Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/114

 106 MANGROVE of the aerial roots borne by the plants ; the genus gives its name to the small family of rhizophoraceas, which is nearly related to the myrtle family. There are but few species, the Mangrove. best known of which is R. Mangle, a plant common in tropical countries; its northern limits upon this continent are southern Flor- ida on the Atlantic and Lower California on the Pacific coast. It is a tree sometimes 40 ft. high, but usually much smaller, with oppo- site, entire, leathery leaves, and axillary, few- flowered clusters of showy flowers; the per- sistent calyx has an obovate tube and a four- lobed limb ; the yellow petals are four, thick, notched at the apex, and woolly on the mar- gins; stamens eight; ovary two-celled with two ovules in each cell; fruit one-celled, indehis- cent, at length perforated by the radicle of the em- bryo, which germinates while the fruit is still upon the tree. The mangrove is found in muddy locali- ties directly upon the sea- shore, where it forms im- penetrable thickets ; its manner of growth is like that of the banian tree in miniature, as the stem and branches produce long slender roots, which final- Fruit of Mangrove. ly reach the earth and be- come fixed. The mangrove not only prevents the encroachments of the sea upon the land, but acts an aggressive part in wr. -ting land from the sea; the seeds, which might be washed away if they fell as soon as MANICH.EANS ripe germinate while yet attached to the stem, and when one falls it is already pro- vided with a long radicle ; in fact they are not properly any longer seeds, but young plants, which when they drop into the mud are ready to grow at once; after the young tree has formed a stem and head of branches, it is then by means of its aerial roots enabled to spread and occupy more territory, and thus advance seaward, while its fruit will drop beyond the line of the parent tree and new plants be pro- duced further from dry land. The tangled mass of stems and roots in a mangrove thicket retains the debris from the land that may be brought down by floods, and thus upon the land side of the grove solid ground is gradually formed. From the great quantity of decaying vegetable matter collected in a mangrove thicket, such localities are highly malarious. The account of oysters growing upon trees is not, as has been supposed, a traveller's fable, for the submerged portions of the branch-like roots of the mangrove are often studded with these and other mollusks, and when the tide recedes oysters may be literally gathered from trees. Other species are found on the Malabar coast, and one is found on the Feejee and neigh- boring islands. The wood of the mangroves is tough, hard, and durable in the water; hence it is employed for boat building, a use for which the natural curves of its branches and its numerous knees especially adapt it. The bark contains a large amount of tannin, and is used all over the West Indies in the preparation of leather, as well as by dyers, giving with different mordants slate-colored and various brown tints. Occasional ship- ments of the bark have been made to England, but as there are many products which are much richer in tannin in proportion to their bulk, it is not likely to become a regular article of commerce. The fruit of the common man- grove is ovate and crowned with the persistent calyx, and said to be sweet and edible ; its fer- mented juice makes a kind of light wine. MANHATTAN ISLAND. See NEW YOEK. HANHEIM. See MANNHEIM. MANICHJDANS, a religious sect of the East, founded about the middle of the 3d century. Its origin is involved in obscurity, oriental and occidental writers differing much in their ac- counts of it. According to the latter, Manes or Mani, the founder of the sect, was not the originator of his doctrines. The fullest ac- count of his life and of the source of his sys- tem is given by Epiphanius, and is in all essen- tials corroborated by Cyril, Socrates, Theo- doret, Suidas, Cedrenus, and the Acta Disputa- tionis S. Archelai from which their statements were derived. This work, of uncertain author- ship, and extant only in a corrupted form, is rejected by some scholars as wholly unhistori- cal. It contains an account of a disputation be- tween Manes and Archelaus, bishop of Cascar. It states substantially that a certain Seythianus, an Arabian by birth, but a native of Scythia,