Buttonwood 



719 



leaf scars. The leaves are alternate, entire-margined, crowded at the ends of the 

 branchlets, thick and leathery, obovate, wedge-shaped at the base, i to 3 dm. long, 

 rounded, often abruptly tipped at the apex, short stalked, dark green and shin- 

 ing above, paler beneath. The small flowers are 

 perfect or polygamous, greenish white, in slender 

 spikes 5 to 15 cm. long, the staminate flowers toward 

 the top, the pistillate at the base of the spikes; the 

 calyx is hairy, its lobes ovate or triangular, about 

 as long as the tube; corolla none; stamens 10 to 

 20 in 2 series, exserted, the anthers heart-shaped; 

 style single, ending in a stigmatic tip. The fruit is 

 a woody drupe, somewhat ellipsoid, compressed, 2- 

 edged or shghtly winged, short pointed, 4 to 7 cm. 

 long; the seed is cylindric-ellipsoid, 3 to 4 cm. long, 

 6 to ID mm. in diameter, and is edible. 



The wood is hard, close-grained, red-brown, with 

 a specific gravity of about 0.70. The ripe seeds are 

 used, especially in the West Indies, like almonds, 

 but the flavor is more Uke that of the filbert; a fixed 

 oil is also expressed from them. The unripe fruits ^'^- 658. -Indian Almond, 

 of this and other trees of the genus are highly astringent and are used in tanning 

 and dyeing; they are exported from the East Indies into England under the name 

 myrobalans. All parts of the plant are more or less astringent and tonic and 

 have been used in tropical medicine. 



Terminalia is a large genus, about 100 species having been described, mostly 

 natives of the eastern tropics. T. Catappa is the type of the genus. The name 

 is Latin, with reference to the clustering of the leaves at the ends of the branches. 



II. BUTTONWOOD 



GENUS CONOCARPUS LINN^US 



Species Conocarpus erecta Linnaeus 



ONOCARPUS attains all manner of forms, from that of a prostrate 

 shmb, less than a meter high, to that of an upright tree 20 meters 

 tall, with a trunk diameter of 7 or 8 dm. It occurs on tropical sea- 

 coasts, either muddy, sandy, or rocky, often where exposed to spray. 

 It is known from the coasts of peninsular Florida and the Keys, throughout the 

 West Indies and tropical America, and is also reported from Africa. 



The bark is broken by a network of fissures into irregular flat ridges and thin 

 scales of a dark brown color. The twigs are slender, angular, or sometimes 

 winged, smooth and shining or finely hair}-, green, becoming round and gray or 

 bro\Mi. The leaves are alternate, persistent, leather)', eUiptic to oval or obovate, 



