The Red Ironwood (Reynosia septentrionalis, Urb.), called also "Darling plum," grows wild in southern Florida, and is cultivated to some extent for its fruit. It is a pretty little tree, clothing its heavy, hard wood with bright red bark. The purple or black plums are sweet and of pleasant flavour.
The Bluewood, or Logwood (Condalia obovata, Hook.), grows in thickets in the valley of the Rio Grande River in Texas and is especially esteemed as fuel. It burns with an unusually fervent heat. Its leaves are dry and leathery, obovate, entire, and scarcely an inch long. Its twigs end in sharp thorns. The sweet berries ripen, turning blue, then black, during the long summer. The wood is red, but yields a bluish dye. It is an entirely different tree from the logwood of commerce, Hama toxylon Campechianum, which grows in Central America and the West Indies and yields a colouring matter used in calico printing and in the preparation of lake pigments.
The Black Ironwood (Krugiodendron ferreum, Urb.) grows plentifully in second-growth timber in southern Florida and in the West Indies. Its velvety green twigs are covered with small, oval, leathery leaves, and in autumn with solitary black berries. The bark is pale grey.
This species is notable for having the heaviest wood of all American trees. A cubic foot of it weighs 81.14 pounds. Its
specific gravity is 1.302o. The ashes, after a stick burns, weigh 81 per cent. of the original weight, proving a remarkably high percentage of mineral substance in the wood.
The California Lilac, or Blue Myrtle (Ceanothus thyrsi florus, Esch.), is related to the shrubby New Jersey tea, or redroot of the eastern half of the continent. But it is a California species, and there we shall find it in all stages from a small shrub on the bleak lower coast to a towering tree 4o feet high among the red woods, and on the hillsides of Mendocino County. It keeps to the western part of the state. The most striking feature of this plant is the inflorescence. The twigs end in clusters of small, blue, fragrant flowers (rarely white), which suggest nothing more than our garden lilac blooms, in miniature. The leaves are small with peculiar venation, having three midribs instead of one. From this native species have been derived forms of showier 39' bloom, which are extensively planted. These California lilacs do poorly in the Eastern States, but much better in Europe.
The Spiny Lilac (Ceanothus spinosus, Nutt.) grows in canon sides in southern California, and a velvety-branched species (C. arboreus, Greene) is found only on the Santa Barbara Islands.