The Buckthorns 



Some are remarkable for the hardness of their wood, others for 

 their flowers. 



The Red Ironwood (Reynosia sepienirionalts, Urb.), called 

 also "Darling plum," grows wild in southern Florida, and is 

 cultivated to some extent for its fruit. It is a pretty little tree, 

 clothing its heavy, hard wood with bright red bark. The purple 

 or black plums are sweet and of pleasant flavour. 



The Bluewood, or Logwood {Condalia ohovaia, Hook.), 

 grows in thickets in the valley of the Rio Grande River in Texas 

 and is especially esteemed as fuel. It burns with an unusually 

 fervent heat. Its leaves are dry and leathery, obovate, entire, 

 and scarcely an inch long. Its twigs end in sharp thorns. The 

 sweet berries ripen, turning blue, then black, during the long 

 summer. The wood is red, but yields a bluish dye. It is an 

 entirely different tree from the logwood of commerce, Hcema- 

 toxylon Campechianum, which grows in Central America and the 

 West Indies and yields a colouring matter used in calico printing 

 and in the preparation of lake pigments. 



The Black Ironwood (Krugiodendron ferreum, Urb.) grows 

 plentifully in second-growth timber in southern Florida and in 

 the West Indies. Its velvety green twigs are covered with small, 

 oval, leathery leaves, and in autumn with solitary black berries. 

 The bark is pale grey. 



This species is notable for having the heaviest wood of all 

 American trees. A cubic foot of it weighs 81.14 pounds. Its 

 specific gravity is 1.3020. The ashes, after a stick burns, weigh 

 8^ per cent, of the original weight, proving a remarkably high 

 percentage of mineral substance in the wood. 



The California Lilac, or Blue Myrtle (Ceanothus ihyrsi- 

 florus, Esch.), is related to the shrubby New Jersey tea, or redroot 

 of the eastern half of the continent. But it is a California species, 

 and there we shall find it in all stages from a small shrub on the 

 bleak lower coast to a towering tree 40 feet high among the red- 

 woods, and on the hillsides of Mendocino County. It keeps to 

 the western part of the state. The most striking feature of this 

 plant is the inflorescence. The twigs end in clusters of small, 

 blue, fragrant flowers (rarely white), which suggest nothing more 

 than our garden lilac blooms, in miniature. The leaves are 

 small with peculiar venation, having three midribs instead of one. 

 From this native species have been derived forms of showiei 



391 



