Pigeon Plum 



381 



2. PIGEON PLUM Coccolobis laurifoUa Jacquin 



An abundant element in the vegetation of hammocks and keys of southern 

 Florida, this tree is also widely distributed in the West Indies from the Bahamas 

 to northern South America, reaching a maxi- 

 mum height of about 20 meters, with a trunk 

 up to 6 or 7 dm. thick or more. 



Its smooth bark is thin, green, charac- 

 teristically mottled with brown, the branches 

 bluntly angular, the young twigs smooth. The 

 leaves are ovate to obovate, pointed or blunt, 

 12 cm. long or less, or larger on young shoots, 

 rounded or narrowed at the base, bright green 

 on the upper side, paler on the under, short- 

 stalked. The narrow racemes of flowers are 

 I dm. long or less, the slender pedicels 5 to 8 

 mm. long; the bell-shaped calyx is 4 or 5 mm. 

 broad, its 5 lobes nearly orbicular, and about 

 as long as the stamens. The nearly globular 

 ripe fruits are red, about i cm. in diameter, 

 acid, ripening in early spring; the pit (achene) 

 is hard and brown. 



The wood is dark reddish brown, hard 

 and strong, with a specific gravity of just about i.oo, being ahnost exactly as 

 heavy as water. 



Coccolobis floridana Meisner (C. Curtissii Lindau), also Floridian, differs 

 from this by having short staminodes between the stamens, but this feature does 

 not seem to us sufficient to separate it specifically. 



Fig. 335. Pigeon Plum. 



