BARBADOS-ANTIGUA EXPEDITION 221 
The manchineel (Hippomane mancinella) is very common 
near the water. It has bright green leaves like apple leaves in 
shape, and bears a fruit which looks almost exactly like small 
green apples. The juice is whitish and causes blisters. This is 
regarded as one of the most poisonous trees of the island against 
which visitors are carefully warned. Although members of our 
' party handled it freely, it is doubtful if they received any ma- 
terial injury, although anyone venturing to eat one of its apples 
would be seriously poisoned. It is said that they are eaten by 
the land-crabs and that the flesh of the crab is sometimes pois- 
onous on that account. There is another so-called apple, the 
‘‘sugar apple,’’ that bears little resemblance to our northern 
fruit. The ‘‘apple’’ itself seems to be made up of a number of 
seeds, each surrounded by a fleshy pulp, the whole bearing 
some external resemblance to a green pine-cone. The leaves are 
like apple leaves, but more slender. A few Australian pines 
(Casuarina equisetifolia) are found, but it is not common as at 
Barbados, and has been introduced in comparatively recent 
times. The ‘‘white cedar’’ (Tecoma leucoxylon) is not at all 
like our cedar trees and bears flowers resembling those of the 
eatalpa. A single baobab tree with a trunk sixteen feet in 
circumference is in the rectory grounds at Falmouth. The ‘‘sea 
grape’’ (Coccoloba uvifera) grows on the seashore. It is a low 
stunted tree with very large, round, light green leaves and a 
fruit which greatly resembles bunches of grapes and is said to 
be edible, although we did not find it ripe. The ‘‘sand-box’’ 
tree (Hura crepitams) is one of the large trees of the island. The 
fruit is shaped like a flattened tomato, brown, and divided into 
sections which fly apart. The green ones were formerly emptied 
of their contents and filled with sand to be used for blotters. 
There are said to be three species of mangroves, the most 
common being Rhizophora mangle. It forms dense growths on 
mud flats which are submerged at high tide. Shoots are sent 
down from the branches into the mud, where they take root. 
The trees stand on their tent-shaped mass of prop-like roots 
which make a maze upon which it is possible, though precarious, 
to walk. The roots which form at the ends of the shoots are not 
deeply embedded and can usually be lifted out of the water. In 
some places these are covered with a dense growth of oysters 
