PALM. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 81 
THRINAX FLORIDANA. 
Thatch. 
Fiowers long-pedicellate ; perianth obscurely lobed or nearly truncate; filaments 
subulate, hardly united at the base; stigma oblique. 
Thrinax Floridana, Sargent, Bot. Gazette, xxvii. 84 Chapman, Bot. Gazette, iii. 12; FT. ed. 2, Suppl. 651; ed. 
(1899). 3, 462. — Sargent, Silva N. Am. x. 51 (in part), t. 510 as 
Thrinax parviflora, Vasey, Rep. U. S. Dept. Agric. 187. 5, to the leaf. 
186 (Cat. Forest Trees U. 8.) (not Swartz) (1876). — 
A tree, with a slightly tapering stem, from twenty to thirty feet in height and from four to six 
inches in diameter, covered with a smooth pale blue-gray rind and generally clothed to the middle and 
occasionally almost to the ground with the long-persistent clasping bases of the leaf-stalks. The leaves 
are thick and firm, nearly orbicular, or truncate at the base, from two and a half to three feet in 
diameter, rather longer than they are broad, yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, silvery 
white on the lower surface, and divided to below the middle into numerous lobes which vary from an 
inch to an inch and a half in width near the middle of the leaf; the rachis of the leaf is a narrow 
reflexed undulate orange-colored border and the ligule is long-pointed, bright orange-colored, and three 
quarters of an inch long and broad; the petioles vary from four feet to four feet and a half in length 
and are pale yellow-green or orange-colored toward the apex, which is three quarters of an inch wide and 
coated at first with hoary deciduous tomentum, and much thickened and tomentose and from two inches 
to two inches and a half wide at the base. The flower-panicles, which in all the Florida species of 
Thrinax appear two or three months before the flowers open and lengthen very slowly, are when fully 
grown from three feet to three feet and a half in length, with primary branches from six to eight inches 
long and secondary branches from an inch and a half to two inches in length ; these are ivory-white at 
the time the flowers open, turning light yellow-green before the fruit ripens, and orange-brown in drying. 
The flowers are raised on slender pedicels nearly an eighth of an inch long and are ivory-white and 
very fragrant, with a pungent aromatic odor; their perianth is almost truncate or obscurely six-lobed ; 
the filaments of the six much exserted stamens are subulate and barely united at the base, and the 
stigma is very oblique; they open in June and sometimes also irregularly in October and November, 
and the fruit ripens six months later. The fruit is from one quarter to three eighths of an inch in diam- 
eter, somewhat depressed above and below, with ivory-white and lustrous juicy bitter flesh, and the 
seed, which varies from one eighth to nearly one quarter of an inch in diameter, is dark chestnut-brown 
and penetrated almost to the apex by the broad basal cavity? 
In Florida Thrinax Floridana inhabits dry coral ridges and sandy shores, and is distributed from 
Long Key to Torch Key and the islands in its neighborhood, and on the mainland ranges from Cape 
Romano to Cape Sable. 
Thrinax Floridana was discovered by Dr. A. W. Chapman,? who found it near Cape Romano in 
the autumn of 1875, and in October, 1879, it was found by Dr. A. P. Garber® on Cape Sable. It is 
now cultivated in gardens at Miami, Florida.* 
> It is the leaf of this species which was figured on the plate of now established in the garden of the hotel at Miami; and from 
Thrinax parviflora in the tenth volume of this work (t. 510). flowers and fruits gathered from them Mr. Faxon has made the 
2 See vii. 110. : plate of this species. It is the Thrinax excelsa of some Florida 
5 See i. 65. nurserymen, but not of Grisebach. 
4 A number of trees of this Palm brought from Long Key are 
