POLYGONACEAE. 



45 



Coccoloba. Sea Grape. 

 (Family Polygonaceae). 



Tender trees: evergreen. Twigs 

 moderate, more or less grooved or 

 nearly terete: pith round, in some 

 species continuous, in others 

 spongily excavated between the 

 nodes. Buds solitary, sessile, 

 concealed by the leaf-base, naked. 

 Leaf-scars alternate, large and 

 nearly round, with 3 or 5 bundle- 

 traces: not on the stem, but on 

 a persistent sheath (ochrea) that 

 encircles the stem and finally falls 

 from an annular scar, correspond- 

 ing to the usual stipular scars. 

 Leaves simple, entire. (Cocco- 

 lobis). 



Like Ficus, Magnolia and Pla- 

 tanus, Coccoloba shows on the 

 older twigs a series of scars which 

 run entirely around or encircle 

 the stem, but it differs from 

 these and all other genera considered in this book in that 

 these do not appear immediately after the leaves have fallen, 

 but later. The thick base of the petiole here disarticulates 

 from the sheathing stipules or ochreae as they have been 

 called in this family by a clean-cut abscission, and it is only 

 much later that the ochrea itself separates with an equally 

 clean-cut scar, remaining for a time loosely about the twig 

 before finally disappearing. 

 Twigs rather stout: pith excavated. (Seaside grape). 



(1). C. uvifera. 

 Twigs rather slender: pith continuous. (Pigeon plum). 



(2). C. floridana. 



