764 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



1. Rhizophora Mangle L. 



Leaves ovate or elliptic, rounded or acute at apex, gradually narrowed at base, dark green 

 and very lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, 3|'-5' long and 1'- 

 2' wide, with slightly thickened margins, a broad midrib, and reticulate veinlets; persistent 

 for one or two years; petioles % f -l% f in length; stipules lanceolate, acute, 1|' long, deciduous 

 as the leaf unfolds. Flowers produced through the year, 1' in diameter, pedicellate, in 



Fig. 686 



2 or 3-flowered clusters on peduncles 1|' long from the axils of young leaves; petals pale 

 yellow, coated on the inner surface with long pale hairs; stamens 8 with villose filaments. 

 Fruit 1' long, rusty brown, slightly roughened by minute bosses, the hard woody thick- 

 walled tube developed from the cotyledons protruding \'-\' from its apex after the germi- 

 nation of the seed, covering the plumule, and holding the dark brown radicle marked with 

 occasional orange-colored lenticels and when fully grown 10'-12' long and \'-\' thick near 

 the apex. 



A round-topped bushy tree, with spreading branches usually 15-20 high, forming 

 almost impenetrable thickets w r ith its numerous aerial roots, or occasionally 70-80 high, 

 with a tall straight trunk clear of branches for more than half its length, a narrow head, and 

 stout glabrous dark red-brown branchlets, becoming lighter colored in their second year 

 and then conspicuously marked by large oval slightly elevated leaf -scars. Bark of young 

 stems and of the branches smooth, light reddish brown, becoming on old trunks %'-%' thick, 

 and gray faintly tinged with red, the surface irregularly fissured and broken into thin 

 appressed scales. Wood exceedingly heavy, hard, close-grained, strong, dark reddish 

 brown streaked with lighter brown, with pale sapwood of 40-50 layers of annual growth ; 

 used for fuel and wharf-piles. 



Distribution. Shores of Florida from Mosquito Inlet on the east coast and Cedar Keys 

 on the west coast to the southern keys; most abundant south of latitude 29, following 

 the coast with wide thickets and ascending the rivers for many miles; on Cape Sable and 

 the shores of Bay Biscayne sometimes growing at a little distance from the coast on ground 

 not submerged by the tide, and here attaining its largest size, with tall straight trunks 

 and few aerial roots; on Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Antilles, the west coast of Mexico, 

 lower California, the Galapagos Islands, and from Central America along the northeast 

 coast of South America to the limits of the tropics. 



XLVH. COMBRETACE^:. 



Trees or shrubs, with astringent juice, naked buds, and alternate or opposite simple en- 

 tire coriaceous persistent leaves, without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect, or polyg- 



