The Pod-bearers 



Sargent for cultivation throughout the South. It is a close rela- 

 tive of the famous Japan pagoda tree, S. Japonica, of universal 

 cultivation. 



The Sophora, or Pink Locust (Sophora affinis, T. & G.), 

 local in Arkansas and Texas, is a small round-headed tree, with 

 deciduous leaves, pink flov^ers and small black pods, tightly 

 constricted between the globular seeds. 



The Leucaena {Leuccena Greggii, Wats.) is a spineless little 

 tree, with fine, twice-compound foliage like the acacias, and white 

 flowers, whose structure ranks it with the mimosas. Its shoots 

 and petioles are powdered white. The tree is cultivated from the 

 West Indies to southern California. It is found wild near Key 

 West, Florida, and in western Texas. 



The Chalky Leucaena, or Mimosa {Leuccena pulverulenia, 

 Benth.) grows as a handsome, round-headed tree near the miouth 

 of the Rio Grande River in Texas. Its leaves and young shoots are 

 thickly covered with white down when young. The feathery 

 foliage and white flowers and fruit commend it to cultivators. 



The Green-barked Acacia {Cercidium floridum, Benth.) 

 is a little, gnarled tree, rare in western Texas, whose leaves are 

 locust-like, but reduced to very tiny size in the dry air. The 

 whole tree is invested with smooth, green bark which serves the 

 office of foliage. The spiny twigs are sparsely set with regular 

 yellow flowers throughout the summer, with pointed, few-seeded 

 pods, yellow and papery, coming on after them. It is, on the 

 whole, a striking looking tree, and good to see in the desert. 



The Sonera Ironwood {Olneya Tesota, Gray) is a small 

 tree, with hoary, spine-beset twigs and locust-like flowers, leaves 

 and seed pods. It has very hard wood. In the deserts between 

 Arizona and Lower California it is a most beautiful object when 

 in bloom. It sheds its red bark in flakes after the manner of the 

 buttonwood. 



The Jamaica Dogwood (I chthyomethia Piscipula, A. S. 

 Hitch.) grows in southern Florida, a conspicuous and beautiful 

 tree when the great clusters of pink pea-like blossoms hang on the 

 bare branches. The slender brown pods have four wide, papery, 

 longitudinal frills. The hard wood is used in boatbuilding, and 

 the bark of the roots contains a drug like opium. The natives of 

 the West Indies have from ancient times used this bark to stupefy 

 fish they were trying to capture. 



545 



