COMBRETACE.E 



767 



strong, close-grained, dark yellow-brown, with thin darker colored sapwood of about 10 

 layers of annual growth; burning slowly like charcoal and highly valued for fuel. The 



Fig. 688 



bark is bitter and astringent, and has been used in tanning leather, and in medicine as an 

 astringent and tonic. 



Distribution. Low muddy tide-water shores of lagoons and bays; Florida, Cape Ca- 

 naveral and Cedar Keys to the southern keys; of its largest size in Florida on Lost Man's 

 River near Cape Sable; at its northern limits a low shrub; common on the Bahama 

 Islands, in the Antilles, on the shores of Central America and tropical South America, on 

 the Galapagos Islands, and on the west coast of Africa. 



3. LAGUNCULARIA Gartn. 



A tree, with scaly bark, terete pithy branchlets, and naked buds. Leaves opposite, 

 glabrous, thick and coriaceous, oblong or elliptic, obtuse or emarginate at apex, marked 

 toward the margin with minute tubercles; their petioles conspicuously biglandular. Flow- 

 ers usually perfect or polygamo-moncecious, minute, flattened, greenish white, sessile, in 

 simple terminal axillary tomentose spikes generally collected in leafy panicles, with ovate 

 acute hoary-tomentose bracts and bractlets; calyx-tube turbinate, with 5 prominent ridges 

 opposite the lobes of the limb and 5 intermediate lesser ridges, furnished near the middle 

 with 2 minute appendages, and coated with dense pale tomentum, the limb urceolate, 

 5-parted to the middle, the divisions triangular, obtuse or acute, erect, persistent; disk 

 epigynous, flat, 10-lobed, the 5 lobes opposite the petals broader than those opposite the 

 calyx-lobes, hairy; petals 5, nearly orbicular, contracted into a short claw inserted on the 

 bottom of the calyx-limb, ciliate on the margins, caducous; stamens 10, inserted in 2 ranks; 

 anthers cordate, apiculate; ovary 1-celled; style short, crowned with a slightly 2-lobed 

 capitate stigma. Fruit 10-ribbed, coriaceous, hoary-pubescent, elongated, obovoid, flat- 

 tened, crowned with the calyx-limb, unequally 10-ribbed, the 2 lateral ribs produced into 

 narrow wings, 1-seeded; flesh coriaceous, corky toward the interior, inseparable from the 

 thin-walled crustaceous stone dark red and lustrous on the inner surface. Seed suspended, 

 obovoid or oblong; seed-coat membranaceous, dark red; radicle elongated, slightly longer 

 and nearly inclosed by the green cotyledons. 



Laguncularia consists of a single species of tropical America and Africa. 



The generic name is from laguncula, in allusion to the supposed resemblance of the fruit 

 to a flask. 



1. Laguncularia racemosa Gaertn. Buttonwood. White Mangrove. 

 Leaves slightly tinged with red when they unfold, and at maturity dark green on the 

 upper and lighter green or pale on the lower surface, li'-2t' long and l'-H' wide; petioles 



