TREES AND SHRUBS. 



EEYTHEINA HEEBACEA, yak. AEBOEEA, Chapm. 



Erythrina herbacea, var. arborea, Chapman, Fl. ed. 3, 117 (1897). 

 Erythrina arborea, Small, Fl. Southeastern U. S. 647 (1903). 



Leaves persistent, usually from 1.5 to 2 decimetres long, with slender petioles and rachis occa- 

 sionally armed with small recurved prickles; leaflets thin, deltoid to hastate, concave-cuneate at 

 the broad base, the lateral lobes broad and rounded and much shorter than the elongated terminal 

 lobe gradually narrowed and rounded at the apex, thin, yellow-green, smooth and glabrous, from 

 6 to 9 centimetres long and from 4 to 6 centimetres wide, their petiolules slender, from 5 to 6 

 millimetres in length with minute glandlike stipels. Flowers from 3 to 5 centimetres lon<r, on 

 short slender pedicels, in narrow axillary leafless racemes from 2 to 2.5 decimetres long, the Tower 

 flowers fading before those at the apex of the racemes open ; calyx dark red, truncate and ciliate 

 at the mouth, from 7 to 8 millimetres in length ; corolla scarlet, the standard narrow, oblanceolate, 

 gradually narrowing into the long base, about 4.5 centimetres long, closely infolded and then 

 more or less falcate; wing-petals slightly longer than the calyx, and longer than the keel-petals; 

 stamens diadelphous; pod compressed, constricted between the seeds, apiculate at the apex, from 

 1 to 1.2 decimetres long, gradually narrowed into a stout stipitate base often 2 centimetres' long. 

 Seeds compressed, bright scarlet, lustrous, 1 centimetre long and about 5 millimetres wide and 

 thick, the dark hilum from 2.5 to 3 millimetres in length. 



A tree, 1 rarely eight or nine metres high, with a tall trunk occasionally 3 decimetres in diameter, 

 covered with smooth gray bark, small erect and spreading branches and slender yellow-green 

 branchlets armed with short broad recurved spines; more often shrubby and, except in size and 

 habit, not distinguishable from the herbaceous Erythrina herbacea of Linnaeus. 2 Flowers in 

 February and March. Fruit ripens in the autumn. 



Florida: coast region from Miami, Dade County, to the southern shores of Tampa Bay, and 

 on the southern keys. CSS 



1 The only really treelike Erythrina I have seen in Florida is grc 

 one of the southern inlets from Tampa Bay. 

 ^ Linnaeus, Spec. 706 (1753). - Chapman, FL 107 (1853). -Tor 



Xyphanthus hederifolius, Rafinesqne, Fl. Ludovic. 103 (1817). 



ihis is an herb with slender spreading stems occasionally 1 metr< 

 Carolina to Florida, western Mississippi and Louisiana, and in the 

 baceous stems which sometimes under favorable conditio as ows ii 



shell mound on Terra Ce 



ia Island in MacGill's Bay, 



r, FL N. Am. i. 282. — Small, Fl. Southeastern U. S. 



mon in sandy soil from the coast region of North 

 be lower Rio Grande in Texas. A plant with her- 



