LEGUMINOS^E 629 



upper lip emarginate, the lower 3-lobed, persistent, the lobes imbricated in the bud, short 

 and broad; petals inserted on an annular glandular disk adnate to the interior of the calyx- 

 tube, unguiculate, white tinged with red, rarely yellowish white; stamens 10, the filament 

 of the upper stamen free at base only, united above with the others into a long tube; an- 

 thers oblong, uniform,; versatile; ovary sessile, contracted into a filiform incurved style, 

 with a capitate stigma; ovules numerous, suspended from the inner angle of the ovary, 

 ^-ranked. Legume linear, compressed, raised on a stalk longer than the calyx, slightly 

 contracted between the numerous seeds, tomentose-canescent or glabrate, thin-walled, 

 indehiscent, longitudinally 4-winged, the wings developed from the dorsal and ventral 

 sutures, broad or narrow, continuous or interrupted by the abortion of some of the ovules, 

 membranaceous, their margins undulate or irregularly cut; seeds oval, compressed, with- 

 out albumen, laterally attached by a short thick funicle; seed-coat thin, crustaceous, red- 

 brown, not lustrous; embryo filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons plano-convex, oval, 

 fleshy; radicle short, inflexed. 



Seven or eight species are now recognized, inhabitants of tropical America where they 

 are distributed from southern Florida, through the West Indies to southern Mexico and 

 Guatemala. Piscidia from the bark of the roots of Ichthyomethia is sometimes used me- 

 dicinally. 



The generic name, from tx0i and ^0v, indicates the Carib use of one of the species. 



1. Ichthyomethia piscipula A. S. Hitch. Jamaica Dogwood. 



Leaves 4'-9' long, 5-11-foliolate, with stout petioles; leaflets oval, obovate or broad- 

 oblong, obtuse or short-acuminate at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, with thick pubes- 

 cent petiolules, when they first appear coated like the petioles with rufous hairs, at ma- 



Fig. 574 



turity coriaceous, glabrous and dark green above, pale and more or less clothed below with 

 rufous or canescent pubescence along the elevated conspicuous midrib, and numerous thin 

 veins arching and united at the entire undulate thickened margins, or covered with soft pu- 

 bescence below; deciduous in spring. Flowers opening in May, f ' long, on slender pedicels 

 sometimes l' in length, in canescent ovoid densely flowered or elongated thyrsoid pan- 

 icles, with short 3-12-flowered branches, from the axils of the fallen leaves of the previous 

 year; calyx canescent, 5-lobed; petals white tinged with red, the standard hoary-canescent 

 on the outer surface, marked with a green blotch on the inner surface, its claw as long as 

 the calyx; ovary sericeous. Fruit ripening in July and August, broad-winged, light brown, 

 3' -4' long and !'-!' across the wings. 

 A tree, 40-50 high, with a trunk often 2-3 in diameter, stout erect sometimes con- 



