700 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



or almost white surface occasionally separating into irregular plate-like scales. 

 Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, brown tinged with red, with lighter colored 

 sapwood of 30-40 layers of annual growth. 



Distribution. Shores of Lake Worth, in the neighborhood of Bay Biscayne, and 

 on Key West and Key Largo, Florida; on the Bahamas, on many of the Antilles and 

 in southern Mexico. 



XLVI. COMBRETACEJE. 



Trees or shrubs, with astringent juice, naked buds, and alternate or oppo- 

 site simple entire coriaceous persistent leaves without stipules. Flowers regu- 

 lar, perfect, or polygamous ; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes valvate in the bud ; petals 

 5, valvate in the bud, inserted at the base of the calyx, or ; disk epigynous ; 

 stamens 5-10, inserted on the limb of the calyx ; filaments slender, filiform, 

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

 ovary 1-celled ; style slender, subulate ; stigma minute, terminal, entire ; ovules 

 usually 2, suspended from the apex of the cell, collateral, anatropous ; raphe 

 ventral ; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, often crowned with the accres- 

 cent calyx. Seed solitary ; albumen ; embryo straight, with convolute coty- 

 ledons ; radicle minute, turned toward the hilum. 



Of the fifteen genera of this family, widely distributed through the tropics, 

 three have arborescent representatives in southern Florida. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 

 Corolla ; leaves alternate. 



Calyx deciduous ; flowers in capitate heads ; seeds winged. 1. Conocarpus. 



Calyx persistent ; flowers in spikes ; seeds without wings. 2. Buceras. 



Corolla of 5 petals ; calyx persistent ; leaves opposite. 3. Laguncularia. 



1. CONOCARPUS, L. 



A tree or shrub, with angled branchlets. Leaves alternate, short-petiolate, nar- 

 rowly ovate or obovate, acute, gradually contracted and biglandular at the base, 

 glabrous or sericeous. Flowers perfect, minute, in dense capitate heads in narrow 

 leafy terminal panicles, with acute caducous bracts and bractlets coated with pale 

 hairs, on stout hoary-tomentose peduncles bibracteolate near the middle; calyx-tube 



