LEGUMINOS&. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 53 
ICHTHYOMETHIA PISCIPULA. 
Jamaica Dogwood. 
Ichthyomethia Piscipula, A. S. Hitchcock, Garden and Fl. Jam. 258. — Nuttall, Sylva, ii. 31, t. 52. — Dietrich, 
Forest, iv. 472. Syn. iv. 1224.— Bentham, Jour. Linn. Soc. iv. Suppl. 
Erythrina Piscipula, Linneus, Spec. 707. 116; Bot. Voy. Sulphur, 81.— Chapman, FZ. 110. — 
Piscidia Erythrina, Linneus, Syst. Nat. ed. 10, 1155; Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 200. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. 
Spec. ed. 2, 993. — Jacquin, Enum. Pl. Carib. 27; Stirp. Am. Cent. i. 319.— Sauvalle, Fl. Cub. 32. — Sargent, 
Am. 209; Hist. Select. Stirp. Am. 102. — Miller, Dict. Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U.S. ix. 57. 
ed. 8, No. 1.— Swartz, Obs. 276.— Lamarck, Dict. i. P. Carthagenensis, Jacquin, Enum. Pl. Carib. 27; Stirp. 
433. — Willdenow, Spec. iii. 919. — Titford, Hort. Bot. Am. 210 ; Hist. Select. Stirp. Am. 103. — Linnezus, Spee. 
Am. 84.—Lunan, Hort. Jam. i. 269. — Kunth, Syn. iv. ed. 2, 993. — Willdenow, Spec. iii. 920. — Lunan, Hort. 
73. — Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et Spec. Jam. i. 270. — De Candolle, Prodr. ii. 267. — Sprengel, 
vi. 382.— De Candolle, Prodr. ii. 267.— Poiret, Lam. Syst. iii. 228.— Don, Gen. Syst. ii. 242. — Spach, Hist. 
Dict. Ill. iii. 163, t. 605. —Sprengel, Syst. iii. 228. — Vég. i. 266. — Macfadyen, £7. Jam. 259. — Dietrich, Syn. 
Descourtilz, Fl. Med. Antil. iii. 203, t. 196. — Spach, iv. 1224. 
Hist. Vég. i. 266. — Don, Gen. Syst. ii. 242. — Macfadyen, P. Piscipula, Sargent, Garden and Forest, iv. 436. 
A tree, forty or fifty feet in height, with a trunk often two or three feet in diameter and stout 
upright-growing sometimes contorted branches forming an irregular head. The bark of the trunk is 
an eighth of an inch thick, with a light red-brown surface which divides into small square scales. The 
branchlets when they first appear are coated with thick rufous pubescence which disappears during the 
summer, and in their first winter they are glabrous or glabrate, bright reddish brown, and conspicuously 
marked by oblong longitudinal lenticular white spots and large elevated leaf-scars. The leaves, which 
in Florida are deciduous in early spring, appear after the flowering period. They are from four to 
nine inches in length, with stout petioles slightly enlarged at the base, the rachis being sometimes 
extended for nearly an inch between the upper pair and the terminal leaflet. The leaflets are from 
three to four and a half inches in length and an inch and a half to nearly two inches in breadth, with 
thick petiolules half an inch long. The flowers are three quarters of an inch in length, and are borne 
on slender pedicels which are sometimes an inch and a half long, and which appear jointed from the 
prominent elevated persistent scars left by the falling of the bractlets. The flower-clusters are some 
times ten or twelve inches in length, with long graceful few-flowered branches, or often are not more 
than two to four inches long, compact, and densely flowered. They appear in Martinique in February, 
and in Florida in May; and as they are produced in great quantities near the ends of all the 
branches, the trees are handsome and conspicuous at the flowering time, although bare of leaves. 
The fruit ripens in July and August, and is light brown, three or four inches long, and from an inch 
to an inch and a half across the thin papery wings. 
Ichthyomethia Piscipula is one of the commonest of the tropical trees which grow in Florida, 
where it occurs on the shores of Bay Biscayne, on many of the southern keys, and on the west coast 
from the neighborhood of Pease Creek to Cape Sable. It abounds in many of the West India islands, 
and occurs in southern Mexico. 
The earliest description of Ichthyomethia Piscipula was published in 1689 by Paul Hermann in 
his Paradisi Batavi Prodromus.? 
1 Baron Eggers notices (Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 13, 45) that Coral arbor polyphylla non spinosa frazini folio, siliqua alis folia- 
only those individuals which are going to flower drop their leaves. _—_ceis extantibus, rote molendinarie fluviatilis, vel seminum laserpiti 
2 Coral arbor polyphylla non spinosa, 329. instar, aucta, Sloane, Cat. Pl. Jam. 143; Nat. Hist. Jam. ii. 39, t. 
Phaseolo affinis Arbor Indica Coral dicta polyphyllos, non spinosa, 176, f. 4, 5. — Ray, Hist. Pl. iii. Dendr. 108. 
foliis mollibus, subhirsutis, Plukenet, Phyt. t. 104, f. 3; Alm. Bot. 293. Pseudo-Acacia siliquis alatis, Plumier, Cat. 19. 
