BL'TACEiE. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMEEIOA. 



73 



XANTHOXYLUM FAGARA. 



Wild Lime. 



Flowers in axillary clusters ; sepals and petals 4. Leaves persistent. 



Santhoxylum Fagara, Sargent, Garden and Forest, iii. 



186. 

 Schinus Fagara, Linnsens, Spec. 389. 

 Pterota subspinosa, Browne, Nat. Hist. Jam. 146, t. 5, 



f. 1. 

 Fagara Pterota, Linn^us, Amain, v. 393 ; Mant. 331. — 



Miller, Diet. ed. 8. — Lamarck, Diet. ii. 444 ; III. i. 335, 



t. 84. — Willdenow, Spec. i. 666. — Lunan, Ilort. Jam. 



ii. 146. — Titford, Bort. Bot. Am. 40. — Turpin, Diet. 



Sci. Nat. xvi. 107, 1. 127. 



Fagara tragodes, Jacquin, Enum. PI. Carih. 12; Stirp. 

 Am. 21, 1. 14. 



Fagara lentiscifolia, "VVilldenow, Enum. i. 165. — Grise- 

 bach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 137. 



Pterota, Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et 

 Spec. vi. 3. — Kunth, Syn. iii. 325. — De Candolle, Prodr. 

 i. 725. — Don, Gen. Syst. i. 802. — Torrey & Gray, Fl. 

 N. Am. i. 680. — Macfadyen, Fl. Jam. 190. — Dietrich, 

 Syn. ii. 1000. — Nuttall, Sylva, iii. 11, t. 84. — Socman, 

 Bot. Herald, 275. — Torrey, Bot. Mex. Bound. Suru. 

 43. — Chapman, Fl. 66. — Triana & Planehon, Ann. Sci. 

 Nat. ser. 5, xiv. 311.— Engler, Martins Fl. Brasil. xii. 2, 

 154. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 169. — Sargent, 

 Forest Trees N Am. liith Census U. S. ix. 31. 



A tree, occasionally reaching the height o£ twenty-five or thirty feet, with a slender, often incHning 

 trunk and fastigiate branches ; or more frequently a tall or low shrub. The bark of the trunk is an 

 eighth of an inch thick, the smooth light gray surface covered with small appressed persistent scales. 

 The branchlets are more or less zigzag, slender, covered with smooth dark gray bark, and armed with 

 sharp hooked stipular prickles. The leaves are three or four inches long, Avith broadly winged jointed 

 petioles, and are composed of three or four pairs and a terminal leaflet. The leaflets are obovate, 

 rounded or emarginate at the apex, minutely crenulate-toothed above the middle, sessile, half an inch 

 long or less, coriaceous, glandular-punctate, bright green and lustrous especially on the upper surface, 

 and furnished with minute hooked deciduous stipular prickles. The staminate and pistillate flowers 

 are produced on separate plants. The short axillary contracted cymes appear singly or in pairs from 

 April until June on the branches of the previous year from minute dark brown globular buds. The 

 flowers are small and are borne on short pedicels from the axils of minute ovate-obtuse deciduous 

 bracts. The sepals are membranaceous and much shorter than the ovate yellow-green petals. The 

 sterile flowers have four exserted stamens with slender filaments and a rudimentary pistil crowned by 

 the incurved rudimentary styles. The fertile flowers are destitute of stamens, and have two pistils 

 with ovate-sessile ovaries, gradually contracted into long slender subulate exserted styles, connivent near 

 the apex and crowned with obliquely spreading stigmas. The fruit, which ripens in September, is 

 obovate, rusty brown, rugose, and less than a quarter of an inch long, and contains a single seed covered 

 ■with a bright shining coat. 



Xanthoxylum Fagara is widely distributed on the coast and islands of Florida south of Mosquito 

 Inlet, and latitude twenty-nine north on the west coast ; and in Texas from Matagorda Bay to the Rio 

 Grande. It is conunon in north Mexico, and is widely distributed through the West Indian islands, 

 southern Mexico, and Central and South America as far south as Brazil and Peru. This species is one 

 ot the commonest of the south Florida plants, where it usually grows as a tall slender shrub, assuming a 

 truly arborescent habit on the rich hummock soil of Eliott's Key and the shores of Bay Biscayne. In 

 iexas it IS generally shrubby, although occasionally reaching tree-like proportions in the neighborhood 

 of Matagorda Bay. 



ihe wood of Xanthoxylum Fagara is heavy, hard, and very close-grained ; it is brown tinged with 

 red, and contains numerous thin medullary rays. The thin sapwood, composed of ten or twelve layers 



