PAEADISE KEY — S AFFORD. 



385 



sicyoides, is sometimes called the water liana or hunters' vine, in the 

 West Indies. If a section is cut from the stem of this plant, a cool, 

 refreshing drink may be obtained from its sap by applying the 

 mouth at one end and slightly tipping up the other. Its succulent 

 stems are often found gnawed through by some animal ; but, instead 

 of dying, the plant continues to live and soon sends down cordlike 

 roots which penetrate the earth like those of certain epiphytes. 

 Among those which hold on by recurved prickles are Erythrina 

 arborea, Guilandina crista, and Pisonia aculeata, all of them plants 

 which usually occur elsewhere as scrambling shrubs, but which here 

 become climbers. The first of these (pi. 16), which belongs to the 

 Bean family, has bright red, slender flowers and pods constricted 

 between the bright scarlet seeds ; the second, belonging to the Cassia 

 family, is the plant which bears the well-known polished gray, stony 

 seeds called nicker nuts; the 

 third, belonging to the Four- 

 o'clock family, has peculiar, 

 slender fruits (fig. 9) bearing 

 five longitudinal rows of 

 prickly glands by means of 

 which they adhere to the plum- 

 age of birds and the fur of 

 mammals. This plant often 

 forms dense thickets, in trying 

 to penetrate which any creature 

 will be lacerated by the stout, 

 sharp, recurved thorns which 

 arm its branches and which 

 give it its common names 

 " cockspur," " pull-and-hold-back," and " wait-a-bit vine." On Para- 

 dise Key Pisonia aculeata sometimes reaches gigantic dimensions, 

 climbing to the tops of the highest trees. Plate 17 is reproduced from 

 a photograph, made for the author in September, 1917, of a specimen 

 discovered by Mr. Hosier, with a stem 40.5 inches in circumference 

 at a distance of 7 feet from the base. 



The tropical zarzaparillas (" climbing brambles ") are represented 

 by several subtropical species, the most remarkable of which is 

 Smilax laurifolia, the " swamp bamboo brier," a lofty climber which 

 grows in marshy places. A photograph of its thick, bamboolike 

 root stocks is shown on plate 18. A closely allied species, Smilax 

 auriculata, growing outside the park in drier situations, was the 

 principal source of a delicious jelly, called " red coontie," formerly 

 prepared by the Indians of the southeastern United States from the 

 fecula contained in its root stalks and tubers. 



Fig. 9. — Cockspur, Pisonia aculeata; flow- 

 ers, GLANDULAR FRUIT, AND RECURVED 

 SPINES WHICH AID IT IN CLIMBING. RE- 

 DUCED. 



