276 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1951 An early ripening avocado has come to the seedling in the Essig grove so in a few years attention of your committee, in the grove of more will be known of its behavior. S. C. Essig, formerly owned by Mrs. M. R. Your committee is particularly interested in Pond near Princeton. It is as early as the locating seedlings which will extend the pro Pollock with about half the size. Mrs. Pond ducing season of avocados and will extend the obtained scions of this seedling some years region in Florida which can produce avocados. ago from Bronson Bayliss' grove. Several The discovery of an avocado which will stand trees have been top worked recently to this wet feet would be a real accomplishment. DESCRIBING FLORIDA VARIETIES OF LYGHEE G. Weidman Groff and by the designation of type material for Lingman Plant Exchange preservation and future consultation. There Laurel is no more reason for irresponsible new nam ing of old varieties in horticulture than there and is in any other branch of systematic science. Su-Ying Liu At the time of naming a new variety the one Barb our Scholar and Research Assistant describing it should give a record of its origin, Botanical Gardens, University of Michigan should indicate the precise individual living Ann Arbor, Michigan plant to serve as a type, and should grant the prvilege of preparing record specimens from The primary object of this paper is to pre it for pomological and botanical collections. pare the way for a better understanding of Not every seedling will be worthy of clonal lychee varieties by reporting on techniques for propagation because of its merits in horticul field studies, descriptions and establishing of tural or its botanical distinctiveness, and there names. After outlining procedures and tech is no reason for multiplying names unneces niques we exemplify their standardized de sarily. scriptions, in keys based upon fruit, and in 2. A thorough review of the sources of ori charts of characteristics. We desire to pre gin and history and the acquisition and dis serve the iong-established Chinese names of semination of all lychee introductions that old-world varieties which have come to Ameri have been maintained. The series of Seed and ca from China; and we suggest that new Plant Inventories of the U. S. Department of personal, regional, or appropriately descrip Agriculture (10) is the most fruitful source tive names be applied only to forms isolated of information covering lychee introductions, as seedling selections or originated by cross for there have apparently been few successful ing of the well known old Chinese or other private ones into the United States. Oriental varieties in other countries. Five 3. Acquaintance with keen observations of basic lines of procedure are recommended for Chinese plantsmen through the centuries as long-range program of systematic pomology recorded by their literary men and artists. in relation to the lychee: Some Of this interesting information appears 1. Close observation and description of the within the pages of 'The Lychee and Lungan' lychee trees and fruits already present in our by the senior author (3). More remains to be gardens, to be followed in due time by the translated from the Chinese. introduction of hitherto unrepresented varie 4. A comprehensive review of the detailed ties. A prerequisite for intelligent work in work of plant taxonomists in descriptions of introduction and improvement will be good members of the plant family Sapindaceae, keys and clear descriptions. The final approval especially the Nephelieae, the Lychee-Lungan- of accepted names might well be entrusted to Rambutan-Pulasan tribe. The German bot an authorized lychee Variety committee. Such anist Ludwig Radlkofer (1829-1927) made a a committee should follow the recommenda life-long study of these plants and at the close tions of the International Botanical .Congress, of his life published a monograph (9) which to the end that every name would be validated will be authoritative for many years. We by a proper description, by illustrations, if have drawn heavily upon him for detailed needed for clarity, as would generally be true, knowledge of geographical range and morpho- GROOF AND SU-YING-LIU: FLORIDA LYCHEES 277 logical characters of the lychee and its comprising this weight. We then measure and relatives. weigh each fruit and record largest, smallest 5. A review also of the recent findings and and mean, as shown in the analytical table theories of the historical, geographical and for the Sweet Cliff and Late Globe varieties. genetic-minded botanists who emphasize cen (See Table I.) Sweet Cliff is a Canton, China, ters of origin, range of distribution, ecological variety, first introduced through Groff in 1920, habitat factors, and features indicating hy- S. P. I. No. 51471, which is now fruiting at bridity equally with more obvious morpholog Lychee Orchards, Laurel, and the Federal ical factors. The views of the late Russian Horticultural Station at Orlando. Late Globe botanist N. I. Vavilov (11) and the phyto- is, apparently, a natural hybrid seedling which geographer E. V. Wulff (12) have been pre Colonel Globe has had under observation for sented in the recently published English trans several years. We also determine the break lations, which contain many helpful sugges down of total weight into partial weights of tions for world surveys in economic botany, skin, flesh (arils), "rag" (aril fiber), seeds as also for plant introduction, acclimatization, and juice. These data should be assembled selection and breeding. through several years, and for a number of Miss Su-Ling Liu of Fukien province, China, trees, in order to get a comprehensive picture the junior author of this paper, during the for final publication of a standard description past two years has spent about six months in of each variety. This should be accompanied Florida studying lychee varieties during the by photographs and drawings. season of flowers and fruit. Miss Liu is now Our present analytical studies cover the writing the descriptions, and is preparing following varieties: (1) Brewster's Chen Fam keys and charts to the varieties of which living ily Purple of Henghwa, Fukien; (2) Kwei Mei, and herbarium materials have been available (3) Sweet Cliff, (4) Black Leaf, and (5) to her. It is obviously impossible in this pre Mountain lychee of Canton; and also two of liminary paper to record all of her interesting Colonel Wm. R. Grove's Florida seedling se findings, which will be available later. lections which we believe to be natural hybrids of Brewster x Mountain, (6) Yellow Red and The Use of Obvious Fruit Characters in Ly (7) Late Globe. chee Description Our data on growth form of trees and the The general procedure in systematic pomol nature of bark and leaves are not yet tabu ogy is to base descriptions largely upon charac lated but awaits further observations. ters of the fruit which attract the eye and appeal to the taste. While this may enable Possible Use of Neglected Genetic Differences one to recognize the variety of a fruit in hand in Lychee Improvement it is of minor helpfulness to an understanding This subject can not be developed within of heritable characters and physiological re the scope of this paper. It deserves an inde actions to culture and climate. In our de pendent one. After reviewing the taxonomy of scriptions of Florida lychees we are following, the 14 tribes, 165 genera and over 2000 species in part, procedures established 30 odd years of Sapindaceae as summarized by Radlkofer ago as revealed in the senior author's analyti (9), as also the general discussions of Wulff cal table of Canton varieties (3). The Chinese (12) covering areas and Vavilov (11) discus have a wide range of very descriptive terms sing origins and morphological characters used in lychee fruit description covering, size, basic in the development of species and genera, color, surface as marked by lines and tuber we are left with a deep impression that there cles attachment of aril to hilum end of seed, are a number of less evident heritable charac nature of aril, juice, fiber "rag," and size, ters of lychee varieties that may be of far shape and degree of maturity of seeds (such greater importance than any we have pre terms as "chicken-tongued"). sented in the above discussion. In our studies of Florida varieties we are The Nature and Storage Possibilities of Lychee now securing much more accurate data cover Arils ing especially weight and measurement of Of greatest significance in lychee improve fruits. Always using 500 grams (V2 kilogram) ment is the aril of the fruit. Chandler (2, pp. of fruits without stems as a standard quantity 822 and 323) discusses the pearly, gelatinous for analysis we first count the number of fruits arils of the lychee and the storage possibili- 278 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1951 TABLE I. TENTATIVE FRUIT DESCRIPTIONS OF ONE CHINESE VARIETY (SWEET CLIFF) AND ONE OF FLORIDA ORIGIN (LATE GLOBE) TO ILLUSTRATE PRESENT TECHNIQUES. Late Globe Sweet Cliff Average number of ripe fruits in a prime cluster 8.2 13 Number of immature fruits in above 4 Average length of fruiting panicle 13.92 cm. 12.5 cm. Number of fruits in Yz kilogram Breakdown of % kilogram of fruit Skin 63.1 gr. 85.9 gr. Seeds 84.5 gr. 73.0 gr. Arils 336.3 gr. 317.1 gr. Error S.2% 4.8% Total 500.0 gr. 500.0 gr. Weight of individual fruits Largest 17.5 gr. 18.1 gr. Smallest 11.5 gr. 11.2 gr. Mean 14.83 gr. 14.83 gr.