LEGUMINOS.E 533 



and twice as long as broad, indehiscent or finally separating into 5 or 6 valves, the 

 walls composed of a thin red-brown dry outer layer and a thick interior layer of hard 

 woody fibre; seed-coat lined with a thick white reticulated fibrous coat. 



A tree, 25-oO high, with a long straight trunk occasionally a foot in diameter, 

 and dark reddish brown branches glabrous or sometimes slightly pilose at first, 

 bscoming brown or gray-brown in their second year; more often a tall broad bush 



with many upright spreading branches, or often in exposed situations a semiprostrate 

 shrub 1 2 high. Bark of the trunk -jf' thick, with a light gray surface tinged with 

 red, separating into long thin scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, light 

 brown often tinged with red, with thin lighter colored sapwoocl of about 10 layers of 

 annual growth. The insipid fruit is eaten by negroes; the seeds contain a consider- 

 able quantity of oil; and the astringent bark, leaves, and roots have been used medi- 

 cinally. 



Distribution. Usually on saline shores in Florida; Cape Canaveral to Bay Bis- 

 cayne, and on the west coast from Caximbas Bay to the southern keys; generally 

 shrubby; arborescent only on the islands of the Everglades near Bay Biscayne, and 

 on the Miami River; through the West Indies to southern Brazil, and on the west 

 coast of Africa from Senegambia to the Congo Free State. 



XXII. LEGUMINOS2E. 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate usually compound leaves, regular or papil- 

 ionaceous usually perfect flowers ; stamens 10 or indefinite, with diadelphous 

 or distinct filaments and 2-celled anthers, the cells opening longitudinally ; 

 ovary superior, 1 or many-celled, inserted on the bottom of the calyx. Fruit 

 a legume. Of the four hundred and thirty genera of the Pea family now 

 recognized and widely distributed in all temperate and tropical regions, seven- 

 teen have arborescent representatives in the United States. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ABORESCENT GENERA. 



Subfamily 1. MIMOSOIDE^E. Calyx 4-6-toothed, the teeth valvate in the bud ; petals as many 

 as the teeth of the calyx, valvate in the bud ; ovules numerous, suspended in 2 ranks 

 from the inner angle of the ovary, superposed, anatropous, the micropyle superior ; sta- 



