A tree, in Florida, with a smooth pale trunk 20°—25° high and 3′—4′ in diameter.
Distribution. Florida: Dade County, Madeira Hummock, Pumpkin Key, Flamingo, and northwest of Cape Sable; also in Cuba and on Mugueres Island, Gulf of Honduras.
Leaves rather longer than broad, 3°—4° long, the lowest segments parallel with the petiole or spreading from it nearly at right angles, light yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, with bright orange-colored margins, below coated while young with deciduous hoary tomentum and pale blue-green and more or less covered with silvery white pubescence at maturity, with a thick pointed ligule 1′ long and wide, lined at first with hoary tomentum; petioles flattened above, obscurely ridged on the lower surface, tomentose while young, pale blue-green, 3°—4° long. Flowers: spadix usually about 6° long, spreading and gracefully incurved, with spathes more or less coated with hoary tomentum, large compressed primary branches, and short bright orange-colored flower-bearing branches; flowers on short thick disk-like pedicels, about ⅛′ long, white, slightly fragrant, with a tubular perianth, the lobes broadly ovate and acute, stamens with nearly triangular filaments united at the base, and a flat stigma. Fruit 1/16′ to nearly ¼′ in diameter; seed brown, 3/16′ in diameter.
A tree, with a stem often 25° high and 10′—14′ in diameter, raised on a base of thick matted roots 2°—3° high and 18′—20′ in diameter, and a broad head of leaves, the upper erect, the lower pendulous and closely pressed against the stem.
Distribution. Dry, sandy soil close to the beach on the north side of the largest of the Marquesas Keys, and on Crab Key, a small island to the westward of Torch Key, one of the Bahia Honda group, Florida; on the Bahamas.
4. Thrinax microcarpa Sarg. Silvertop Palmetto. Brittle Thatch.
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.