8 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



HABITAT. The shores of ponds and wet sink holes of southern 

 Florida south of Cape Canaveral on the east coast and Tampa Bay 

 on the west. It attains its largest size in the vicinity of Bay Biscayne 

 It is also found on the Bahama Islands and on some of the West 

 Indies. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. The wood very light, soft, not strong, with 

 many rather conspicuous though small medullary rays and quite uni- 

 formly distributed small open ducts. It is of a light yellow color 

 streaked and blotched with brown. Specific Gravity, 0.5053; Percen- 

 tage of Ash, 4.86 ; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.4807 ; Coeffi- 

 cient of Elasticity, 50113; Modulus of Rupture, 607; Resistance to 

 Longitudinal Pressure, 302; Resistance to Indentation, 127; Weight of 

 a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 31.49. 



USES. On account of its great lightness and consequent buoyancy 

 the wood is valued for floats for fishing-nets, but aside from that is 

 little used. 



The fruit is scarcely edible, though it is sometimes eaten by the 

 country people, preferably when served with cream. 



ORDER ROSEACE^: ROSE FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate (opposite in Lyonothamnus) with stipules. Flowers regu- 

 lar, perfect, calyx 5-lpbed; petals 5 (o in Ccrcocorpus) imbricated in the bud; 

 stamens numerous, distinct and inserted with the petals, on a disk lining the 

 calyx-tube; anthers small, 2-celled, introrse (extrorse in Vauqnelcnia] longi- 

 tudinally dehiscent; pistils i-many; ovary i-celled with generally two anatropous 

 ovules in each cell; seeds mostly without albumen. 



The Rose Family consists of trees, shrubs and a few herbs of wide 

 distribution throughout temperate regions, and of upwards of fifteen 

 hundred species grouped in about ninety genera. Most of our succu- 

 lent fruits are among its products. Ten of the genera are represented 

 by arborescent species in the United States. 



GENUS CHRYSOBALAXUS LINNAEUS. 



Leaves persistent, alternate, entire, coriaceous, very short-petiolate, stipules 

 deciduous. Flowers small, perfect, in axillary and terminal cymes I to 2 in. 

 in length, .with short stout peduncles and subtended by deciduous bracts ; calyx 

 bell-shaped, pubescent, with 5 imbricated lobes, deciduous ; petals 5, alternate with 

 the calyx-lobes, spatulate, creamy white ; stamens about as long as the petals, 

 indefinite, distinct, inserted in a single row with the petals on the edge of a thin 

 disk on the margin of the calyx cup, with slender hairy filaments and 2-celled 

 anthers longitudinally dehiscent; pistil solitary, superior; sessile, rising from 

 the base of the ovary and with small terminal stigma, ovary I -celled with 2 

 ascending ovules. Fruit a fleshy subglobose or oval drupe about i in. long, 



