavated between the 
nodes. Buds solitary, _ sessile, 
concealed by the leaf-base, naked. 
Leaf-scars alternate, large and 
nearly round, with 3 or 5 bundle- 
traces: not on the stem, but on 
a persistent sheath (ochrea) that 
encircles the stem and finally falls 
from an annular scar, correspond- 
ing to the usual stipular scars. 
Leaves simple, entire. (Cocco- 
lobis). 
Like Ficus, Magnolia and Pla- 
tanus, Coccoloba shows on the 
older twigs a series of scars which 
run entirely around or encircle 
the stem, but ‘it differs from 
these and all other genera considered in this book in that 
these do not appear immediately after the leaves have fallen, 
but later. The thick base of the petiole here disarticulates 
from the sheathing stipules—or ochreae as they have been 
called in this family—by a clean-cut abscission, and it is only 
much later that the ochrea itself separates with an equally 
clean-cut scar, remaining for a time loosely about the twig 
before finally disappearing. 
Twigs rather stout: pith excavated. (Seaside grape). 
(1). C. uvifera. 
Twigs rather slender: pith continuous. (Pigeon plum). 
(2). C. floridana. 
