Leaves 2°—3° across, pale green above, silvery white below, more or less thickly coated while young with hoary tomentum, especially on the lower surface, divided near the base almost to the rachis, with an orbicular thick concave ligule lined with a thick coat of white tomentum; petioles thin and flexuose. Flowers: spadix elongated, with short, compressed erect branches slightly spreading below, numerous slender pendulous flower-bearing branches, and long acute spathes deeply parted at the apex, coriaceous and coated above the middle with thick hoary tomentum; flowers on short thick disk-like pedicels, with a cupular perianth, the lobes broadly ovate and acute, stamens with thin nearly triangular exserted filaments slightly united at base and oblong anthers becoming reversed and extrorse at maturity, and a deep orange-colored ovary narrowed above into a short thick style dilated into a large funnel-formed stigma. Fruit globose, ⅛′ in diameter; seed subglobose, bright to dark chestnut-brown, depressed.
A tree, rarely more than 30° high, with a trunk 8′—10′ in diameter.
Distribution. Dry coral soil, on the shores of Sugar Loaf Sound, and on No Name and Bahia Honda keys, Florida; in Cuba.
2. COCCOTHRINAX Sarg.
Small unarmed trees, with simple or clustered stems or rarely stemless. Leaves orbicular, or truncate at base, pale or silvery white on the lower surface, divided into narrow obliquely folded segments acuminate and divided at apex; rachis narrow; ligules thin, free, erect, concave, pointed at the apex; petioles compressed, slightly rounded and ridged above and below, thin and smooth on the margins, gradually enlarged below into elongated sheaths of coarse fibres forming an open network covered while young by thick hoary tomentum. Spadix interfoliar, paniculate, shorter than the leaf-stalks, its primary branches furnished with numerous short slender pendulous flower-bearing secondary branches; spathes numerous, papery, cleft at the apex. Flowers solitary, perfect, jointed on elongated slender pedicels; perianth cup-shaped, obscurely lobed; stamens 9, inserted on the base of the perianth, with subulate filaments enlarged and barely united at the base, and oblong anthers; ovary 1-celled, narrowed into a slender style crowned by a funnel-formed oblique stigma; ovule basilar, erect. Fruit a subglobose berry raised on the thickened torus of the flower, with thick juicy black flesh. Seed free, erect, depressed-globose, with a thick hard vertically grooved shell deeply infolded in the bony albumen; hilum subbasilar, minute; raphe hidden in the folds of the seed-coat; embryo lateral.
Coccothrinax is confined to the tropics of the New World. Two species, of which one is stemless, inhabit southern Florida, and at least two other species are scattered over several of the West Indian islands.
Coccothrinax, from κόκκος and Thrinax, is in allusion to the berry-like fruit.
1. [Coccothrinax jucunda] Sarg. Brittle Thatch.
Leaves nearly orbicular, the lower segments usually parallel with the petiole, thin and brittle, 18′—24′ in diameter, divided below the middle of the leaf or toward its base nearly to the ligule, with much-thickened bright orange-colored midribs and margins, pale yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, bright silvery white and coated at first on the lower surface with hoary deciduous pubescence, with a thin undulate obtusely short-pointed dark orange-colored rachis, and a thin concave crescent-shaped often oblique slightly undulate short-pointed and light or dark orange-colored ligule ¾′ wide, ⅓′ deep; petioles slender, pale yellow-green, 2½°—3° long. Flowers: spadix 18′—24′ long, with flattened stalks, slender much-flattened primary branches 8′—10′ long, light orange-colored slender terete flower-bearing branches 1½′—3′ long, and pale reddish brown spathes coated toward the ends with pale pubescence; flowers opening in June and irregularly also in the autumn on ridged spreading pedicels ⅛′ long, with an orange-colored ovary surmounted by an elongated style dilated into a rose-colored stigma. Fruit ripening at the end of six months, from ½′—¾′ in diameter, bright green at first when fully grown, becoming deep violet color, with succulent very juicy flesh, ultimately black and lustrous; seed light tawny brown.