630 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



torted branches forming an irregular head, and branches coated when they first appear 

 with thick rufous pubescence disappearing during their first summer, becoming glabrous 

 or glabrate, bright reddish brown, conspicuously marked by oblong longitudinal lenticels, 

 and large elevated horizontal slightly obcordate leaf-scars marked by the ends of numerous 

 small scattered fibro- vascular bundles. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, |'-|' long, with thin 

 hoary-pubescent scales. Bark of the trunk about f ' thick, gray more or less blotched 

 with olive and covered with small square scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, 

 clear yellow-brown, with thick lighter colored sap wood, very durable in contact with the 

 ground; largely used in Florida in boat-building, and for firewood and charcoal. In the 

 West Indies the bark of the roots, young branches and powdered leaves were used by 

 the Caribs to stupefy fish and facilitate their capture. 



Distribution. One of the commonest of the tropical trees of Florida from the shores 

 of Bay Biscay ne to the southern keys, and on the west coast from the neighborhood of 

 Peace Creek to Cape Sable; on many of the Antilles and in southern Mexico. Sterile 

 branches collected by C. T. Simpson in the neighborhood of Cape Sable indicate that a sec- 

 ond species occurs in Florida. 



XXIV. ZYGOPHYLLACE^E. 



Trees or shrubs, with hard resinous wood, and opposite pinnate leaves, with stipules. 

 Flowers perfect, regular; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals as many as 

 the calyx-lobes, imbricated in the bud, hypogynous; stamens twice as many as the petals, 

 hypogynous; filaments distinct; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; 

 ovary 5-celled; styles united, terminating in a minute 5-lobed or entire stigma; ovules nu- 

 merous, suspended, anatropous; raphe ventral. Fruit capsular, angled or winged, sep- 

 arating at maturity into 5 indehiscent carpels. Seeds solitary or in pairs in each cell; seed- 

 coat thick and fleshy; embryo straight or nearly so; cotyledons oval, foliaceous; radicle 

 short, superior. 



Of the fourteen genera of this family, mostly confined to the warmer parts of the northern 

 hemisphere, one only, Guaiacum, has an arborescent representative in the United States. 



1. GUAIACUML. Lignum-vitae. 



Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, and stout terete alternate branchlets often with swollen 

 nodes. Leaves petiolate, abruptly pinnate, with 2-14 entire reticulate-veined leaflets, 

 and minute mostly deciduous stipules. Flowers terminal, solitary or umbellate-fascicled, 

 pedicellate, from the axils of minute deciduous bracts; calyx-lobes slightly united at base, 

 unequal, deciduous; petals broad-obovate, more or less unguiculate; stamens inserted on 

 the inconspicuous elevated disk opposite to and alternate with the petals; filaments fili- 

 form, naked or bearing at base on the inner surface a minute membranaceous scale; an- 

 thers oblong; ovary raised on a short thick stalk, obovoid or clavate, 5-lobed, contracted 

 into a slender subulate acute style; ovules 8-10 in each cell, suspended in pairs from the 

 inner angle. Fruit fleshy, 5-celled, smooth, coriaceous, narrowed at base into a short stem, 

 with 5 wing-like angles, ventrally and sometimes dorsally dehiscent. Seeds suspended, 

 ovoid; seed-coat easily separable from the hard bony nucleus closely invested with a tliin 

 indistinct tegumen. 



Guaiacum is confined to the New World, and is distributed from southern Florida through 

 the Antilles, Mexico, and Central America to the Andes of Peru. Seven or eight species 

 are distinguished. 



Guaiacum produces heavy close-grained wood, the cells of the heart wood filled with 

 dark-colored resin. The lignum-vitse of commerce, largely used for the sheaths of ship- 

 blocks, mallets, skittle-balls, ten-pin balls, etc., is produced principally by Guaiacum 

 officinale L., of the Antilles and South America, and by Guaiacum sanctum L. Guaiacum 

 resin is a stimulating diaphoretic sometimes used in the treatment of gout and rheuma- 

 tism. 



