M0RACEA5.
97
FICUS POPULNEA.
Receptacle obovate, long or short-pedunculate. Leaves broadly ovate, cordate.
Ficus populnea, Willdenow , Spec. iv. 1141 (1805). — A.Richard, FI. Cub. iii. 220. — Grisebach , FI. Brit. W.Ind. 151; Cat. PL Cub. 57. — Miquel, Ann. Mus. Lugd.Bat. iii. 298. — Eggers, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 13,94 (FI. St. Croix and the Virgin Islands ). — Sargent,Garden and Forest , ii. 448.
Urostigma populneum, Miquel, Hooker Bond. Jour. Bot.vi. 537, t. 21 A. (1847).
Ficus pedunculata, Nuttall, Sylva, ii. 1, t. 41 (not Alton)(1849). — Chapman, FI. 415. — Sargent, Forest Trees N.Am. 10 th Census U. S. ix. 127.
Ficus brevifolia , Nuttall, Sylva, ii. 3, t. 42 (1849).—Chapman, FI. 415. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10thCensus U. S. ix. 127.
A tree, sometimes epiphytal, rarely forty to fifty feet in height, with a trunk twelve to eighteeninches in diameter, spreading branches, from which, in Florida , aerial roots are occasionally produced,and an open irregular head. The bark of the trunk is one third to one half of an inch in thickness,and is smooth and light brown tinged with orange, separating into minute scales, which cover the brightred-brown inner bark. The branches are stout and terete, and, when they first appear, are fight red andslightly puberulous, becoming brown tinged with orange and later with red, and marked with minutepale lenticels, narrow stipular scars, large elevated horizontal oval or semiorbicular leaf-scars, in whichappear a marginal row of conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and elevated concave receptacle-scars.The leaves are involute in vernation, broadly ovate, or rarely obovate, contracted into short broadpoints or occasionally rounded at the apex, rounded, truncate or cordate at the base, two and one halfto five inches long, one and a half to three inches wide, thin and firm, dark green and lustrous on theupper surface and paler on the lower surface, with broad fight yellow midribs slightly impressed on theupper side, slender remote primary veins, arcuate and united near the margins and connected by finelyreticulate veinlets, and slender grooved petioles, sometimes an inch in length. The stipules are ovate-lanceolate, half an inch long, and tinged with red. The receptacles are obovate, axillary, solitary, or inpairs, at first covered with a hood-like membranaceous fight brown caducous posterior bract, andsurrounded at the base by three small ovate acute fight brown nearly equal persistent bracts; they areyellow until fully grown, ultimately turning bright red, and one quarter to one half of an inch inlength, and are borne on stout drooping peduncles one quarter of an inch to an inch long. Theflowers are sessile or pedicellate, and separated by minute chaff-like scales, more or less laciniate at theapex; in the males the calyx is divided nearly to the base into three or four broad acute lobes; thestamen is composed of a broad flattened filament and an innate anther; in the females the narrow calyx-lobes are shorter than the ovate pointed ovary, which is crowned with broad spreading stigmatic lobes.The fruit is ovate, nearly inclosed in the persistent calyx, and crowned with the remnants of the style;the nutlet is thick-walled, fight brown, crustaceous, and is covered by a thin layer of membranous flesh.The seed is ovate, with a membranaceous fight brown testa and an oblong lateral pale hilum.
In Florida , where it is comparatively rare, Ficus populnea is confined to the shores of BayBiscayne, Key Largo , Umbrella, Bocca Chica, and Pumpkin keys, and Key West , growing usually ondry slightly elevated coral rock; it is also an inhabitant of the West Indies .
The wood of Ficus populnea is fight, soft, and close-grained, containing many thin conspicuousmedullary rays, large open scattered ducts, and numerous groups of smaller ducts arranged in concentriccircles; it is fight orange-brown or yellow, with thick hardly distinguishable sapwood. The specificgravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.5568, a cubic foot weighing 34.69 pounds.
Ficus populnea was discovered in Florida on Key West , from which it has now nearly disappeared,by Dr. J. L. Blodgett.