Northern Porliera 



565 



blue petals; the slender filaments are 

 not appendaged. The fruit is an obo- 

 void rather fleshy capsule, strongly 

 five-angled, 17 mm. long or less, short- 

 stalked in the persistent base of the ca- 

 lyx, bright orange when ripe; it con- 

 tains black elliptic seeds provided with 

 a scarlet aril. 



The dense resinous wood is heavier 

 than water, its specific gravity being 

 about I.I 5; in color it varies from hght 

 yellow to greenish, the heartwood being 

 much darker than the sapwood; it is 

 sometimes called Iron wood. 



The wood, on account of the resin, 

 is used medicinally as a diaphoretic 

 and alterative, like that of its more 



Fig. 521. — Lignum Vitae. 



southern relative G. officinale, the resin of which, however, is preferred. 



NORTHERN PORLIERA 



GENUS PORLIERA RUIZ AND PAVON 



Species Porliera angnstifolia (Engelmann) A. Gray 



Guaiacum angustifolium Engelmann 



ORLIERA contains several species of shrubs and trees, distributed 

 from the Sonoran region to Chile; they differ from Guaiacums in 

 having filaments which are appendaged by 

 a scale, and their leaflets are narrow. The 



generic name commemorates Porher de Baxamar, a 



Spanish patron of Botany. The type species is the 



South American Porliera hygrometra Ruiz and Pavon. 

 Porliera angustijolia inhabits plains or prairies in 



Texas and northern Mexico. While usually a shrub, it 



sometimes becomes a tree up to 7 meters in height, 



with a trunk up to 2.5 dm. thick, its branches spread- 

 ing or straggling. The leaves have from 4 to 6 pairs 



of linear coriaceous leaflets, and are short-stalked 



and smooth; the leaflets are 1.5 cm. long or less, 2 to 



3 mm. wide, distinctly netted-veined, minutely tipped, 



somewhat oblique at the sessile base. The flowers are 



borne at the ends of short branches and are i to 2 cm. Fig. 522. — Northern Porliera. 



broad ; the concave round sepals are about 5 mm. long, half as long as the elUp- 



