siMARUBEiE. SILVA OF NOUTH AMERICA. 



91 



SIMARUBA GLAUCA. 



Paradise Tree. 



Leaflets glabrous, obtuse or minutely mucronate. Petals fleshy. 



Simaruba glauca, Do Caiulolle, Diss. Ann. Mus. xvii. 323 ; tins Fl. Brasil. xii. 2, 223. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. 



Prodr. i. 733. — Humboldt, Bonplancl & Kunth, N'ov. Gen. Cent. i. 173. — Sargent Forest Trees N. Am. IQth Censiis 



et Spec. vi. 16. — Descourtilz, Fl. Med. A?itil. i. 66, t. U. S. ix. 32. 



14. — Planclion, Lond. Jour. Bot. v. 567. — Nuttall, S. officinalis, Jlaefadyen, Fl. Jam. 198 (not De CandoUe). 



Sylva, iii. 20, t. 87. — Walpers, Ann. i. 164. — Grisebaeb, S. medicinalis, Endlicber, Medz. Pf. 525. — Berg, Handb. 

 Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 139. — Cbapman, Fl. 67. — Plancbon 1. 373. — Berg & Schmidt, Off. Gen. ii. t. 13. 



& Triana, Ann. Sci. uSfat. ser. 5, xv. 357. — Engler, 2Iar- 



A low round-headed tree, growing occasionally in Florida to the height of fifty feet, with a straight 

 trunk eighteen or twenty inches in diameter, and slender spreading branches. The bark of the trunk 

 is a half to three quarters of an inch thick, its light red-brown surface broken into broad thick appressed 

 scales. The bark of the stout branchlets is pale green and glabrous when they first appear ; it turns 

 fight brown before the end of the summer, and is rugose and conspicuously marked during the second 

 season with the large oval scars left by the falling of the leaves. The leaves are six to ten inches long, 

 on stout petioles two or three inches in length and dilated at the base, and are generally composed of 

 SIS pairs of leaflets. These are opposite or aUeruate, ovate, obovate or oval, two to three inches in 

 length, and an inch or an inch and a half wide, with revolute margins, a prominent midrib, and remote 

 narrow conspicuous primary veins j they are rounded or slightly mucronate at the apex, and are often 

 oblique at the base, which is contracted into a short stout petiolule a quarter to a third of an inch in 

 length ; they are thin, membranaceous and dark red when they first unfold, but soon become coria- 

 ceous, dark green and very lustrous above, and pale and glaucous on the lower surface. The panicles 

 of flowers are twelve to eighteen inches long and eighteen to twenty-four inches broad, with stout pale 

 glaucous stems, and spreading branches from the axils of small acute scarious deciduous bracts. The 

 inflorescence of the pistillate plant is often larger and less compact than that of the staminate plant. 

 The panicles appear in Florida early in April or at the tune the trees begin their annual growth, the 

 flowers opening irregularly, a few at a time, and continuing to appear during several weeks. They are 

 borne on short stout club-shaped glaucous pedicels, and are an eighth to a quarter of an inch long. 

 The oval or often acute pale yellow petals are four or five times longer than the glaucous calyx. The 

 fertilized ovajies grow rapidly, and the fruit is almost fully grown by the end of April, when it is bright 

 scarlet, nearly an inch long, ovate or sometimes falcate, and slightly angled on the ventral suture. 

 According to Macfadyen it is dark purple when fully ripe. The outer coating of the seed is papillose 

 and orange-brown. 



Simariiha glauca grows in Florida from Cape Canaveral on the west coast to the southern keys 

 and the neighborhood of Bay Biscayne. It has been found in Cuba and Jamaica, in Nicaragua,^ and in 

 Brazil. In Florida, where it is nowhere common, it reaches its best development on the rich hummock 



lands near the shores of Bay Biscayne. 



The wood of Simaruba glauca is hght, soft, and close-grained, possessing little strength or value. 

 It contains many large scattered open ducts, and thin remote medullary rays. The thick sapwood is 

 rather darker colored than the h<.-ht brown heartwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood 

 IS 0.4136, a cubic foot weighing 25.78 pounds. 



^ By Charles Wright, on the North Pacific Exploring Expedition. 



