622 A. E. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands. 
morasses. The seeds will germinate while floating at the surface of 
the sea-water, with other debris, and sending long roots down to the 
bottom they soon anchor themselves, even when the water is two or 
three feet deep. It extends through the West Indies, and to Brazil ; 
also to West Africa and the Pacific Islands. 
Black Mangrove ; Olive Mangrove ; Black Jack. (Avicenna nitida 
Jacq.) . 
PuaTeE LXXIV. Ficure 1. 
This is a very common, thickly branched, evergreen tree of the 
Verbena family, with dark green, thick, entire, glossy leaves. Flowers 
small, white, in clusters. Fruit leathery ; one-seeded. 
In size and general appearance it resembles the true mangrove, 
and grows associated with it, in the borders of salt swamps and 
ponds and on marshy shores, often standing in the edge of the salt 
water; sometimes it grows in comparatively dry surface soil, but 
close to the shore. It usually sends up from its roots a multitude of 
slender, leafless, upright shoots, when it grows in the water. These 
serve to entangle mud, dead leaves, seaweeds, etc., to enrich the soil. 
It has no descending erial roots, like those of the true Mangrove. 
The wood is very dark, hence the common names. It is found from 
Florida to Mexico and Brazil, and throughout the W. Indies ; also 
on the coast of West Africa. 
27.—Introduction of Useful Plants and Injurious Weeds. 
It has been shown in a former chapter (p. 572) that the native 
flora contained scarcely any plants that could furnish human food, 
except the palmetto, which yielded the nutritious cabbage-like tops 
and edible berries; the cedar, whose berries were astringent, but 
were eaten in times of scarcity ; the prickly-pears, whose fruit is 
nutritious, but not very palatable ; the wild mulberry ; and a few 
other small berries. But there were no edible roots, nor cereals. 
Therefore it was necessary to at once introduce and cultivate 
edible plants, in order to avoid the risk of famine, for the early com- 
munication with England and Virginia was slow and precarious. 
a.—Introductions of Useful Plants from England, 1610-1625, by 
Seeds and Cuttings. 
There is no evidence that any of the seeds that were planted by 
Sir George Somers in 1609 (see p. 543) came to anything. But the 
three pioneer men left on the islands from 1610 to 1612 had success- 
