SIMARUBEiE.
91
SIMARUBA GLAUCA.
Paradise Tree.
Leaflets glabrous, obtuse or minutely mucronate. Petals fleshy.
Simaruba glauca, De Candolle , Diss. Ann. Mus. xvii. 323;Prodr. i. 733. — Humboldt , Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen.et Spec. vi. 16. — Descourtilz, FI. Med. Antil. i. 66, t.14. — Planchon, Lond. Jour. Bot. v. 667. — Nuttall,Sylva, iii. 20, t. 87. —Walpers , Ann. i. 164. — Grisebaeh,FI. Brit. W. Ind. 139. — Chapman, FI. 67. — Planchon& Triana, Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 5, xv. 357. — Engler, Mar-
tins FI. Brasil , xii. 2, 223. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am.Cent. i. 173. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10 th CensusU. S. ix. 32.
S. officinalis , Macf&dyen, FI. Jam. 198 (not De Candolle ).S. medicinalis, Endlicher, Medz. Pf. 525. — Berg, Handb.i. 373. — Berg & Schmidt, Off. Gen. ii. t. 13.
A low round-headed tree, growing occasionally in Florida to the height of fifty feet, with a straighttrunk eighteen or twenty inches in diameter, and slender spreading branches. The bark of the trunkis a half to three quarters of an inch thick, its light red-brown surface broken into broad thick appressedscales. The bark of the stout branchlets is pale green and glabrous when they first appear; it turnsfight brown before the end of the summer, and is rugose and conspicuously marked during the secondseason with the large oval scars left by the falling of the leaves. The leaves are six to ten inches long,on stout petioles two or three inches in length and dilated at the base, and are generally composed ofsix pairs of leaflets. These are opposite or alternate, ovate, obovate or oval, two to three inches inlength, and an inch or an inch and a half wide, with revolute margins, a prominent midrib, and remotenarrow conspicuous primary veins; they are rounded or slightly mucronate at the apex, and are oftenoblique at the base, which is contracted into a short stout petiolule a quarter to a third of an inch inlength; they are thin, membranaceous and dark red when they first unfold, but soon become coria-ceous, dark green and very lustrous above, and pale and glaucous on the lower surface. The paniclesof flowers are twelve to eighteen inches long and eighteen to twenty-four inches broad, with stout paleglaucous stems, and spreading branches from the axils of small acute scarious deciduous bracts. Theinflorescence of the pistillate plant is often larger and less compact than that of the staminate plant.The panicles appear in Florida early in April or at the time the trees begin their annual growth, theflowers opening irregularly, a few at a time, and continuing to appear during several weeks. They areborne on short stout club-shaped glaucous pedicels, and are an eighth to a quarter of an inch long.The oval or often acute pale yellow petals are four or five times longer than the glaucous calyx. Thefertilized ovaries grow rapidly, and the fruit is almost fully grown by the end of April, when it is brightscarlet, nearly an inch long, ovate or sometimes falcate, and slightly angled on the ventral suture.According to Macfadyen it is dark purple when fully ripe. The outer coating of the seed is papilloseand orange-brown.
Simaruba glauca grows in Florida from Cape Canaveral on the west coast to the southern keysand the neighborhood of Bay Biscayne. It has been found in Cuba and Jamaica , in Nicaragua , 1 and inBrazil . In Florida , where it is nowhere common, it reaches its best development on the rich hummocklands near the shores of Bay Biscayne.
The wood of Simaruba glauca is fight, soft, and close-grained, possessing little strength or value.It contains many large scattered open ducts, and thin remote medullary rays. The thick sapwood israther darker colored than the fight brown heartwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry woodis 0.4136, a cubic foot weighing 25.78 pounds.
1 By Charles Wright, on the North Pacific Exploring Expedition.