RHIZOPHORACE. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 15 
RHIZOPHORA MANGLE. 
Mangrove. 
LEAVES oval or elliptical, rounded at the apex. 
Rhizophora Mangle, Linneus, Spec. 443 (1753). — Gert- 
ner, Fruct. i. 212, t. 45, £. 1. — Lamarck, JZ. ii. 517, t. 
396, £. 1. — Willdenow, Spee. ii. 843. — Poiret, Lam. Dict. 
vi. 188. — Persoon, Syn. ii. 2.— Turpin, Dict. Sci. Nat. 
t. 1; Engler Bot. Jahrb. iv. 519, t. 7-10. — Eggers, 
Videnskab. Medd. fra. nat. For. Kjobenh. 1877, 177.— 
Baillon, Hist. Pl. vi. 284, £. 253-259. — Karsten, Man- 
grove- Vegetation, t. iv. f. 3, 6, 7, 8. 
xly. 386, t. 109. — De Candolle, Prodr. iii. 32. — Petit- Rhizophora racemosa, Meyer, Prim. Fl. Esseg. 185 
Thouars, Desvaux Jour. Bot. ii. 27, t. 11. — Spach, Hist. (1818). — De Candolle, Prodr. iii. 32. — Hooker f. & 
Vég. iv. 332, t. 34. — Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 484. — Bentham, Hooker Niger Fl. 341. 
Wight, J7. i. 209. — Walker-Arnott, Ann. Nat. Hist. i. Rhizophora Mangle, a. Walker-Arnott, Ann. Nat. Hist. 
361. — Walpers, Rep. ii. 70.— Blume, Mus. Bot. Lugd. i. 361 (1838). 
Bat. i. 182.— Schnizlein, Icon. t. 263, £. 1-7, 21-29. Rhizophora Americana, Nuttall, Sylva, i. 95, t. 24 (1842). 
Chapman, FV. 135. — Le Maout & Decaisne, TJraité Gén. Rhizophora Mangle, var. racemosa, Eichler, Martius 
Bot. English ed. 419. — Warming, Bot. Notiser, 1877, 14, Fl. Brasil. xii. pt. ii. 427 (1872). 
A round-topped bushy tree, with spreading branches, usually fifteen to twenty feet in height, 
forming almost impenetrable thickets with its numerous aerial roots; or occasionally seventy or eighty 
feet high, with a tall straight stem clear of branches for more than half its length, and a narrow head. 
The bark of the trunk is from one third to one half an inch thick and gray faintly tinged with red, the 
surface irregularly fissured and broken into thin appressed scales; that of young trunks and principal 
branches is smooth and rather light reddish brown. The branchlets are stout, glabrous, and dark red- 
brown, becoming lighter in their second year, when they are conspicuously marked with large oval 
slightly elevated leaf-scars. The leaves, which remain on the branches during one or two years, are 
oval or elliptical, rounded at the apex, and gradually contracted at the base into stout petioles; they 
are three and a half to five inches long, an inch to two and a half inches broad, with petioles which 
vary from half an inch to an inch and a half in length, dark green and very lustrous on the upper 
surface and paler below, with slightly thickened margins, broad midribs, and reticulated veinlets. The 
stipules are lanceolate, acute, and an inch and a half long, and fall as the leaf unfolds. The flowers, 
which are produced throughout the year from the axils of young leaves, are nearly sessile on stout 
two or three-branched peduncles an inch and a half to two inches in length ; they are an inch across 
when expanded, the pale yellow involute petals being coated on the inner surface with long pale hairs 
which cover the eight stamens. The fruit is an inch long, rusty brown, and slightly roughened with 
minute bosses; from its apex, after the germination of the seed, the hard woody thick-walled tube 
developed from the cotyledons protrudes from one half to two thirds of an inch, covering the plumule 
and holding the dark brown radicle which is marked with occasional orange-colored lenticular dots, 
and which when fully grown is ten or twelve inches long and, near the apex, a quarter to one third of 
an inch thick. 
In the United States Rhizophora Mangle inhabits the shores of Florida from Mosquito Inlet on 
the east coast and Cedar Keys on the west to the southern islands, the delta of the Mississippi River, 
and the coast of Texas; it occurs on Bermuda’ and the Bahama Islands, in the Antilles,? on the east 
1 Lefroy, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 25, 74 (Bot. Bermuda). i. 45, t. 10.— A. Richard, F7. Cub. i. 251.— Grisebach, Fl. Brit. 1’. 
2 Jacquin, Stirp. Am. 141, t. 89; Hist. Select. Stirp. Am. 70, t. Ind. 274. — Eggers, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 13, 54 (Fl. St. Croiz 
132.— Lunan, Hort. Jam. i. 487. — Descourtilz, Fl. Méd. Antilles, and the Virgin Islands). 
