16 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. RHIZOPHORACEE. 
and west coasts of Mexico,’ in Lower California,’ and the Galapagos Islands,’ and from Central America 
extends along the north and east coasts of South America to the limit of the tropics ;* by many authori- 
ties it has been thought to inhabit also the west coast of Africa.’ In the United States the Mangrove 
is most abundant on the Florida peninsula south of latitude 29°, where it borders the coast with wide 
thickets, ascending the rivers for many miles, especially those flowing from the everglades, and entirely 
covers some of the small keys. On Cape Sable and on the shores of Bay Biscayne it sometimes grows 
at a little distance from the immediate coast, and on ground which is not submerged by overflowing 
tides ; in such situations it attains its greatest size in the United States and makes tall shapely trees 
with straight trunks developing few aerial roots, and in general appearance is entirely unlike the low 
bushy widespreading shore tree.° 
The wood of Rhizophora Mangle is exceedingly heavy, hard, close-grained, and strong. The 
surface is satiny and can be made to receive a beautiful polish ; it is dark reddish brown streaked with 
lighter brown, with pale sapwood composed of forty or fifty layers of annual growth,’ and contains 
numerous thin medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 1.1617, a cubic 
foot weighing 72.40 pounds. On the Florida keys it is used for fuel and for wharf-piles, for which 
its strength and immunity from attacks of the teredo make it valuable. 
The strange and peculiar mode of growth of the Mangrove-tree and the shell-fish which clustered 
on its stems attracted the attention of some of the earliest travelers who landed on the shores of the 
New World, and it is mentioned in many of their narratives.* Its presence in the United States 
1 Kunth, Syn. Pl. A2quin. iii. 86.— Hooker & Walker-Arnott, 
Bot. Voy. Beechey, 290. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 402. 
2 Bentham, Bot. Voy. Sulphur, 14. — Brandegee, Proc. Cal. Acad. 
ser. 2, il. 155 (Pl. Baja Cal.) ; iii. 136. 
3 Hooker f. Trans. Linn. Soc. xx. 225. — Andersson, Stockh. Acad. 
Handi. 1853, 108 (Om Galapagos-Oarnes Veg.). 
4 Vellozo, Fl. Flum. v. t. 1.— Eichler, Martius Fl. Brasil. xii. 
pt. il. 426, t. 90. — Sagot, Ann. Sci. Nat. sér. 6, xv. 314. 
5 Hooker f. & Bentham, Hooker Niger Fl. 341.— A. De Can- 
dolle, Géographie Botanique, ii. 772. — Oliver, Fl. Trop. Afr. ii. 408. 
6 Garden and Forest, vi. 97, figs. 17, 18.— Contrib. Bot. Lab. 
Univ. Penn. i. t. 7. 
7 The trunks of Rhizophora Mangle after the first twenty or 
thirty years increase in diameter slowly. A specimen of the trunk 
of a Florida tree in the Jesup Collection of North American Woods 
in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which 
is fifteen inches in diameter, has one hundred and forty-five layers 
of annual growth. 
8 “Mangle es un 4rbol de los mejores que en estas partes hay, 
y es comun en estas islas é Tierra-Firme.” (Oviedo, Hist. Nat. 
Gen. Ind. lib. ix. cap. 6.) 
“Store of oisters (grew) upon the branches of the trees, and were 
very salt and well tasted. All their oisters grow upon those boughs 
and spraies, and not on the ground: the like is commonly seen in 
other places of the West Indies, and elsewhere.” (Walter Raleigh, 
Discoverie of the Large, Rich & Beautiful Empire of Guiana, Hak- 
luyt, Voyages, ed. Evans, iv. 120.) 
“Shrimps, Lobsters, and Oysters, which hang upon the branches 
of Trees.” (Harcourt, Relation of a Voyage to Guiana. Purchas 
his Pilgrimes, iv. 1275.) 
“The Mangue Trees are like the Swallowes, or Willowes of Eu- 
rope, there is so great quantitie of them in the armes or creeks that 
the Sea maketh within the Land, that many leagues of the Land is 
of these Trees, that are watered with the tides... . A certaine kind 
of them doe cast certaine twigs from the top of their length some 
times as long as a Launce, till they come to the water, and then 
they cast many branches and rootes, and these branches remaine 
fast in the earth.” (A Treatise of Brasil, written by a Portugall 
which had long lived there. Purchas his Pilgrimes, iv. 1316.) 
De Mangle, Nieremberg, Hist. Nat. 313. 
“ Marinis arboribus annumerant Manguas, quia magno numero 
jucxta littora & Oceani recessus reperiuntur.” (Jan de Laet, Nov. Orb. 
575.) 
Mangue Guaparaiba dicta, Piso, Hist. Nat. Bras. lib. iv. cap. 87. 
Mangle Pyri foltis cum siliquis longis Ficui Indice affinis, J. Bau- 
hin, Hist. Pl. i. lib. xii. 415. — Ray, Hist. Pl. ii. 1772.— Sloane, 
Cat. Pl. Jam. 155 ; Nat. Hist. Jam. ii. 63. 
Du Paretuvier, Rochefort, Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Isles 
Antilles, 100, t. 
“The Mangrave is a tree of such note, as she must not be for- 
gotten ; for, though she be not of the tall and lusty sort of trees, 
yet, she is of great extent ; for there drops from her limbs a kinde 
of Gum, which hangs together one drop after another, till it touch 
the ground, and then takes root, and makes an addition to the tree. 
So that if all these may be said to be one and the same tree, we 
may say that a Mangrave tree may very well hide a troop of Horse. 
The bark of this tree being well ordered, will make very strong 
roaps, and the Indians make it as fine as flax, and spin it into fine 
thred whereof they make Hamocks, and divers other things they 
wear : and I have heard the linnen they wear is made of this bark, 
as also their chaires and stooles.”” (Richard Ligon, A true and exact 
History of the Island of Barbados, 72.) 
Lignum Mangles, quod ferrum duritie equat, Jonston, Dendro- 
graphia, 425. 
Gvapereiba Lusitanis Mangue vereadeiro, Jonston, Dendrographia, 
464. 
Mangle arbor Pyrifolia, Plukenet, Phyt. t. 204, £. 3; Alm. Bot. 
241. 
Candela Americana, foliis Laurinis, Jlore tetrapetalo luteo, fructu 
angustiore, Catesby, Nat. Hist. Car. ii. 63, t. 63. 
“And nothing of this kind could be more surprising to Euro- 
peans, than to see the Shores shaded with a kind of Fig-trees, 
