Distribution. Shores of Matagorda Bay, Texas, to the Sierra Nevada of Nuevo Leon, and in Lower California; common on the bluffs of the Gulf-coast and on both banks of the lower Rio Grande; south of the Rio Grande one of the commonest and most beautiful trees of the region.
2. LYSILOMA Benth.
Trees or shrubs, with slender unarmed branchlets, abruptly bipinnate long-petiolate persistent leaves, their petioles marked by large conspicuous glands, and small leaflets in many pairs; stipules large, membranaceous, persistent or deciduous. Flowers perfect or rarely polygamous, minute, usually white or greenish white, from the axils of minute bractlets more or less dilated at apex, in globose many-flowered heads, on axillary solitary or fascicled peduncles; calyx campanulate, 5-toothed; corolla funnel-shaped, of 5 petals united for more than half their length; stamens generally 12—30, exserted; filaments filiform, united at base into a tube free from the corolla; anthers minute, ovoid, versatile; ovary sessile, contracted into a slender subulate style, with a minute terminal stigma. Legume broad, straight, compressed, submembranaceous, the valves at maturity separating from the undivided margins, continuous within, their outer layer thin and papery, dark-colored, the inner rather thicker, pale yellow. Seeds compressed, transverse, suspended by a long slender funicle, the hilum near the base; seed-coat thin, crustaceous; radicle slightly exserted.
Lysiloma with about ten species inhabits tropical America from southern Florida and the Bahama Islands, the West Indies, Mexico and Lower California, to Central America and Bolivia. Several of the species produce valuable timber.
The generic name, from λύσις and λῶμα, refers to the separation of the valves from the margins of the legume.
1. [Lysiloma bahamensis] Benth. Wild Tamarind.
Leaves 4′—5′ long, glabrous or sometimes slightly puberulous, with slender petioles 1′ long, marked near the middle with an elevated gland, enlarged and slightly glandular at base, and 2—6 pairs of short-stalked 40—80-foliolate pinnæ; stipules foliaceous, ovate or ovate-oblong, acuminate, auriculate and semicordate at base, ½′ long, usually caducous; leaflets obliquely ovate or oblong, obtuse or acute, more or less united at base by the greater development of one of the sides, sessile or short-petiolulate, entire, reticulate-veined, light green, paler on the lower than on the upper surface, ¼′—½′ long, and ⅛′—¼′ wide. Flowers about ⅓′ long, in heads appearing in Florida early in April, coated before the flowers open with thick pale tomentum, and after the exsertion of the stamens ⅔′ in diameter, on peduncles ¾′—1½′ long, solitary or fascicled in the axils of upper leaves, their bracts and bractlets acute, membranaceous, caducous; calyx 5-toothed, pilose on the outer surface, especially above the middle, 1/12′ long, and half as long as the 5-lobed corolla with reflexed lobes; stamens about 20, twice as long as the corolla, united for one fourth of their length into a slender tube. Fruit ripening in the autumn and persistent on the branches until after the flowering period of the following year, stipitate, gradually narrowed and acute at the ends, 4′—5′ long, 1′ broad, with a slender stem 1′—2′ long, in clusters of 2 or 3 on short peduncles abruptly and conspicuously enlarged at the apex; valves thin and papery, bronze-green when fully grown, becoming dark red-brown, separating slowly from the margins; seeds oval or obovoid, dark brown, lustrous, ½′ long.
A tree, 50°—60° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, stout spreading branches forming a wide flat head, and glabrous or somewhat pilose conspicuously verrucose branchlets, bright red-brown when they first appear, becoming pale or light reddish brown in their second year. Bark of the trunk of young trees and of the branches smooth, light gray tinged with pink, becoming on old trunks ¼′—½′ thick, dark brown and separating into large plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, not strong, tough, close-grained, rich dark brown tinged with red, with nearly white sapwood 1′—1½′ thick, of 4 or 5 layers of annual growth; in Florida occasionally used and valued for boat and shipbuilding.
Distribution. Florida; shores of Bay Biscayne near Miami, and the Everglade Keys, Dade County, common, and on Key Largo, Elliott’s, Plantation, and Boca Chica Keys, not common; on the Bahama Islands and in Cuba.