RHAMNACES. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
REYNOSIA LATIFOLIA. 
Red Iron Wood. Darling Plum. 
FLOWERS in axillary umbels; petals 0. 
emarginate. 
Reynosia latifolia, Grisebach, Cat. Pl. Cub. 34. — Eggers, 
Videnskab. Medd. fra nat. For. Kjobenh. 1877, 173, t. 2; 
Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. xiii. 40.— Gray, Bot. Gazette, iv. 
208. — Chapman, F7. Suppl. 612.— Sargent, Forest Trees 
Leaves oval, oblong, or subrotund, usually 
N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 39; Garden and Forest. iv. 
15. — Trelease, Trans. St. Louis Acad. v. 358. 
Scutia ferrea, Chapman, FU. 72 (not Brongniart). 
Rhamnidium revolutum, Chapman, /7. Suppl. 612 (not 
Wright). 
A slender tree, twenty to twenty-five feet im height, with a trunk six or eight inches in diameter, 
stout terete rigid branchlets marked with prominent elevated leaf-scars, and minute chestnut-brown acu- 
The bark of the trunk is from a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch thick, the dark red- 
brown surface dividing into large thick plate-like scales ; that of the young shoots is slightly puberulous 
minate buds. 
when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, and is gray faintly tinged with red, growing darker 
during the second season, when it is often covered with small tubercles. The leaves are oval or oblong 
or sometimes nearly orbicular, rounded, truncate, or more frequently emarginate at the apex, and usually 
minutely apiculate; they are gradually contracted at the base into short broad petioles, and are an inch 
or an inch and a half long, half an inch broad, and very thick and coriaceous, with thickened revolute 
margins, a stout broad midrib grooved on the upper surface, about five pairs of primary veins spreading 
nearly at right angles, and many intricately netted veinlets; they are dark green on the upper, and 
rather paler or often rufous on the lower surface, and in Florida appear in April, remaining on the 
branches for one year and sometimes two. The flowers are produced on the shoots of the year in May ; 
they are one twelfth of an inch long, or three times longer than the stout pedicels, with broadly deltoid 
acute calyx-lobes and a two or three-celled ovary. The fruit mpens in Florida in November, or fre- 
quently not until the following spring; it is half an inch long, purple or nearly black, edible, and 
possesses an agreeable flavor. 
Reynosia latifolia is common and generally distributed on the coast and islands of southern 
Florida from the Marquesas group to the shores of Bay Biscayne; and it has been found in Cuba and 
the Virgin and Bahama Islands. 
The wood of Reynosia latifolia is heavy and exceedingly hard, strong and close-grained ; it 
contains numerous thin medullary rays, and is rich dark brown in color, the sapwood, which is composed 
of fifteen to twenty layers of annual growth, being hght brown. The specific gravity of the absolutely 
dry wood is 1.0705, a cubic foot weighing 66.78 pounds.’ 
The earliest account of Reynosia latifolia’ is that of Catesby, who figures what is evidently this 
plant under the name of Bullet-tree in his Natural History of Carolina’ It was first collected in 
Florida on Key West by Dr. J. L. Blodgett. 
1 This tree, in Florida at least, grows very slowly. The speci- site, while those of Rhamnus levigatus are described as alternate, 
men of the wood in the Jesup Collection of North American Woods 
in the American Museum of Natural History in New York is seven 
inches in diameter, and is composed of one hundred and thirty-two 
without allusion to their being emarginate at the apex, a pretty 
constant character in Reynosia. Professor Trelease, who exam- 
ined Vahl’s herbarium preserved at Copenhagen, was unable to find 
layers of annual growth. the type of Rhamnus levigatus ; and the evidence of its identity with 
2 Reynosia latifolia has been referred (Gray, J. c.) to Rhamnus 
levigatus, Vabl (Symb. iii. 41), the Ceanothus levigatus, De Can- 
dolle (Prodr. ii. 30). The leaves of Reynosia are usually oppo- 
Reynosia latifolia is hardly sufficient to justify the adoption of 
Vahl’s specific name for our plant. 
34, 75, t. 75. 
