zYGOPHYLLACETE. . SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 63 



GUAIAGUM SANCTUM, 



Liguum-vitse. 



Flowers solitary ; filaments naked. Pruit 5-celled, 5-angIed ; cotyledons accum- 

 bent to the axis of fruit. Leaves composed of several pairs of leaflets. 



Guaiacmn sanctum, Linn^us, Spec. 382. — De Candolle, G. verticale, Ortega, Z'ee. viii. 93. — De CaudoUe, P;Wr. 1. 

 Prodr. i. 707. — Nuttall, Sylva, iii. 16, t. 86. — Gray, 707. — Richard, i^^. Ck5. 321. — Hemsloy, i?of. SiV. ^m. 



Gen. III. ii. 123, 1. 148. — Sehnizlem, Icon. t. 253, f. 21. — Cmt. i. 159. 



Grjscbach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 134. — Chapman, Fl. 64. — G. sanctum, vav. parvifolium, Nattall, Sijlva, Hi. 17. 

 Sargent, Forest Trees N- Am. lOth Census U. S. ix. 28. 



A low gnarled round-lieaded tree, growing sometimes to a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, with 

 a short stout trunk occasionally two and a half to three feet in diameter, and slender pendulous branches. 

 The bark of the trunk is rarely more than an eighth of an inch thick, the surface separating into small 

 thin white scales resembling those covering the trunk of a vigorous White Oak. The branches are con- 

 spicuously enlarged at the nodes, slightly angled, and covered when they first appear with a short fine 

 pubescence ; this gradually disappears during their first season, and in the second year they are gla- 

 brous and covered with white slightly furrowed bark, roughened by numerous small excrescences. The 

 leaves are three or four Inches long, and are composed of three to five pairs of obliquely oblong or obo- 

 vate mucronate sessile leaflets an inch long and nearly half an inch broad. The stipules are broadly 

 acuminate, tipped with a short mucro, and covered with pubescence ; they are an eighth of an inch long, 

 usually caducous, but sometimes persistent during the season. The leaves remain on the branches until 

 the appearance of the new growth, which, in Florida, is in March or early April. The young leaves 

 when they first appear are pubescent, especially on the midrib and on the under surface of the thin 

 membranaceous light green leaflets, which become glabrous at maturity and are then rather coriaceous 

 and dark lustrous green on both surfaces. The flowers, which are two thirds of an inch across when 

 expanded, appear almost hnmediately after the beginning of the annual growth, and conthuie to open 

 during several weeks. They are borne on slender pubescent peduncles shorter than the leaves, and gen- 

 erally produced three or four together at the end of the branches from the axils of the upper pair of 

 leaves. The three pedunculate bracts are acuminate, minute, the two lateral rather smaller than the 

 outer one. The sepals are obovate, slightly pubescent, especially on the outer surface near the base, and 

 smaller than the broadly obovate unguiculate petals which have a half twist from left to right near the 

 base, giving them the appearance of being inserted obliquely. The ovary is obovate, prominently five- 

 angled, glabrous, and contracted at the base into a short stout stalk. The fruit is broadly obovate, three 

 fourths of an inch long, half an inch broad, and bright orange-colored. It opens at maturity by the 

 splitting of the thick rather fleshy valves, disclosing the large seeds with theh thick fleshy scarlet 



aril-like outer coating. 



Ghmiacum sanctum inhabits, in Florida, the southern keys from Key West eastward. It was 

 formerly common on Key West, where a few old specimens with large hollowed trunks still exist; it 

 abounds on Upper Metacombe and Lignum-vit^e Keys, and is less common on Lower Metacombe and 

 Umbrella Keys. It grows also on the Bahama group, on San Domingo and Porto Rico, and perhaps on 

 Barbadoes.^ Its companions in the forests of the Florida keys are the Eugenias, the Gumbo Limbo, 



^ The only authority for Barhacloes as a station for this tree is refer to either of the West Indian species ; his fig..re, however, very 

 Griffith Hughes' History of tie Barbadoes, published in 1750. His well represents G. sanctum. 

 description, on page 142, of " Lignum-vit^ or Guaiacum," might 



