PALMA. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 87 
COCCOTHRINAX JUCUNDA. 
Brittle Thatch. 
PEDICELS stout, elongated ; filaments subulate, barely united. Fruit black, with 
thick juicy succulent flesh ; seeds light tawny brown, conspicuously sulcate. 
Coccothrinax jucunda, Sargent, Bot. Gazette, xxvii. 89 Silva N. Am. x. 51 (in part), t. 510 (exel. figure of the 
(1899). leaf). 
Thrinax parviflora, Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Thrinax argentea, Chapman, FZ. ed. 3, 462 (not Roemer 
Census U. S. ix. 217 (not Swartz nor Chapman) (1884) ; & Schultes) (1897). 
A tree, with a stem slightly enlarged from the ground upward, and from fifteen to twenty-five 
feet in height, from four to six inches in thickness, and covered with a pale blue-gray rind. The 
leaves are nearly orbicular, the lower lobes being usually parallel with the petiole, but are rather 
longer than they are broad, thin and brittle, from eighteen to twenty-four inches in diameter, and 
divided below the middle of the leaf or towards its base nearly to the ligule into narrow lobes which in 
their widest part are an inch across, and are furnished with much thickened bright orange-colored 
midribs and margins; the leaves are pale yellow-green and very lustrous on the upper surface and 
bright silvery white on the lower surface, which is at first coated with hoary deciduous pubescence ; 
the rachis of the leaf is thin, undulate, obtusely short-pointed, and dark orange-colored, and the ligule 
is thin, concave, crescent-shaped, often oblique, slightly undulate, occasionally obtusely short-pointed, 
three quarters of an inch wide, one third of an inch deep, and light or dark orange-colored ; the 
petioles are slender, flexible, at first erect but soon spreading and then pendant, rounded on the upper 
side, obscurely ribbed on the lower side, with a low rounded rib, from two feet and a half to three 
feet long, pale yellow-green, an inch and a half wide at the base, and coated at first with silvery white 
deciduous tomentum toward the dark orange-colored apex which is about five eighths of an inch in 
width. The panicles are from eighteen to twenty-four inches in length, with flattened peduncles, 
slender much flattened primary branches from eight to ten inches long, and light orange-colored like 
the slender terete secondary branches which are from an inch and a half to three inches long ; their 
spathes are thin, fibrous, and pale reddish brown, and are coated towards the ends with pale pubescence. 
The flowers, which expand in June and irregularly also in the autumn, are raised on ridged spreading 
pedicels an eighth of an inch in length and consist of a cup-like six-lobed perianth, nine stamens 
with slender exserted filaments slightly united below, and large oblong light yellow anthers, and a 
subglobose orange-colored ovary surmounted by an elongated style dilated into a broad rose-colored 
stigma. The fruit, which ripens in about six months, is from one half to three quarters of an inch in 
diameter, and bright green at first when fully grown; it then turns deep violet color, and the flesh 
becomes very succulent and filled with violet-colored juice ; ultimately it is nearly black and very lustrous, 
the whole pericarp becoming sweet with an agreeable flavor, and then shriveling it grows leathery in 
drying. The seed is light tawny brown, with a thick hard dull testa which is deeply infolded in the 
ruminate albumen. 
Coccothrinax jucunda is now known only in Florida, where it inhabits dry coral ridges and sandy 
flats from the shores of Bay Biscayne, along many of the southern keys, to the Marquesas group west 
of Key West. 
The stems are used for the piles of small wharves and for turtle crawls, and the soft tough 
young leaves are made into hats and baskets. 
