Black Mangrove 



825 



The twigs are slender, striate, yellowish and smooth or slightly hairy, becoming 

 round and brownish gray. The leaves are thick and leathery, opposite, entire, 

 elliptic, oblong or oblong-obovate, 5 to 15 cm. long, rounded or pointed at the 

 apex, tapering at the base into the short, 

 stout, grooved leaf-stalk, light green, 

 shining and prominently veined. The 

 flowers appear at nearly all seasons, at 

 the ends of the branches, in nodding 

 spike-like racemes 5 to 12 cm. long, on 

 very short pedicels in the axils of small 

 bracts; the calyx is bell-shaped, 3 mm. 

 long, 5-toothed, persistent; the corolla is 

 salverform, white, smooth without, hairy 

 within, its tube slightly longer than the 

 calyx, the limb 5 to 7 mm. across, slightly 

 obUque, its 5 rounded lobes spreading; 

 the 4 stamens are joined to the corolla- 

 tube in sets of 2, separated by a stami- 

 node; filaments awl-shaped, included; 

 anthers introrse, opening lengthwise; 

 the ovary is sessile, incompletely 4-celled, 

 tapering into a short, included, 2-lobed style, 

 cm. in diameter, reddish brown, shining, its flesh sweet and juicy, subtended by 

 the enlarged, persistent, light brown calyx, the thick, bony stone separable into 

 2 flattened nutlets, each containing 2 elongated, brown seeds without endosperm. 



The wood is very hard, strong, dense and red, its specific gravity about 0.87. 



The genus contains about 20 species, all of tropical America, from Florida to 

 Brazil; its name is the Greek translation of the common EngUsh name, which is 

 a corruption of the French name " bois fidfele," and has nothing to do with the 

 popular musical instrument. This species has been confused with Cithavexylon 

 vUlosum Jacquin, of Santo Domingo. The type of the genus is the little known 

 Cithavexylon spinosum Linnaeus, said to have come from Barbadoes. One other 

 species, C. brachyanthum A. Gray, a shrub, occurs in the arid regions of southern 

 Texas. 



II. BLACK MANGROVE 



GENUS AYICENNIA LINN.EUS 

 Species Avicennia nitida Jacquin 



LSO called Black tree and Blackwood, this evergreen tree of low sea- 

 shores along the coast of Florida and the Gulf States to Texas and 

 throughout the coasts of tropical America, varies greatly in stature 

 from a thick, bushy shrub to that of a tall tree, with a maximum height 

 of 25 meters and a trun'k diameter of 6 dm. 



Fig. 753. — Fiddlewood. 

 The fruit is a subglobose drupe, i 



