106 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
VERBENACES. 
Avicennia is widely distributed on maritime shores through the tropics of the two worlds. Three 
species are now usually recognized: Avicennia nitida of the Antilles and Central and South America 
reaches southern Florida and Louisiana; a second species’ is widely distributed through tropical 
America, eastern Asia, the Indian Archipelago, the islands of the Pacific, Australia, New South Wales, 
New Zealand, and eastern Africa from Natal to the shores of the Red Sea; and Avicennia Africana? 
inhabits west tropical Africa. 
Avicennia produces hard strong wood.? The bark is rich in tannic acid, and is often used in 
tropical America for tanning leather.! In India a preparation of the wood is used for cleaning cotton 
cloth, and is mixed with paint to increase its adhesiveness.’ The fruit is bitter, but is sometimes cooked 
and eaten,® and the leaves are used for fodder.’ The chief value of the plants of this genus, however, 
consists in their ability to live on low muddy tidal shores, which, with the Red Mangrove, they protect 
and gradually extend into the ocean. This they are able to do by the structure of the embryo, which 
is growing and ready to take root as soon as it falls into the soft mud, and of the long horizontal roots ; 
these are furnished with short vertical fleshy leafless branches or aérating roots,* and form a close 
network which holds the soil together, preventing it from bemg washed away by outflowing tides, and 
extending the growth of the tree by sending up numerous stems which soon form dense thickets. 
The generic name is derived from that of the most illustrious physician of the Orient.” 
1 Avicennia officinalis, Linneus, Spec. 110 (1753). — Schauer, De 
Candolle Prodr. xi. T00 ; Martius Fl. Brasil. ix. 306.— Miquel, Fi. 
Ind. Bat. ii. 912.— Bentham, Fl. Austral. v. 69. — Brandis, Forest 
Fil. Brit. Ind. 371.— Boissier, Fl. Orient. iv. 5386.— Kurz, Forest 
Fl. Brit. Burm. ii. 275. —C. B. Clarke, Hooker f. Fl. Brit. Ind. iv. 
604. — Hemsley, Bot. Challenger Exped. i. pt. iii. 178. — Kirk, For- 
est Fl. New Zealand, 130.— Forbes & Hemsley, Jour. Linn. Soc. 
xxvi. 265. 
Avicennia tomentosa, Jacquin, Enum. Pl. Carib. 25 (1760) ; 
Hist. Stirp. Am. 178, t. 112, f.2; Hist. Select. Stirp. Am. 87, t. 
169. — R. Brown, Prodr. Fl. Nov. Holl. 518.— Humboldt, Bon- 
pland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et Spec. ii. 283. — Kunth, Syn. Pl. 
AEquin. ii. 67. — Blume, Bijdr. Fl. Ned. Ind. 821. — Roxburgh, 
Fl. Ind. ed. 2, iii. 88. — Wallich, Pl. As. Rar. iii. 44, t. 271. — 
Miquel, Lehmann Pl. Preiss. i. 353. — Walpers, Rep. iv. 131. — 
Schauer, De Candolle Prodr. l. c.; Martius Fl. Brasil. l. c.— 
Wight, Icon. Pl. Ind. Orient. t. 1481. — Griffith, Notul. iv. 185. — 
Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. ii. 540. 
Bontia germinans, Linneus, Spec. ed. 2, 891 (1763). 
Sceura marina, Forskal, Fl. Zi gypt-Arab. 37 (1775). 
Avicennia resinifera, Forster, Pl. Esc. 72 (1786). — A. Richard, 
Bot. Voy. Astrolabe, 195. — Griffith, 7. c. 186. 
Halodendrum Thouarsii, Roemer & Schultes, Syst. iii. 485 
(1818). 
Avicennia elliptica, Thunberg, Pl. Brasil. Dec. iii. 37 (1821). 
Avicennia alba, Blume, 1. c. (1825). — Wight, 1. c. t. 1482. — 
Miquel, F7. Ind. Bat. ii. 913. 
Avicennia Lamarkiana, Presl, Abhand. kénigl. béhm. Gesell. Wiss. 
Folge 5, iii. 529 (Bot. Bemerk.). . 
Avicennia intermedia, Griffith, J. v. 188 (1854). 
Avicennia officinalis, var. alba, C. B. Clarke, 1. c. (1885). 
2 Palisot de Beauvois, Fl. d’Oware et de Benin, i. 79, t. 47 
(1804). — Schauer, De Candolle Prodr. l. c.; Martius Fl. Brasil. 
le. 
8 Moloney, Forestry of West Africa, 402.— Madden, Useful 
Plants of Australia, 380. 
4 Maximilian, Reise nach Brasilien, 206. — Martius, Syst. Mat. 
Med. Brasil. 49. — Endlicher, Enchirid. Bot. 314. 
5 Balfour, Timber Trees of India, ed. 3, 25; Encyclopedia of 
India, ed. 3, i. 209. 
6 Madden, J. c. 9. 
7 Forskal, 1. c. — Madden, I. c. 120. 
8 Wilson, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1889, 69. 
® Abii Ali el-Hosein Ibn-Abdallah Ibn-Sina (980-1036), in 
Latin Avicenna, was born in Afshena in Bokhara, the son of a 
Persian official and of a woman of Bokhara. He was a youth of 
remarkable precocity and industry, and became a voluminous writer 
on medicine, which he practiced successfully, philosophy, meta- 
physics, theology, philology, astronomy, astrology, music, and natu- 
ral history, producing in his wandering and irregular life more 
He is best known by his Canon of Medi- 
cine, which from the twelfth to the seventeenth century served as a 
guide to medical study in the universities of Europe. 
than a hundred volumes. 
He was one 
of the first to study and apply the principles of chemistry, and is 
credited with inventing the art of distilling the perfume of flowers. 
