100 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



cupular perianth, the lobes broadly ovate and acute, stamens with thin nearly triangular 

 exserted filaments slightly united at base and oblong anthers becoming reversed and 

 extrorse at maturity, and a deep orange-colored ovary narrowed above into a short thick 



Fig. 97 



style dilated into a large funnel-formed stigma. Fruit globose, |' in diameter; seed sub- 

 globose, bright to dark chestnut-brown, depressed. 



A tree, rarely more than 30 high, with a trunk 8'-10' in diameter. 



Distribution. Dry coral soil, on the shores of Sugar Loaf Sound, and on No Name and 

 Bahia Honda keys, Florida; in Cuba. 



2. COCCOTHRINAX Sarg. 



Small unarmed trees, with simple or clustered stems or rarely stemless. Leaves orbicu- 

 lar, or truncate at base, pale or silvery white on the lower surface, divided into narrow 

 obliquely folded segments acuminate and divided at apex; rachis narrow; ligules thin, 

 free, erect, concave, pointed at the apex; petioles compressed, slightly rounded and 

 ridged above and below, thin and smooth on the margins, gradually enlarged below into 

 elongated sheaths of coarse fibres forming an open network covered while young by thick 

 hoary tomentum. Spadix interfoliar, paniculate, shorter than the leaf-stalks, its primary 

 branches furnished with numerous short slender pendulous flower-bearing secondary 

 branches; spathes numerous, papery, cleft at the apex. Flowers solitary, perfect, jointed 

 on elongated slender pedicels; perianth cup-shaped, obscurely lobed; stamens 9, inserted 

 on the base of the perianth, with subulate filaments enlarged and barely united at the base, 

 and oblong anthers; ovary 1 -celled, narrowed into a slender style crowned by a funnel- 

 formed oblique stigma; ovule basilar, erect. Fruit a subglobose berry raised on the thick- 

 ened torus of the flower, with thick juicy black flesh. Seed free, erect, depressed-globose, 

 with a thick hard vertically grooved shell deeply infolded in the bony albumen; hilum 

 subbasilar, minute; raphe hidden in the folds of the seed-coat; embryo lateral. 



Coccothrinax is confined to the tropics of the New World. Two species, of which one is 

 stemless, inhabit southern Florida, and at least two other species are scattered over several 

 of the West Indian islands. 



Coccothrinax, from K6/ocoy and Thrinax, is in allusion to the berry-like fruit. 



1. Coccothrinax jucunda Sarg. Brittle Thatch. 



Leaves nearly orbicular, the lower segments usually parallel with the petiole, thin and 

 brittle, 18'-24' in diameter, divided below the middle of the leaf or toward its base nearly 



