"Malcolm Manners" wrote in message
news:jfO2g.5260$ww6.281@trnddc05...
A friend has been telling me about a large shrub or small tree, and I've
finally seen a photo (but don't have it to attach, here), and I'm wondering
if someone here will have ideas about it.

It was found on a Florida beach as a seed. I don't know if it washed up
there from elsewhere, or if the parent plant was nearby.

It makes a creamy white, corky, quite furrowed bark. Leaves are
trifoliolate, with huge, Hybrid-Tea-rose-like prickles on the upper side
all along the midrib, and also on the underside on veins (I'm not sure if
just on the midrib). There are also big, thick prickles on the twigs,
usually two at a node and at least one on the internode. Other than the
prickles, the leaves remind me of Erythrina.

Erythrina species very commonly have prickles much as
you describe.

My friend has assumed it's a legume, and it may well be. It occurs to me
that it could also be Rutaceae, and I've asked him to look for punctate
dots on a leaf.

I'm reasonably good at Florida's native flora and much of our cultivated
exotic flora. I've never seen this plant before.

Any ideas? thanks.

The native _Erythrina herbacea_ is prickly, and its bark is reportedly
light gray and furrowed:
http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/bio406d/im...a_herbacea.htm
http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/d...?recnum=TS0258

But various other species of Erythrina are cultivated in Florida, and
are also prickly.

cheers