118 FLORIDA 



torted trunk. The leafy branches are always far 

 overhead (a necessity in so crowded a place), and 

 I had seen the purplish, globular drupes only as 

 they had dropped one by one to the ground. At 

 every opportunity I had made inquiries about the 

 tree, but had received no light, nor, after much 

 searching, had either the professor or myself been 

 able to hit upon so much as a plausible conjecture 

 as to its identity. Well, two days ago, as I say, 

 we were walking together on the outskirts of the 

 city, when we came to a tree of this kind grow- 

 ing in the open, the fruit-bearing branches of 

 which hung within reach. We pulled one of them 

 down, and I exclaimed at once, " Why, this 

 should be related to the sea-grape ! " a most 

 curious West Indian tree ( Coccoloba uvifera, a 

 member of the buckwheat family !) which grows 

 freely along the shore of Biscayne Bay. " See 

 the fruit," said I, " for all the world like a bunch 

 of grapes." With that we began a detailed ex- 

 amination, and, to make a long story short, the 

 tree proved to be another species of Coccoloba 

 C. Floridana. 



That was pretty good guessing, based as it 

 was on nothing better than an " external char- 

 acter," as the professor rather slightingly called 

 it. For five weeks my curiosity had been exer- 

 cised over the puzzle, and in five seconds I had 



