SOLANUM MACRANTHUM. Poratorree NicHTsHADE. Na- 
tive of Brazil, this grows often to 30 feet. It has spiny, hairy leaves 
that are up to a foot long and bears large purplish-blue and white 
flowers with conspicuous yellow anthers, in clusters to 5 inches long. 
It thrives best in sheltered and partly shaded situations where its soft 
wood will be protected from high winds. It is fast growing and 
rather tender to frost. Macmillan lists it among the outstandingly 
beautiful flowering trees of the world tropics. Unable to find it in 
cultivation anywhere in the United States, I grew these trees from 
seed obtained from the Royal Botanic Garden at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad 
before the war stopped their exportation of seeds. 
PHAEOMERIA SPECIOSA. (Alpiniaceae). PHitipPINE Wax 
PLant. This tropical tree-like relative of the SHELLFLOWER GALANGAL 
(Alpinia speciosa) which is known in Florida as “shell lily,” has heavy 
stems 18 to 24 feet high, with leaves 2-3 feet long. Britton & Wilson’s 
“Botany of Porto Rico” says: “The flowering scapes are about 1 meter 
high (40 inches), topped by a dense, capitate, pinkish-bracted cluster 
of carmine flowers, the smaller, inner bracts red.” This is closely allied 
to a plant collected near the Koro River, Gimpoe, Celebes by. the 
Archbold-Fairchild Expedition, and distributed some years ago by the 
USDA with this description: “A remarkably beautiful lotus-blossom 
ginger, with leaves to 2 feet long by 5 inches broad, light green, 
alternate, on a stalk reaching 12 feet in height. The inflorescences arise 
underground from the rhizome. The first bracts are very broad, pink, 
waxy tipped, with a red beak, and later there emerges a head com- 
posed of very numerous watermelon-pink bracts tipped with white, 
in the shape of a rounded cone. The individual flowers at the bases 
are especially beautiful in bud and when newly opened. The seeds 
are black and are inclosed in a globose fruit about 11-4 inches in 
diameter and are embedded in an acid edible pulp.” 
Trees With Inconspicuous or Undetermined 
Flowers 
VITEX SP. (Verbenaceae). This genus includes several ever- 
green tropical timber trees with more or less conspicuous small blue 
flowers. The plants offered here were propagated from an attractive 
small shade tree in the Ft. Pierce City park. 
PIVHECOLLOBIUM SP. (Mimosaceae). .This seed from Guat- 
emala came to me under the name Astronium graveolens, but the seed 
experts of the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington 
decided it was an unidentified Pithecollobium and it was distributed this 
spring to experimenters under-that name as P. I. 145940. It has small 
spines and very fine cut leaves. Some of the Pithecollobiums have very 
beautiful flowers and it remains.to be seen what they are in this case. 
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