January i6, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



29 



round or obovate, a quarter to a third of an inch in diame- 

 ter, crowned with the calyx-lobes, one-seeded, and bright 

 scarlet when fully ripe. The wood is very heavy, exceed- 

 ingly hard, very strong, close-grained and compact; bright 

 orange-brown, with somewhat darker sap-wood. This tree 

 grows very slowly, the specimen in the Jesup collection 

 in the American Museum of Natural History (now labeled 

 E. procerd) is but twelve and a half inches in diameter, 

 and shows 155 rings of annual growth, with fifty-one 

 rings of sap-wood. 



Eugenia Garberi occupies a rich hummock or low island, 

 raised somewhat above the level, sandy. Pine-covered 

 plain which separates Bay Biscayne, in the extreme south- 

 eastern part of Florida, from the Atlantic Ocean, and 

 situated about three-quarters of a mile east of the mouth 



noviaiid) here replacing the more northern Sassafras ; while 

 the margin of the bay, a few hundred feet away, is lined 

 with the Red Mangrove (Rhizophora), the familiar inhab- 

 itant of tropical shores, and here attaining in the United 

 States its greatest size. 



Eugenia Garberi h.diS been detected also by Curtiss upon 

 Old Rhodes and Elliott's Keys, two of the Florida reef-keys 

 west of Bay Biscayne. It was collected by Brace upon 

 the Island of New Providence in 1878 (Herb. Kew., 

 without flowers and fruit), and by Dr. Nicholson, in 

 Antigua (Herb. Kew., without flowers and fruit and with- 

 out date). 



It is by far the largest, as well as the most beautiful, of 

 the species which occur in Florida, and may commemo- 

 rate fitly the botanical services of the late Dr. A. P. 



Fig. 87. — Eugenia Garberi. — The flower and fruit much enlarged. — See page 28. 



of the Miami River, and close to the shores of the bay 

 {Garher (1877) in flower; Curtiss, Sargent). It is the most 

 common, and, with its bright red bark and lustrous foliage, 

 by far the most conspicuous object in this particular spot, 

 which is one of the most interesting in the United States 

 for the student of trees ; for here, and in no other place 

 with which I am acquainted, are seen trees of the typical 

 North American flora mingling freely with tropical West 

 Indian species. Here, in an area of a few acres, besides 

 this Eugenia, are found the Live Oak of very large size, 

 the Red Mulberry, the Palmetto, the Pine {Pinus Cubensis), 

 the Mastic {Sideroxjylo?i Masticodendron), the Gumbo Limbo 

 {Bursera gummtyera), the Iron-wood {Condalia ferrea), the 

 Marlberry {Ardisia Pickeringia), the Bustic {Dipholis salici- 

 folia), the Calabash {Crescentia cucurbiti7ia), the Pigeon Plum 

 {Coccoloba Floridana), the Lance-wood {jSfectandra Willede- 



Garber, of Pennsylvania, who, so lar as I have been able 

 to learn, was the first botanist who visited Bay Biscayne, 

 and who was the discoverer of this species, which has 

 heretofore been confounded in herbaria with E. procera 

 of Poiret, a very different and much smaller plant, with 

 smooth, gray bark, and thinner and less coriaceous leaves, 

 larger flowers on longer pedicels, appearing in May, and 

 large, black fruit, which ripens in November. 



Six species of Eugenia are known in Florida. They 

 are all trees, with the exception of E. hngipes, Berg., a 

 Cuban species, discovered upon No Name Key by Mr. 

 A. H. Curtiss a few years ago, and not seen elsewhere 

 within the territory of the United States. It is a low 

 branching shrub, growing in an open forest of Pinus 

 Cubensis and Thrinax argentea. The other Florida species 

 {E. buxifolia, E. dichotoma, E. monticola and E. procera) are, 



