6. COLUBRINA Brong.
Trees or shrubs, with terete branches and scaly buds. Leaves alternate, petiolate, pinnately veined or triple-veined from the base, often ferrugineo-tomentose on the lower surface, persistent. Flowers axillary, in contracted few-flowered cymes or fascicles, yellow or greenish yellow; calyx-tube hemispheric, persistent, 5-lobed, the lobes spreading, triangular-ovate, keeled on the inner surface, deciduous by a circumscissile line; disk fleshy, annular, 5-angled or indistinctly 5 or 10-lobed; petals 5 yellow or white, inserted under the margin of the disk, shorter than the lobes of the calyx, cucullate, unguiculate, infolding the stamens; stamens 5, opposite to and inserted with the petals; filaments incurved; anthers ovoid; ovary surrounded by and confluent with the disk, 3-celled, subglobose, contracted into a slender 3-lobed style, the obtuse lobes stigmatic on the inner face; ovule erect, from the base of the cell. Fruit subglobose, 3-lobed, the outer coat thin and septicidally dehiscent into 3 1-seeded crustaceous nutlets 2-valved at apex. Seeds erect, broad-obovoid, compressed, 3-angled; seed-coat coriaceous, smooth and shining; embryo axile in thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons orbicular, flat or incurved, thin or fleshy.
Colubrina with about a dozen species is confined to the tropics, with the largest number of species in the New World. Of the four species found within the territory of the United States three are arborescent.
The generic name is from coluber, a serpent, probably on account of the peculiar twisting of the deep furrows on the stems of some of the species.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
Leaves thin, elliptic, ovate or lanceolate, glabrous at maturity.1. [C. reclinata] (D). Leaves thick or coriaceous. Leaves oblong to elliptic, rounded or acute at apex, densely soft-pubescent.2. [C. cubensis] (D). Leaves elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, bluntly pointed at apex, coriaceous, rusty-pubescent beneath.3. [C. arborescens] (D).
1. [Colubrina reclinata] Brong. Naked Wood.
Leaves elliptic, ovate or lanceolate, usually contracted at apex into a blunt point, cuneate or somewhat rounded and furnished with 2 conspicuous marginal glands at base, and entire when they unfold in early summer thin, glabrous or finely puberulent below and along the principal veins, and at maturity thin, yellow-green, 2½′—3′ long and 1½′ to nearly 2′ wide, with a stout midrib and arcuate primary veins; persistent until their second year; petioles slender, ½′ in length. Flowers in cymes rather shorter than the petioles, on shoots of the year, pubescent, soon becoming glabrate. Fruit ¼′ in diameter and dark orange-red, ripening late in the autumn, on pedicels ½′ in length; seeds light red-brown, ⅛′ long.
A tree, 50°—60° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, divided by numerous irregular deep furrows multiplying and spreading in all directions, and branchlets slightly angled when they first appear, puberulent and reddish brown, soon becoming glabrate, and in their second season nearly terete, gray or light brown, and marked by numerous small light-colored lenticels. Bark of the trunk thin, orange-brown, exfoliating in large papery scales. Wood heavy, hard, very strong, dark brown tinged with yellow, with thin light yellow sapwood of 8—10 layers of annual growth.
Distribution. Florida, on Umbrella Key, the north end of Key Largo, and on some of the small keys south of Elliott’s Key; of its largest size and forming a forest of considerable extent on Umbrella Key; on the Bahama Islands and on many of the Antilles.
2. [Colubrina cubensis] Brong.
Leaves oblong to elliptic, gradually narrowed and rounded or acute and apiculate at apex, rounded or cuneate at the often unsymmetric base, slightly crenulate-serrate with broad rounded teeth, thick, dull dark green and soft-pubescent on the upper surface, pale and pubescent on the lower surface, 3½′—5′ long and 1¼′—1½′ wide, with a prominent pubescent yellow midrib and slender primary veins; petioles slender, yellow, densely pubescent, ⅓′—½′ in length; stipules linear-lanceolate, long-acuminate, pubescent, ⅓′ in length. Flowers minute on pedicels ⅙′ long, from the axils of ovate acuminate villose caducous bracts, in villose cymes on peduncles longer than the petioles; calyx densely pubescent, the lobes triangular, ovate, acute, about as long as the yellow petals. Fruit globose, about ⅓′ in diameter.
A tree in Florida from 20°—30° high, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter (teste J. K. Small) and slender light red-brown pubescent branchlets.
Distribution. Florida, hummocks of the Everglade Keys, Dade County; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba and Hispaniola.
3. [Colubrina arborescens] Sarg.
Colubrina Colubrina Mills.
Leaves coriaceous, persistent, elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, gradually narrowed and bluntly pointed at apex, narrowed and rounded or cuneate at base, entire, dark green, glabrous and lustrous on the upper surface, pale and coated on the lower surface with thick rusty pubescence and sometimes marked by conspicuous glands mostly at the end of small veins, 2′—4½′ long and 1¼′—2½′ wide, with a thick midrib; petioles stout, rusty-pubescent, ½′—¾′ in length; stipules oblong, acuminate, rusty-pubescent, caducous. Flowers minute, in axillary cymes shorter than the petioles, covered with persistent rusty pubescence and generally produced on short axillary branches; petals white or nearly white. Fruit on a stout rusty-pubescent pedicel, about ½′ long, on a much thickened peduncle, obovoid to subglobose, dark purple or nearly black, 5/12′ in diameter; nutlets light yellow; seed about ⅙′ long.
A tree, sometimes 25° high, with a straight trunk 8′—12′ in diameter, large erect branches and stout branchlets densely rusty-pubescent when they first appear, and light gray, puberulous and marked by small dark lenticels in their second year; in Florida more often a shrub.
Distribution. Florida, on the Everglade and southern keys; on the Bahama Islands and on several of the Antilles.