104 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 



is one of the most striking vegetable productions of Florida. 

 F. populnea, a closely related species with smaller leaves, also 

 throws out air roots and becomes a banyan. Both are stranglers, 

 each often beginning life from a seed dropped by a bird on the 

 trunk of a tree where it germinates, and by sending down its air 

 roots eventually strangles its host. Later the poor tree decays 

 and the Ficus, having become an almost solid cylinder, begins to 

 grow on the inside, thus for a time becoming an endogen, and 

 finally it forms a solid trunk. At this stage no one would sus- 

 pect that it had ever been a strangling epiphyte. 



Coccolobis uvifera, Shore Grape, grows abundantly along sea- 

 shores throughout the southern half of the state. It has large, 

 almost round, very thick, glossy leaves, and bears long spikes 

 of purplish fruits of a rather pleasant, subacid taste. The young 

 leaves are of various shades of red and when mature have red 

 veins; when dying they become a splendid orange, red or purple. 

 Charles Kingsley said it was the most beautiful broad leafed 

 plant he had ever seen. Ordinarily it grows as a great, straggling 

 shrub or half tree but when given room and attention it becomes 

 a good sized tree. It may be grown from seed or dug up from 

 the shore and transplanted. C. laurifolia, the Pigeon Plum, 

 which is somewhat more tender, is also a handsome tree. 



Magnolia foetida. The very appropriate name by which this 

 tree has been known (M. grandiflora) has been changed to the 

 above, which is little short of an outrage. This, the most glori- 

 ous of southern trees, grows as far south as Manatee on the west 

 coast. It is cultivated as far south as Fort Myers on the west 

 coast and in this vicinity Mr. M. S. Mishler has a fine tree eight 

 years planted that is twenty feet high and is in perfect health, 

 blooming finely each year. This tree is one of the most superb in 

 the whole world, and would be well worth planting for its fine 

 foliage alone. Every plant grower in Florida should attempt its 

 cultivation. If dug up from the ground it should be defoliated 

 and it is better to transplant it in cool weather. 



M. glauca is a fine species, extending south to the shores of 

 Biscayne Bay, often growing in brackish swamps and blooming 

 during most of the year. It is as fragrant as the other and would 

 probably do well on rich, high ground. 



