Part 56 (2/2)
Near akin to white mangrove is Florida b.u.t.tonwood (_Conocarpus erecta_) which is highly esteemed as fuel. It burns slowly like charcoal. Trees are from twenty to fifty feet high. Its range lies in southern Florida. Black olive tree (_Terminalia buceras_) belongs in the south Florida group, and the wood is exceedingly hard and heavy. The trunk is often two or three feet in diameter, but lies on the ground like a log, with upright stems growing from it. Tanners make use of the bark.
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CABBAGE PALMETTO
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THE PALMS
Lumbermen in this country could get along very well without the palms, as they are little used for ordinary lumber. Their wood does not grow in concentric rings, like that of the ordinary tree. The stems are usually single, cylindrical, and unbranched. The fruit is berry-like, and is usually one seeded, though sometimes there are two or three. When a seed sprouts, it puts out at first a single leaf, like a grain of corn. About 130 genera of palms are recognized in the world, most of them in the tropics, but several in the United States are of tree size. Botanists divide the palms of the United States into two groups, the palm family and the lily family. The yuccas belong in the lily family. In the very brief treatment that can be given the subject here, it is not necessary to recognize strict family divisions.
CABBAGE PALMETTO (_Sabal palmetto_) grows in the coast region from North Carolina to southern Florida, and west to the Apalachicola river. It is sometimes called Bank's palmetto, cabbage tree, and tree palmetto. The name cabbage is due to the large leaf-bud in the top of the stem which is cooked as a subst.i.tute for cabbage. A sharp hatchet and some experience are necessary to a successful operation in extracting the bud from the tough fibers which surround it.
This palm is a familiar sight in the coast region within its range. The tall trunks, with tufts of leaves at the tops, suggest the supposed scenery of the Carboniferous age. Usually the trunks, in thick stands, rise straight like columns from twenty to forty feet high, but occasionally they bend in long, graceful curves, as if the weight of the tops caused them to careen, which is probably what does happen. They vary in diameter from eight inches to two feet.
The leaves are five or six feet long, and seven or eight wide, with stems six or seven feet long. Flowers occur in racemes two feet or more in length. The fruit is spherical and about a third of an inch in diameter. The roots are an important part of this palm, and are adapted to their environment, forming a rounded ma.s.s four or five feet in diameter, while small rope-like roots, half an inch in diameter, penetrate the wet marshy soil fifteen or twenty feet. The large, globe-like ma.s.s gives support in the soft soil, and the stringy roots supply water and mineral substances essential to growth. The wood is light, soft, pale-brown, with numerous hard, fibro-vascular bundles, the outer rim about two inches thick and much lighter and softer than the interior. The most important use for the wood at present is as wharf piles. It lasts well and is ideal in form. It is of historical interest that Fort Moultrie which defended Charleston, South Carolina, in the Revolutionary war, was built of palmetto logs. When the British made their memorable attack in 1776, their cannon b.a.l.l.s buried in the spongy logs without dislodging them, and the fort successfully withstood the bombardment of ten hours, and disabled nine of the ten British s.h.i.+ps taking part in the a.s.sault.
The wood is employed to a small extent in furniture making, and the bark for scrubbing brushes. Some of the finest forests of palmetto in Florida are much injured by fire that runs up the trunks to feed on stubs of leaves.
SILKTOP PALMETTO (_Thrinax parviflora_) and silvertop palmetto (_Thrinax microcarpa_) are species met with on some of the islands off the coast of southern Florida.
MEXICAN PALMETTO (_Sabal mexicana_) is much like cabbage palmetto in size and general appearance, and is put to similar uses, except that the leaf-bud does not appear to be used as food. The tree occurs in Texas along the lower Rio Grande, and southward into Mexico where the leaves are employed as house thatch by improvident Mexicans and Indians who do not care to exert themselves to procure better roofing material. In the vicinity of Brownsville, Texas, trunks of this palm are employed as porch posts and present a rustic appearance. They are said to last many years. The average size of trunks in Texas is fifteen or twenty feet high and a foot or less in diameter, but some much larger are found in Mexico. Some of the wharfs along the Texas coast are built on palmetto piles. It is said the trunks are not as strong as those of the cabbage palmetto in Florida.
SARGENT PALM (_Pseudophnix sargentii_) is interesting but not commercially important, but may become so as an ornamental plant. It is occasionally planted on lawns in south Florida. Leaves are five or six feet long with stems still longer. The cl.u.s.ters of flowers are sometimes three feet in length. A single species is known, occurring on certain keys in southern Florida, and is so limited in its range that it would be possible to count every tree in existence. A grove of 200 or 300 trees occurs on Key Largo.
ROYAL PALM (_Oreodoxa regia_) is one of the largest palms of this country. It is said to reach a height of eighty feet, but such sizes are rare. The trunk rises from an enlarged base, and may be two feet in diameter. Bark is light gray in color, and its appearance suggests a column of cement. Leaves are ten or twelve feet long, and the stems increase the total length to twenty feet or more. Flowers are two feet in length, and in Florida open in January and February. The fruit is smaller than would be expected of a tree so large. It is a drupe about the size of a half-grown grape. The wood is spongy, but the outer portion of the stem is strong and is made into canes and other small articles. Trunks are sometimes used as wharf piles. This palm's range is confined to south Florida in this country, but it is common in the West Indies. In Miami and other towns of southern Florida it is much planted for ornament.
FANLEAF PALM (_Neowas.h.i.+ngtonia filamentosa_) also called Was.h.i.+ngton palm, California fan palm, Arizona palm, and wild date, ranges through southern California, and occupies depressions in the desert west of the Colorado river. There are said to be several forms and varieties. It ranges in height from thirty-five to seventy feet and in diameter from twenty to thirty inches. Trunks are of nearly the same diameter from bottom to top, or taper very gradually. They usually lean a little. Dead leaves hang about the trunks and blaze quickly when fire touches them, but the palm is seldom killed by fire. The small black fruit is about a third of an inch in diameter, and of no commercial importance; wood is little used; and the tree is chiefly ornamental, and has been much planted in California.
MOHAVE YUCCA (_Yucca mohavensis_) is one of a half dozen or more palms of the yucca genus and the lily family. Trees of this group are characterized by their stiff, sharp-pointed leaves, some of which are called daggers and others bayonets. Both names are appropriate. The Mohave yucca takes its name from the Mohave desert in California, where it is occasionally an important feature of the doleful landscape. The ragged, leather-like leaves, forming the tops of the short, weird trees, rattle in the wind, or resound with the patter of pebbles when sandstorms sweep across the dry wastes. It is believed to be one of the most slowly-growing trees of this country. Trunks are seldom more than fifteen feet high and eight or ten inches in diameter. The wood is spongy and interlaced with tough, stringy fibers. Stockmen whose ranges include this tree, make corrals of the stems by setting them in the ground as palisades. When weathered by wind and made bone dry by the sun's fierce heat, the trunks are reduced to almost cork-lightness.
Other yuccas are the Spanish bayonet (_Yucca treculeana_) of Texas; Joshua-tree (_Yucca arborescens_), which ranges from Utah to California and is known as tree yucca, yucca cactus, and the Joshua; Schott yucca (_Yucca brevifolia_) of southern Arizona; broadfruit yucca (_Yucca macrocarpa_) of southwestern Texas; aloe-leaf yucca (_Yucca aloifolia_) with a range from North Carolina near the coast to Louisiana; and Spanish dagger (_Yucca gloriosa_), on the coast and islands of South Carolina.
GIANT CACTUS (_Cereus giganteus_) is a leafless tree of Arizona and attains a height of forty or sixty feet, diameter of one or two.
About twenty genera of cactus are known in the world and a large number of species. Two genera, the cereuses and opuntias, have representatives of tree size in this country. The two genera differ in form. Cereus in the Latin language means a candle, and the cactuses of that genus stand up in straight stems like candles, or have branches like old-fas.h.i.+oned candlesticks. The opuntias have flat, jointed stems, like thick leaves. Giant cactus bears flowers four inches long and two wide; fruit two inches long and one wide, and edible. Indians derive a considerable part of their food from this cactus. They use the wood for rafters, fences, fuel, lances, and bows. The trunks consist of bundles of fiber, very hard and strong. In the dry region where this cactus grows, the woody parts of fallen stems last long periods, some say for centuries, but there are no records. Schott cactus (_Cereus schottii_) and Thurber cactus (_Cereus thurberi_) are found in southern Arizona and southward in Mexico.
CHOLLA (_Opuntia fulgida_) ranges from Nevada southward into Mexico.
It is popularly called ”divil's tongue cactus,” but there are other species with the same name. Trunks are occasionally ten or twelve feet high, and the wood is made into canes and small articles of furniture, but as lumber it is not important. The fruit is not eaten. A closely-related species is known as ta.s.sajo (_Opuntia sponsior_). It is found on the dry mesas of southern Arizona where trunks may be ten feet high and a few inches in diameter. It has the same uses as cholla. A third species is _Opuntia versicolor_ of southern Arizona. It is similar to the other opuntias. Attempts have been made to grow spineless varieties of this group of cactuses. It is believed that cattle, sheep, and goats would thrive on the pulpy growth, if the thorns could be gotten rid of. The semi-desert regions of the Southwest produce enormous quant.i.ties of cactus of many kinds, and if those worthless species could be made way with and thornless varieties subst.i.tuted, it is probable that much land now worthless would become valuable.
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