114 
BUTTON-TREE. 
Manghala arbor Curassavica foliis salignis. Herm. Parad. 
Bat. Commelin, Hort. Amst., p. 115. cum. ic. 
Mnus maritima myrtifolia coriariorum. Pluk. Almag. 18 . 
t. 240. f. 8. 
Alni fructu laurifolia arbor maritima . Sloane, Jam. Hist., 
2. p. 18. t. 161. f. 2. 
Innominata. Plum. ic. 135. t. 144. f. 2. 
This is another tropical West Indian tree which the 
southern extremity of East Florida has afforded. It has 
been observed on the shore of Key West, Southern 
Florida, and around Tampa Bay. In the West Indies, 
like the Mangrove with which it grows, and for a kind 
of which it is taken by the Spaniards, who call it Mangle 
Saragoza , it affects the low sandy and muddy shores 
near the sea, where it becomes an erect tree about 30 
feet high, with the trunk a foot in diameter, having a 
smooth whitish-grey bark and angular branchlets. In 
South America it also exists on the coast of Guayaquil, 
and in Chili, near Valparaiso. In a country where the 
finest kinds of wood are so common, that of the “Button 
Tree” is little esteemed, and it is, therefore, only used 
for fuel; it is, however, fine and close-grained, in the 
branches brownish-white, capable of a high polish, with 
scarcely any visible annual layers, and made up almost 
w 7 holly of dotted medullary rays. The general aspect 
of its inflorescence, and, indeed, its closely imbricated 
inelegant heads of flowers lead us almost to compare it 
with some of the amentacese , particularly the Alder, while 
its real relations are to the present family, which includes 
in the Combretum itself, and the singularly splendid 
Cacoucia of Aublet, some .of the most elegant and beau- 
tiful of plants. 
The bark is grey, bitterish and astringent, and no 
doubt medicinal. The leaves of a yellowish-green, are 
from 2 to 3 inches long, I to an inch broad, acute at 
