574 
MANGROVE, BLACK 
dustry is being- supplanted by others that nine log-wood estate can be found, the bee- 
are more profitable—such as cultivation of keeper can afford to establish an apiary of 
sugar cane, bananas, etc. But where a gen- ■ some 500 colonies. 
M 
MANGROVE, BLACK (Avicennia niti- 
da). —There are in southern Florida three 
different trees called mangrove, the red 
mangrove, the white mangrove, and the. 
black mangrove. The red mangrove ( Rliiz - 
ophora Mangle), an- evergreen shrub or 
tree, belongs to the mangrove family. 
Along the coast of southern Florida and 
the Keys it forms dense tidal swamps, ad¬ 
vancing into the water where the shores 
are flat and mucky. The seeds germinate, 
while still on the tree, and falling into the 
mud in an upright position immediately 
strike root. The trunk and branches send 
out aerial roots, which descending in an 
arched fashion give the tree the appear¬ 
ance of stepping forward. The flowers 
are small and yellowish. 
The white mangrove ( Laguncularia race - 
mosa) also called white buttonwood, is a 
member of the white mangrove family. It 
is common on the seashore of peninsular 
Florida and in the West Indies and tropi¬ 
cal America. In Florida it is usually a 
shrub with leathery oval leaves and small 
greenish flowers. Neither the red man¬ 
grove nor the white mangrove is of value 
to the beekeeper. 
The black njangrove ( Avicennia nitida ), 
also called blackwood and black tree, be¬ 
longs to the verbena family, most of the 
species of which in the North are herbace¬ 
ous plants. It grows on the seashore of 
southern Florida, the Keys, and eastern 
Texas, also in tropical America. In Flor¬ 
ida it is not found to much extent north of 
Ormond on the east coast. It usually grows 
back of the red mangrove, and in localities 
where both grow together the red mangrove 
fringes the shore and makes new land, 
while 'the black mangrove is a soil-former. 
Both are valuable in catching drift and 
lodging humus and gradually transforming 
the shallows into reefs and islands and fi¬ 
nally into solid land. But the black man¬ 
grove does not actually grow in the water. 
The black mangrove, when it grows to 
the size of a tree, resembles a scragly old 
oak with a rough brown bark. It may be 
25 to 50 feet tall, with a trunk diameter 
of four feet, or on the Keys it may attain 
even greater size. Northward it is seldom 
more than a shrub. The leaves are leath¬ 
ery, oblong, with very short stems, and 
when they unfold are somewhat hairy, but 
later become bright green and shining, 
above, paler or nearly white beneath. The 
flowers are small, inconspicuous, in ter¬ 
minal clusters, appearing at all seasons of 
the year. The wood is dark brown and 
very durable in contact with the soil. When 
used as fuel it burns with intense heat. 
As a source of honey the black mangrove 
has attracted more attention than any 
other tree in Florida. Up to the year of 
the “big freeze,” in 1894, phenomenal 
yields were reported. As much as 400 
pounds of honey from one hive in a single 
season have been recorded. In these ear¬ 
lier days migratory beekeeping was in 
practice, and many colonies of bees were 
moved to the vicinity of Hawks Park from 
points up and down the coast and from in¬ 
land localities 50 miles distant. It was 
hardly possible then to overstock a man¬ 
grove section in a favorable season. But 
the severe winter of 1894 froze and killed 
the mangrove to the ground. It did not 
recover from this check for 18 years, and 
not until 1909 did it again yield nectar, 
and then only in small quantities. Since 
that year the bushes have gradually grown 
