COMBRETACE^E 703 



A tree, with a single straight trunk, or often with a short prostrate stem 2-3 in 

 diameter, producing several straight upright secondary stems 40-50 high and 

 12'-18' in diameter, stout branches spreading nearly at right angles with the trunk 

 and forming a broad head, and branchlets clothed when they first appear with short 

 pale rufous pubescence mostly persistent for two or three years, becoming light red- 

 dish brown and covered with bark separating into thin narrow shreds. Bark of the 

 trunk and of the large branches thick, gray tinged with orange-brown, and broken 

 into short appressed scales. Wood exceedingly heavy, hard, close-grained, light 

 yellow-brown sometimes slightly streaked with orange, with thick clear pale yellow 

 sapwood of 30-40 layers of annual growth. The bark has been used in tanning 

 leather. 



Distribution. Florida, only on Elliott's Key; widely distributed in brackish 

 marshes through the West Indies to the shores of the Caribbean Sea and the Bay 

 of Panama. 



3. LAGTJNCULARIA. Gaertn. 



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

 site, glabrous, thick and coriaceous, oblong or elliptical, obtuse or emarginate at the 

 apex, marked toward the margin with minute tubercles; their petioles conspicuously 

 biglandular. Flowers usually perfect or polygamo-moncecious, minute, flattened, 

 greenish white, sessile, in simple terminal axillary tomentose spikes generally col- 

 lected in leafy panicles, with ovate acute hoary-tomentose bracts andbractlets; calyx- 

 tube turbinate, with 5 prominent ridges opposite the lobes of the limb and 5 inter- 

 mediate lesser ridges, bracteolate near the middle, with 2 minute persistent bracts, 

 and coated with dense pale tomentum, the limb urceolate, 5-parted to the middle, 

 the divisions triangular, obtuse or acute, erect, persistent; disk epigynons, flat, 10- 

 lobed, the 5 lobes opposite the petals broader than those opposite the calyx-lobes, 

 hairy; petals ,">, nearly orbicular, contracted into short claws 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, flattened, crowned with the calyx-limb, unequally 10-ribbed, the 2 lateral 

 ribs produced into narrow wings, 1-seeded; flesh coriaceous, corky toward the inte- 

 rior, inseparable from the thin-walled crustaceous stone dark red and lustrous on 

 the inner surface. Seed suspended, obovate or oblong; seed-coat membranaceous, 

 dark red; radicle elongated, slightly longer and nearly inclosed by the green cotyle- 

 dons. 



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, l'-2-|' long, and 

 !'-!' wide; their petioles red, ' in length. Flowers |' long, in hoary-tomentose 

 spikes produced throughout the year from the axils of young leaves and l'-2' long. 

 Fruit about ' long. 



A tree, 30-60 high, with a trunk 12'-20' in diameter, stout spreading branches 

 forming a nnrrow round-topped head, and slender glabrous branchlets somewhat 



