198 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY this test, although the root tip continued to derm covers the portions of the rootlet older grow vigorously. Indeed, root growth was than this white tip. It is evident that absorp good under all the test conditions here em tion of water and nutrients is dependent on ployed. the ramification of this root system so as to Roots were also examined of trees- growing provide a maximum amount of these absorb in tubs in the greenhouse in a sandy loam soil, ing tips, since no root-hair system is developed and of trees of large size growing out-of-doors to increase absorbing area in the usual way. in a Norfolk fine sand. Repeated examination Figure 1 shows a portion of the root system failed to discover any root-hairs on these root developed in peat where the porous nature of tips. the medium gives ideal conditions for root- The avocado forms in soil a much branched hair development. Several tips are clearly system of secondary roots', each rootlet having visible, magnified ab~out 3 times, but nothing a white tip about 2 mm. long. A brown peri- resembling root hairs.

THE RAMON TREE OF YUCATAN (Brosimiim alicastrum)

DAVID FAIRCHILD, Grove

Mrs. Fairchild and I spent a few days with years ago, shortly after his trip into Peten the Sylvanus Morleys in Merida last Novem where he found the pretty palm, Opsiandra ber. Their life work on the Maya ruins of maya. The muleteer who was taking him in Yucatan has made them well known among to the wilds of that inhospitable country fed the archaeologists of the world. his mules on the branches of the ramon tree As we entered their "finca", "Chen Ku" and when Cook told him he had never seen (Nest in theWell), I noticed that the place the tree before, he remarked incredulously, was filled with picturesque dark green trees, —"No tiene ramon en su pais?" 'You don't tall and irregular in shape like the poplars in have ramon trees in your country?') Holland for example. "What trees are these, Somehow or other this innocent remark Sylvanus?" I inquired. "They are ramon stuck in my memory and I determined some trees and the only on the finca out of day to see this ramon tree which Cook's mule which we make any money. They form what teer thought he should have in his country. the Yucatecans call a "ramonal" and in the alicastrum is its name and it has dry season there come out from Merida the so several relatives, one of which is the "Milk called "ramoneros" who climb the ramon trees, Tree" of Venezuela, B. galactodendron, the and with their machetes cut off most of the milky juice or latex of which is sweet and is branches and cart them to town where they drunk by the natives like cow's milk. form one of the important sources of fodder I knew that there was a tree of this species for the mules and horses and cattle. We get in the Introduction Garden at Chapman about 40 cents for the branches from a sin Field. I thought I recalled a plant of it which gle ramon tree. Since the trees cost us noth grew from some seed brought in by my old ing to keep and we have three hundred or so, friend G. N. Collins in 1913 from Meridaand we make a little money from them." which withstood the great freeze of 1917 at There came back to me, when he said this, our old Buena Vista Garden, being killed back a remark made byby friend 0. F. Cook many but not killed out by a temperature of 25 F. FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 199

But it is one thing to have an isolated tree complained that the returns from his date or two of an important economic plant in ones orchard are limited by the inability or disin garden and quite another to be surrounded by clination of men or boys to climb his 60-foot the same species and see the people using it palms to pick the fruits. and considering it as a tree of value. It is I would like to have spent more time with true that Collins had strongly recommended the ramoneros who climbed the ramon trees it in one of the characteristic notes which he in the ramonals and took the green branches generally attached to any seeds he sent in. to market loaded on carts and trolley cars and I cannot refrain from quoting him here. even on the tops of busses, but it was not pos "34876 S. P. I. Ramon. Seeds from the Hos sible then. Should some of the obvious prob pital Grounds, Merida, Mexico. A small tree lems of this forage tree be worked out through common in northern Yucatan, the branches of plantings in Florida, a detailed study of the which are the principal fodder during the dry chemical and other dietetic factors of its use season. All kinds of animals seem to eat the would be in order. leaves freely. The plant is strictly tropical As we drove through the city of Merida, a and I do not know that it could be grown any town comparable in size to Miami, we saw where in the United States, but it was so ex that some of the principal avenues were shad tensively used and seemed to afford such ex ed by rows of ramon trees which cast a deep cellent forage in the dry regions of Merida shade and whose very dark green leaves make that it might be worth while to give it a it in a way suggest the India laurel ( trial." retusa) over which it has one advantage, that Here we were in the finca of an old friend it does not send down aerial roots or send of Cook and Collins where at the moment, up suckers to raise the cement sidewalks or even, a ramonero was climbing one of the interfere with the roadway. ! ramon trees and slashing off the leafy The "Paseo de Montejo," a kilometer and a branches which were falling thick and fast to half long, is lined with ramons and the broad the ground below. With my camera I worked sidewalk which parallels the street is shaded fast on the man, for it was the first time by them. I was told these were 35 years old since I was in Morocco among the Argan trees and that once a year the ramoneros come and that I had been where the leaves of a tree prune them, not heavily as they do Mr. Mor- formed an important part of the food of do ley's trees, which would make them unsuited mestic animals. There it was the goats that for shade trees, but lightly and carefully so clambered into the trees and fed on the leaves as to "keep their symmetry. And instead of and small branches; here it was men with being hired to trim the trees they pay for the machetes who climbed up into the branches branches a considerable sum of money—just and harvested them for the stock. how much I did not discover. There was still another feature of the As I was taking photographs of the avenue scene. I had just been in the Orient and a one-horse cart passed, loaded down with watched the toddy and sugar-sap gatherers ramon branches which the driver informed climb every day tall sugar palms, in order to me he was taking to sell in the market and tap the flower clusters and gather the sap where he expected to get 30 pesos or about that flowed from them, and I had wondered $6.00. When we returned to Mr. Morley's finca at the ease with which those Orientals climb. the ramonero had a wagon load of the branches Here, almost at my door so to speak, were and the mule was browsing on the load, while men just as agile and as accustomed to climb cattle straying on the highway were eagerly ing trees as the Orientals; whereas in the picking up the fragments of leaves and twigs United States I do not recall seeing grown which had fallen beside his wagon. men in trees except to prune them, or at fruit Upon returning to Florida I visited the ra picking time when the fruits are beyond the mons at the U. S. Plant Introduction Garden reach of long pickers. Dr. Swingle has often and was amazed to find how beautiful the old 200 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY tree planted in a pot hole has become. It is wen for it the name of the "Woman's Tongue Tree?" I wonder. There is evidence that this now 50 feet or so high, with superb, drooping habit of producing abundant pods can be con branches which reach the ground and make trolled by severely pruning back the branches of it a very beautiful specimen. A smaller of the tree once a year. one in the rocks had grown slowly and perhaps Should there be some member of the Society this indicates that the tree needs deeper soil who would like to investigate this ramon tree than our rocky reefs. and its relatives further,I may add from tha On the ground lay many seeds, some already literature that according to Engler and Prantl rprouting, but so far as I could find they are there are 8 species of Brosimum. This B. ali- not appreciated by anyone, although the rec castrum occurs wild in Mexico, Yucatan ords in the Plant Inventories indicate that the (a Mexican peninsula) and Jamaica. Brosimum seeds contain considerable quantities of starch aubletii from Trinidad, the Guianas and North and in Jamaica are called "bread nuts" and ern Brazil yields one of the hardest cabinet are roasted and eaten. woods, and the Cow Tree or Milk tree already It may be wondered by members of the mentioned, B. galactodendron, also yields from Horticultural Society why I have gone out of its latex a kind of wax called Galactin, used my way to say so much about a tree, the in candle making. According to Wiesnefr "Die commercial possibilities of which appear so Rohstoffe des Pflanzenreiches", p. 2018, this remote. But it doesn't seem long ago to me Cow-tree wax, obtained by cooking the latex, that I gathered the seeds of a tree which grew is somewhat translucent, can be kneaded and on the road from the Kasr el Nil bridge over is remarkably like beeswax. Candles made of the Nile to the Great Pyramids of Ghiza in it burn with a bright flame. Egypt, which had no more to recommend it It belongs to the , that large fami than the ramon. This was the Albizzia lebbek, ly to which the mulberry, the cultivated fig, now so common in South Florida that I am the bread fruit and jak fruit, and the immense sure the casual visitor thinks it is a native. genus of Ficus belongs, or at least it has been Many of my lady friends complain they do so assigned by botanists. Sometime perhaps not like it. Is this because its dry pods make the Brosimums will be studied more closely a rattling noise when the wind blows and has by the horticulturists.

RHODESIAN MAHOGANY PRODUCES VIABLE SEED IN SOUTH FLORIDA

PHILIP J. WESTGATE Sub-Tropical Experiment Station, Homestead

Nine Rhodesian mahogany seedlings (Khaya tery, 1800 N. E. 2nd Ave., Miami, Florida. The nyasica Stapf.) are growing in a pot at the Florida-grown seed was collected on March 28, 1945, at which time there were several cap Sub-Tropical Experiment Station, Homestead, sules on the mother tree, in addition to a new Florida. These seedlings grew from thirteen crop of blossoms. This first seed produced 20 seeds which came from one capsule collected years after planting in Florida checks very by Mr. Alec Korsakoff from a mahogany tree well with a'statement of Dr. W. L. Thompson planted about 1925 in the Miami City Ceme (1) that the trees of this species were about