78 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. BORRAGINACEE. 
which is divided only toward the apex, or is sometimes nearly entire, and is crowned with two capitate 
stigmas. The fruit ripens in the autumn, or early in the spring from autumnal flowers, and is bright 
orange-red, subglobose, half an inch in diameter, tipped with the remnants of the style, and surrounded 
at the base by the enlarged spreading calyx which sometimes becomes half an inch across; it has a 
thick tough skin and thin dry flesh inclosing the four thick-walled nutlets. 
Bourreria Havanensis is a common inhabitant of the forests of Key West, Key Largo, Upper 
Metacombe and Elliott’s Keys, in Florida, and of those of the Bahama Islands and of many of the 
Antilles. 
The wood of Bourreria Havanensis is hard, strong, very close-grained, with a satiny surface 
susceptible of receiving a beautiful polish ; it contains numerous obscure medullary. rays, and is brown 
streaked with orange, with thick hardly distinguishable sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely 
dry wood is 0.8073, a cubic foot weighing 50.31 pounds. 
The Strong Back* was first described in the Natural History of Carolina? by Mark Catesby, 
who discovered it on the Bahama Islands ; it was first noticed in Florida® by Dr. J. L. Blodgett. 
1 This name, which was in use among the inhabitants of the 8 The Porto Rico plant that flowered in the Jardin des Plantes 
Bahama Islands when Catesby visited them early in the last cen- in Paris in 1801, and was described by Desfontaines (Ann. Mus. i. 
tury, was probably given to this tree on account of the hard tough 279) as Ehretia Bourreria, was, according to Miers (Ann. & Mag. 
nature of the wood. On the Florida keys, which were first settled Nat. Hist. ser. 4, iii. 203) his Bourreria recurva here reduced to 
by fishermen and woodchoppers from the Bahamas, Strong Back is Bourreria Havanensis. 
sometimes replaced by Strong Bark. 4 See i. 33. 
2 Pittonie similis, Laureole foliis, floribus albis, baccis rubris, ii. 79, 
t. 79. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 
Puate CCLXXXV. Bourrerta HAvVANENSIS. 
A flowering branch, natural size. 
A diagram of a flower. 
. A calyx, enlarged. 
A flower, the calyx removed and the corolla displayed, enlarged. 
. A stamen, front and rear views. 
. Vertical section of an ovary, enlarged. 
AOA Pod be 
. An ovule, much magnified. 
Pirate CCLXXXVI. BourreriaA HAVANENSIS. 
. A fruiting branch, natural size. 
. Vertical section of a fruit, enlarged. 
. Cross section of a fruit, enlarged. 
. A nutlet, enlarged. 
o fF wD 
- An embryo, much magnified. 
