104 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 
is one of the most striking vegetable productions of Florida. 
F. populnea, a closely related species with smaller leaves, also 
throws out air roots and becomes a banyan. Both are stranglers, 
each often beginning life from a seed dropped by a bird on the 
trunk of a tree where it germinates, and by sending down its air 
roots eventually strangles its host. Later the poor tree decays 
and the Ficus, having become an almost solid cylinder, begins to 
grow on the inside, thus for a time becoming an endogen, and- 
finally it forms a solid trunk. At this stage no one would sus- 
pect that it had ever been a strangling epiphyte. 
Coccolobis uvifera, Shore Grape, grows abundantly along sea- 
shores throughout the southern half of the state. It has large, 
almost round, very thick, glossy leaves, and bears long spikes 
of purplish fruits of a rather pleasant, subacid taste. The young 
leaves are of various shades of red and when mature have red 
veins; when dying they become a splendid orange, red or purple. 
Charles Kingsley said it was the most beautiful broad leafed 
plant he had ever seen. Ordinarily it grows as a great, straggling 
shrub or half tree but when given room and attention it becomes 
a good sized tree. It may be grown from seed or dug up from 
the shore and transplanted. C. laurifolia, the Pigeon Plum, 
which is somewhat more tender, is also a handsome tree. 
Magnolia foetida. The very appropriate name by which this 
tree has been known (M. grandiflora) has been changed to the 
above, which is little short of an outrage. This, the most glori- 
ous of southern trees, grows as far south as Manatee on the west 
coast. It is cultivated as far south as Fort Myers on the west 
coast and in this vicinity Mr. M.S. Mishler has a fine tree eight 
years planted that is twenty feet high and is in perfect health, 
blooming finely each year. This tree is one of the most superb in 
the whole world, and would be well worth planting for its fine 
foliage alone. Every plant grower in Florida should attempt its 
cultivation. If dug up from the ground it should be defoliated 
and it is better to transplant it in cool weather. 
M. glauca is a fine species, extending south to the shores of 
Biscayne Bay, often growing in brackish swamps and blooming 
during most of the year. It is as fragrant as the other and would 
probably do well on rich, high ground. 
