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VOLUME XXVII NUMBER 2 
MeTANICAL:.(;AZEI EE 
FEBRUARY 1899 
NEW OR LITTLE KNOWN NORTH AMERICAN TREES 
CHARLES SPRAGUE SARGENT. 
In the tenth volume of Zhe Silva of North America, which was 
published on November 30, 1896, descriptions and figures of two 
Species of Thrinax from southern Florida were included, and an 
allusion was made to the existence of two other Florida species 
known only from fragmentary specimens. Since the appearance 
of that volume I have made three journeys to the keys of south- 
ern Florida for the special purpose of studying the plants of this 
Sroup, and at last I have obtained sufficient material to throw 
some further light on their characters and distribution. 
In the original description of the genus Thrinax, founded by 
Swartz on a West Indian tree, the fruit is described as baccate, 
the size of a small pea and slightly fleshy, with a single seed, 
white in the interior with a red middle (‘nucleus solitarius, 
"auco Osseo fragili tectus, intus albus, medio ruber ”). Martius, 
in 1824, in his Palmarum Familia ejusque Genera, practically 
adopted Swartz’s characters for the genus, describing the albu- 
Thane, vidum, equabile,” but Endlicher, who next described 
Fa een penta Plantarim, speaks of it as “‘equabile aut 
plant atum, showing, probably, his acquaintance with some 
unlike the type of Swartz’s genus. Martius in the storia 
m also calls the fruit baccate, Swartz’s red interior of the 
Seed being explained by the infolding of the testa which leaves 
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