ERYTHRINA HERBACEA. DWARF CORAL PLANT. 47 



genus derives its name Brytknna, which is from the Greek 

 erythros, meaning red, though the commentators usually tell us 

 it is so called " from the color of the flowers." To some of the 



botanists, anterior to Linnaius, it was known as Corallodmdron 



literally the " coral tree." The earlier descriptions of the genus 

 were not as perfect as they might have been. Linnaeus made a 

 two-lipped calyx an essential part oi Erythrina ; and Rafinesque, 

 who edited the collecdons made by Robin, a French traveller in 

 Louisiana, finding this one had a calyx regularly divided, made a 

 new genus of it under the name of XypantJms — or literally 

 " sword-flower," a very good name if the genus had been allowed 

 to stand. 



But the meaning of the names of plants must not be depended 

 on as a means of identifying a species. This species of Ery- 

 thrina was called hcrbacea, because it seemed to die to the 

 ground every year. But it does not always do so. Dr. J. G. 

 Cooper, in a note "on the Forest trees of Florida," published in 

 the "Smithsonian Report" for i860, says the ''Erythrina hcrba- 

 cca assumes almost a tree in Florida, growing twelve feet high, 

 and is then scarcely distinguishable from E. Corallodcndron, the 

 coral tree of the West Indies, which grows twenty feet high. Its 

 wood is very light, corky, and may be of use in the place of cork — 

 but the wood of the latter named species is hard." Under culd- 

 vation a portion of the base of the stalks retains vitality through 

 the winter, and it is from this last season's wood that the flow- 

 ering branch proceeds in spring (Fig. i). Lower down, and from 

 the woody root stock, the new growth (Fig. 2) pushes, and from 

 the base of which perchance a flowering shoot may issue the next 

 spring. The root stock, almost wholly under ground, is thick and 

 somewhat fleshy, and is spoken of by some authors as a " tuber," 

 or "rhizome" by others; but it is litde less than a real trunk, 

 though a dwarf one, as in other trees or shrubs. But after all 

 these terms represent mere modifications of the same one thing — 

 a stem or trunk, — and while the names are useful as leading to 

 precision of expression, they are apt to mislead if taken for dis- 

 tinct thin OS. 



