MOKACEA: 335 



receptacles in falling. Bark smooth, ashy gray, light brown tinged with red, \' thick, and 

 broken on the surface into minute appressed scales disclosing in falling the nearly black 

 inner bark. Wood exceedingly light, soft, weak, coarse-grained, perishable in contact 

 with the ground, light brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood. 



Distribution. Hummocks on the shores and islands of southern Florida; from the 

 Indian River on the east coast and Tampa Bay on the west coast, to the southern keys; com- 

 mon and now rapidly spreading over the eastern and southern borders of the Everglades; 

 attaining its largest size in the neighborhood of Bay Biscayne; on the Bahama Islands. 



2. Ficus brevifolia Nutt. Fig. Wild Fig. 

 Ficus populnea Sarg.,not Willd. 



Leaves broadly ovate or rarely obovate, contracted into a short broad point or occa- 

 sionally rounded at apex, rounded, truncate or cordate at base, 2^'-5' long, I%'-5' wide, thin 

 and firm, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the lower, with a light yel- 

 low midrib, and slender remote primary veins arcuate and united near the margins and con- 

 nected by finely reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, sometimes 1' in length; stipules 

 ovate-lanceolate, \' long, tinged with red. Flowers: receptacles obovoid, solitary or in 

 pairs, yellow until fully grown, ultimately turning bright red and becoming \'-\' long, on 

 stout drooping stalks \'-\' in length; flowers sessile or pedicellate, separated by minute 

 chaff-like scales more or less laciniate at apex; calyx of the staminate flower divided nearly 

 to the base into three or four broad acute lobes; calyx of the pistillate flower with narrow 

 lobes shorter than the ovoid pointed ovary. Fruit ovoid; seed ovoid, with a membrana- 

 ceous light brown coat and an oblong lateral pale hilum. 



Fig. 304 



An epiphytal tree, rarely 40-50 high, with a trunk 12'-18' in diameter, spreading 

 branches occasionally developing aerial roots and forming an open irregular head, and 

 terete branchlets light red and slightly puberulous when they first appear, becoming 

 brown tinged with orange and later with red, and marked by minute pale lenticels, narrow 

 stipular scars, large elevated horizontal oval or semiorbicular leaf-scars showing a marginal 

 row of conspicuous fibro- vascular bundle-scars, and elevated concave receptacle scars. 

 Wood light, soft, close-grained, light orange-brown or yellow, with thick hardly distin- 

 guishable sapwood. 



Distribution. Usually on dry slightly elevated coral rocks; Florida from the shores of 

 Bay Biscayne to the Everglades Keys, and on several of the southern keys to Key West; 

 not common; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba. 



