108 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. VERBENACEE. 
Black Mangrove, which owes its name to the color of the wood,’ abounds in southern Florida, where it 
is mingled with the Red Mangrove, Rhizophora Mangle, in vast thickets which often line the shores 
for miles and cover the banks of streams flowing from the Everglades. In the United States the Black 
Mangrove attains its largest size just north of Cape Sable, where there are open groves of large isolated 
round-topped trees. North of Matanzas Inlet, on the east coast of Florida, it remains a shrub, with 
stems only a few feet tall. 
The wood of Avicennia nitida is very heavy, hard, rather coarse-grained, with numerous medullary 
rays, and eccentric layers of annual growth marked by several rows of large open ducts; it 1s dark 
brown or nearly black, with thick brown sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood 1s 
0.9138, a cubic foot weighing 56.95 pounds. 
Some of the early European travelers in America? noticed the Black Mangrove ; but it is im pos- 
sible to determine whether their descriptions relate to the species which grows in Florida or to the very 
similar Avicennia tomentosa of the Antilles and Brazil.* 
In the United States the Black Mangrove appears to have been first distinguished by Dr. Mellins 
C. Leavenworth,* who found it on the east coast of Florida. 
1 In Florida Avicennia nitida is also called Black Tree and Black Bontia? Foliis integris oblongis oppositis, petiolis crassis brevissimis 
Wood. sub amplexantibus, floribus racemosis, Browne, Nat. Hist. Jam. 263. 
2 Cereiba que Mangue est alba, Piso, Hist. Nat. Bras. lib. iv. cap. 8 It is probable that the two species were confounded by all 
87. travelers until Jacquin distinguished them about the middle of the 
? Cynoxylum Americanum, folio crassiusculo, molli, § tenaci, Pluke- last century. 
net, Phyt. t. 172, £.6 ; Alm. Bot. 127. 4 See iii. 66. 
Mangle laurocerasi foliis flore albo tetrapetalo, Sloane, Cat. Pl. 
Jam. 156 ; Nat. Hist. Jam. ii. 66. — Ray, Hist. Pl. iti. Dendr. 115. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
Puate CCXCVI. AvicENNIA NITIDA. 
. A flowering branch, natural size. 
. Diagram of a flower. 
. A flower, the calyx removed and the corolla displayed, enlarged. 
. A stamen, front and rear views, enlarged. 
. A pistil, the ovary cut vertically, enlarged. 
- A placental column and ovules, much magnified. 
. An ovule, much magnified. 
. A fruiting branch, natural size. 
oOoOND OP WD 
. Vertical section of a fruit with half of the two cotyledons removed, 
displaying the radicle, natural size. 
10. A fruit cut transversely, natural size. 
11. An embryo displayed, natural size. 
