452 



have fallen off, while younger ones are being developed at the ex- 

 tremity of the same petiole. At the time of flowering, the number of 

 leaflets varies from a single pair to eight or ten pairs ; but as these 

 fall off in the course of a few months, the petiole elongates, and at 

 each successive rainy season, of which there are two in the year, 

 throws out from the end a fresh fohage of several pairs. The lower 

 and older part of the petiole in the meantime remaining attached to 

 the stem, becomes completely ligneous and round, and acquires a 

 rind distinct from the wood, and covered with lenticelles and a resem- 

 blance to pith in the centre ;— takes on, in short, the character of a 

 branch, from which it is only to be distinguished by the axillary inflo- 

 rescence, the absence of buds in the axillae of the leaflets, and the 

 analogy with the closely-allied genus Trichilia, in which the same 

 phenomenon is seen in leaves deciduous after the second develop- 

 ment. In Guarea, at least in this species of it, the leaf seems to be 

 continuous with the branch, without articulation, and to have no defi- 

 nite term of life, hanging on till overtopped and killed by other leaves. 

 Its usual length at that period is from a yard to four and a half feet. 



In Adrien de Jussieu's Memoir on the Meliaceae are the following 

 remarks : — 



" The resemblance of the leaflets borne on the same petiole to leaves 

 borne on the same branch becomes more striking still in certain ge- 

 nera, as Guarea, where the extremity of the petiole, after a series of 

 leaflets perfectly developed, presents some which are not yet so, and 

 which appear to belong to another shoot. It would be interesting to 

 ascertain what becomes of them, a thing that I have not been able to 

 do, having had none but dried specimens to examine." 



This shrub usually grows at the base of large timber trees, such as 

 the Eriodendron anfractuosum, in the pasture districts of St. Ann's 

 parish, establishing itself between their elevated buttress-like roots, 

 and, with its leaves hanging down to the grass, forms natural arbours, 

 or rather stables, in which the cattle repose during the heat of the 

 day. The negroes use them to wattle the walls of their huts, and 

 call the bush " alligator tree," probably from the two Spanish words 

 " a liyar" to tie with. Where it stands free, it attains the size of a 

 full-grown apple-tree ; but it invariably, I believe, grows within shel- 

 ter of some other and larger one. 



Except this genus and Trichilia, I found no other in Jamaica that 

 had the character of leaf above described. 



