4 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



wheat is perhaps the most important representative species. Within the 

 tropics the family is represented also by shrubs and trees, those of the 

 following genus being the only tree representatives in America. 



GENUS COCCOLOBIS P. BROWNE. 



Leaves simple, evergreen, entire and with pronounced stipular sheaths. 

 Flowers small, perfect, with short jointed pedicels, in I or few-flowered clusters 

 in axilary or terminal racemes ; calyx cup-shaped with thin white lobes reflexed 

 at first but finally thickening and enveloping the nutlet; stamens 8 borne on the 

 rim of the calyx-tube ; pistil free, with sessile 3-angled ovary, short style and 

 3-lobed stigma. Fruit subglobose or ovoid usually with thin fleshy acidulous 

 pulp, though sometimes dry, crowned with the persistent calyx-lobes and con- 

 taining the single 3-5-lobed pit. 



A genus of about 120 species confined to the tropics of the N<ew 

 World and represented in the U. S. by the following two species of 

 trees. Name is from Greek roots meaning a berry with a husk. 



302. COCCOLOBIS UVIFERA JACQ. 



SEA GRAPE. 



Ger., Coccoloba-holz. Fr., Raisinier de mer. 



Sp., Uvero, Uvifero, Uva del mar, Uva (Cuba). 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS : Leaves thick, leathery, suborbicular, 4-6- in. across, 

 rounded or slightly pointed or notched at apex, deeply heart-shaped at base, 

 lustrous dark green above, paler beneath, with very short thick flattened petiole 

 and reddish veins and conspicuous stipular sheath about y\ in. long. Flowers 

 appearing almost continuously throughout the year in i-6-flowered fascicles 

 with pubescent pedicels about l /% in. long; in thick-stemmed racemes 6-12 in. long; 

 calyx bell-shaped, with its white lobes slightly longer than the red stamens ; 

 pistil with short stigmatic lobes. Fruit resembling a bunch of blue grapes in 

 compact dropping racemes, each fruit being subglobose or obovoid, about 24 m - 

 long with thin juicy flesh, and thin-walled nutlet. 



A low, rounded or wide-spreading tree rarely over 15 ft. (5 m.) in 

 height in Florida, with compact beautiful foliage and crooked, gnarled 

 and more or less prostrate trunk sometimes -3 or 4 ft. (i m.) in diame- 

 ter. Such trees commonly present the appearance of a dome of their 

 singular foliage .extending from the ground up and hiding the trunk. 

 It is often shrubby and attains its greatest dimensions south of the 

 United States. The bark of trunk is thin, scarcely more than */6 in. in 



