ULMACE^E 



327 



longitudinally; ovary sessile, rudimentary or wanting in the staminate flower; style cen- 

 tral, slightly or entirely divided into two linear fleshy stigmatic branches; ovule solitary, 

 pendulous from the apex of the cell, anatropous; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, 

 short-oblong to subglobose, crowned by the persistent style; exocarp more or less fleshy: 

 endocarp hard; seed filling the cavity of the nutlet; testa membranaceous, albumen fleshy, 

 often scanty; embryo curved or slightly involute; cotyledons narrow; radicle incurved, 

 ascending. 



Trema, with about twenty species, is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical 

 regions of the two hemispheres. Two species reach the coast region and the keys of 

 southern Florida. Of these Trema mollis Lour, is a small tree, and Trema Lamarckiana 

 Bl., which in Florida has been noticed only on Key Largo, where it grows as a small shrub, 

 is widely distributed over the Bahamas and many of the West Indian islands. 



1. Trema mollis Lour. 

 Trema floridana Britt. 



Leaves 2-ranked, ovate, abruptly acuminate at apex, rounded, cordate and often oblique 

 at base, finely serrate with incurved or rounded apiculate teeth, dark green and scabrate 

 above, covered with pale tomentum below, 3'-4' long, l'-2' wide; petioles stout, tomen- 



Fig. 299 



tose, about f ' in length ; stipules narrow, acuminate, covered with long white hairs, about 

 one third as long as the petioles. Flowers in early spring, subtended by minute scarious 

 deciduous bracts on short slender pedicels in bisexual many-flowered pedunculate villose 

 cymes about as long as the petioles; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes oblong, acute and incurved 

 at apex, villose on the outer surface; staminate with glabrous filaments and slightly ex- 

 serted yellow anthers; pistillate with a style divided to the base. Fruit short-oblong, 

 pale yellowish brown, i' 5-' in diameter. 



A fast-growing short-lived tree, in Florida occasionally 25-30 high, with a tall trunk 

 1|'-2|' in diameter, small crowded branches ascending at narrow angles, and stout hoary- 

 tomentose red-brown 2-ranked branchlets. Bark thin, chocolate-brown, roughened by 

 numerous small wart-like excrescences, and separating into small appressed papery scales. 



Distribution. Rich hummocks; near the shores of Bay Biscayne, in the Everglades, and 



