John James Audubon arrived in Key West, Florida, aboard the ship named Marion on May 6, 1832. Very common among the mangrove trees throughout Key West and the Florida Keys was the bird that Louis Pierre Vieillot (1748-1830) identified as TYRANNUS GRISEUS. For Birds of America, Audubon named the bird a Pipiry flycatcher and re-classified it as Muscicapa dominicensis. The Pipiry flycatcher is now known as the Gray kingbird (Tyrannus dominicensis). If kings were judged by their boldness, then the Gray kingbird should qualify by allowing Audubon “to see distinctly the colour of their eyes.”
Audubon placed the Gray kingbird in the tree that Audubon labeled Agati grandiflora. The current taxonomic name for the tree is Sesbania grandiflora. That the common name for the tree is Vegetable hummingbird is as good a reason than any for a taxonomic naming system.
This leguminous plant is one of the handsomest productions of Key-West, where I found it in full flower in the month of May. It reaches the height of twenty feet or more, and has a rather slender but elegant stem, of which the wood is as brittle as that of our common acacias. The pods are eight or nine inches in length, and of the size of a Swan’s quill; the seeds, which are dark brown when ripe, glossy and globular, lie at regular intervals. The deep green of the long pendulous leaves, and the bright red of the large papilionaceous flowers, form a beautiful contrast. Many of these trees were planted near the house of my friend Dr. BENJAMIN STROBEL, under whose hospitable roof the twig was drawn. I saw no plants of the species on any other Key.