COMBRETACES. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
29 
LAGUNCULARIA RACEMOSA. 
White Buttonwood. White Mangrove. 
Laguncularia racemosa, Gertner f. Fruct. iii. 209, t. 217 
(1805). — De Candolle, Prodr. iii. 17. — Don, Gen. Syst. 
ii. 662. — Spach, Hist. Vég. iv. 305. — Nuttall, Sylva, i. 
117, t. 34. Chapman, 7. 136. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. vi. 
278. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. 8. 
ix. 87. 
Conocarpus racemosa, Linneus, Syst. ed. 10, 930 (1759) ; 
Spec. ed. 2, 251. —Willdenow, Syec. i. 995. — Poiret, Lam. 
Dict. Suppl. iii. 343. — Roemer & Schultes, Syst. v. 574. 
Schousboa commutata, Sprengel, Syst. ii. 332 (1825). 
Bucida Buceras, Vellozo, Fl. Flwm. iv. t. 87 (not Browne) 
(1827). 
Laguncularia glabrifolia, Presl, Rel. Haenk. ii. 22 
(1835). — Walpers, Rep. ii. 683. — Chapman, FV. 136. 
A tree, thirty to sixty feet in height, with a trunk twelve to twenty inches in diameter, and stout 
spreading branches forming a narrow round-headed top ; or, in the northern part of the territory which 
it inhabits in Florida, a low shrub. The bark of the trunk is a quarter of an inch thick, the brown 
surface slightly tinged with red and divided into long ridge-like scales. The branchlets, when they first 
appear, are somewhat angled, glabrous, often marked with minute pale spots, and dark red-brown; in 
their second year they are terete, light red-brown or orange-color, thickened at the nodes, and marked 
by conspicuous ovate leaf-scars. The leaves are an inch and a half to two inches and a half in length 
and an inch to an inch and a half in width, with red petioles half an inch long ; when they unfold 
they are shghtly tinged with red and at maturity are dark green on the upper surface and lighter green 
or pale below. The flower-spikes, which are produced throughout the year from the axils of young 
leaves, are densely coated with hoary tomentum, and are an inch and a half to two inches in length. 
The flowers are a quarter of an inch long, or rather less than half the length of the fruit. 
Laguncularia racemosa, with Rhizophora and Conocarpus, inhabits the muddy tidal shores of 
tropical bays and lagoons; in the United States it is common in southern Florida from Cape Canaveral 
on the east coast and Cedar Keys on the west coast to the southern islands, growing on the borders of 
Shark River to the largest size which it reaches in the state. It is a common littoral tree in Bermuda,’ 
the West Indian islands,’ Mexico and Central America,’ tropical South America,* and western Africa. 
Laguncularia racemosa was first described by Sir Hans Sloane in his Catalogue of the Plants of 
Jamaica, published in 1696 ;° and it appears to have been first noticed in the United States on Key 
West by Dr. J. L. Blodgett.’ 
1 Lefroy, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 25, 74 (Bot. Bermuda). 
2 Jacquin, Stirp. Am. 80, t. 53; Hist. Select. Stirp. Am. 41, t. 
79. — Icon. Am. Gewéich. i. 12, t. 40. — Swartz, Obs. 79. — Lunan, 
Hort. Jam. i. 10.— A. Richard, Fl. Cub. ii. 244.— Grisebach, Fi. 
Brit. W. Ind. 276; Cat. Pl. Cub. 109. — Eggers, Bull. U. S. Nat. 
Mus. No. 13, 54 (Fl. St. Croix and the Virgin Islands). 
8 Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et Spec. vii. 255. — 
Kunth, Syn. Pl. diquin. iv. 256.— Bentham, Bot. Voy. Sulphur, 
14, 92. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 403. 
4 St. Hilaire, Fl. Bras. Merid. ii. 244.— Eichler, Martius Fi. 
Brasil. xiv. pt. u. 102, t. 35, £. 3. 
5 Hooker f. & Bentham, Hooker Niger Fl. 337. — Oliver, Fi. 
Trop. Afr. ii. 419. 
§ Mangle Julifera, foliis ellipticis ex adverso nascentibus, Cat. Pl. 
Jam. 156 ; Nat. Hist. Jam. ii. 66, t. 187, f.1.— Ray, Hist. Pl. iii. 
Dendr. 115. 
Conocarpus foliis elliptico-ovatis, petiolis biglandulatis, racemis lazis, 
Sructibus sejunctis, Browne, Nat. Hist. Jam. 159. 
7 See i. 33. 
