309. BURSERA SIMARUBA GUMBO LlMBO. 17 



keys and mainland of southern Florida, as far north as Cape Canaveral 

 on the east coast and the Calposahatchie River on the west. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood very light, exceedingly soft, not 

 strong, easily worked, with quite uniformly distributed open ducts and 

 small but distinct medullary rays. It is of a light brown color with 

 abundant lighter sap-wood and of satiny luster. Specific Gravity, 

 0.3003; Percentage of Ash, 2.04; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 

 0.2942; Coefficient of Elasticity, 41684; Modulus of Rupture, 148; 

 Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 155; Resistance to Indentation, 

 57; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 18.71. 



USES. Little us>e has been made thus far of the wood of 1 this tree, 

 but stakes cut from its branches when stuck into the ground, even in 

 the poorest of rocky soil, readily take root and grow ; hence its value 

 for "live" fences. 



An aromatic resin obtained from the tree has been used as a varnish 

 of inferior grade and an infusion of the leaves as a native substitute 

 for tea. 



ORDER MELIACE^: MAHOGANY FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, usually pinnately compound, without stipules and not 

 pellucid-punctate. Flowers in panicles, regular, perfect ; calyx with usually 5 

 small persistent lobes; petals usually 5, sometimes slightly united; stamens 8-10, 

 with filaments united into a tube, and introrse 2-celled anthers opening length- 

 wise ; pistil with superior 3-5-celled ovary, united styles and 5-lobed stigma ; 

 ovules generally numerous in each cell. Fruit various, a capsule, drupe or berry. 



A family of about 700 species of mostly trees and shrubs of tropical 

 regions, grouped in about 50 genera. Only two specks are represented 

 in our flora the Mahogany and the China-berry (Meha azedarach L.), 

 a naturalized tree from the Orient. 



GENUS SWIETENIA JACQUIN. 



Leaves evenly pinnate, glabrous, long-petiolate, leaflets opposite petiolulate 

 and oblique at base. Flowers small, perfect, in axillary panicles ; calyx minute, 

 cup-shaped, with 5 rounded lobes; petals 5, spreading; stamens united into a 

 tube with 10 teeth and 10 2-celled anthers inside the tube at the intervals between 

 the teeth ; pistil superior, with ovoid 5-celled ovary, single slightly exserted style 

 and terminal 5-lobed stigma. Fruit a 5-celled and 5-valved capsule, the valves 

 separating septicidally from the base from the persistent 5-winged axis ; seeds 

 many, imbricated in 2 ranks in each cell, compressed and with long membran- 

 aceous wrinkled wing, with hilum at the tip, embryo transverse. 



The genus consists of three species of large tropical trees, two of 

 America and one of West Africa. The following species reaches its 



