The Mahogany and the Gumbo Limbo 



density of its leaf thatch. It cuts oflF the Hfe-giving breezes too 

 often and too well. The native Floridian's one-story house set low 

 in the midst of his garden soon has its windows and doors choked 

 by the *' China trees" that were set too close to each other and to 

 the house. 



2. Family BuRSERACEy^ 



r 



The Gumbo Limbo (Bur sera Simaruba, Sarg.), sole arbores- 

 cent species of the single genus of its family represented in the 

 United States, is a tree very commonly met with in southern 

 Florida. It is the only native tree that sheds its leaves in the 

 autumn. This habit it shares with the ubiquitous China tree of 

 the Southern garden. Winter reveals a round-headed tree, with 

 stout horizontal limbs, trunk and branches covered with reddish- 

 brown bark, which peels off in thin flakes of irregular sizes. The 

 soft wood easily falls a prey to disease and insect injury; a tree 

 50 feet high often falls to pieces from these causes. The species 

 reminds one of willows in its ability to sprout from the stump 

 and from fragments of any size set in the ground. Fence posts 

 are soon clothed in verdant foliage if cut from a gumbo limbo tree 

 and driven at once. Screens and hedges are made by sticking 

 twigs into the ground. 



Gumbo limbo is a popular street and lawn tree; its ash-like 

 leaves, very new and fresh, miake a grateful summer shade. 



The flowers appear with the leaves in early spring. They 

 are borne in lateral elongated clusters; the individual blossoms 

 are imperfect and inconspicuous in size and colour, the two sorts 

 on separate trees. The fruit looks like a green berry as it develops, 

 but it breaks in ripening in a dry, 3-valved pod, each cell of which 

 contains two triangular red seeds. 



Beside its horticultural uses, the tree is valuable for a resinous 

 gum which exudes from wounds in the trunk. This is made into 

 varnish, and was formerly used in the treatment of gout. The 

 Florida "cracker" makes tea of the leaves when "store tea" is 

 not at hand. 



354 



