Mayepea domingensis (Lam.) Krug & Urb.
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
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Family
Oleaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - A forest tree, elegant and conspicuous when in bloom, by large clusters of white flowers with narrow petals, terminal, or also in the axils of the large, opposite leaves. It is frequent, or occasional in the wet or moist parts of Porto Rico, most abundant at higher altitudes, and is distributed through Santo Domingo, Haiti, Cuba, and Jamaica. The wood is recorded as light in color, and hard. Huesillo and Palo blanco are other Spanish names. Mayepea (French Guiana name), established a genus by the French botanist Aublet in 1775, has about 50 species of tropical trees and shrubs, with opposite, untoothed leaves, and clustered flowers. The small calyx is 4-cleft or 4- toothed, the 4 petals long and narrow; the 2 (rarely 4), stamens have short filaments; the ovary is 2-celled, with 2 ovules in each cell, and the style is short, the fruit is a small drupe, with thin flesh and a hard stone. Mayepea domingensis (first known botanically from Santo Domingo) may reach a height of about 18 meters, with a trunk about 0.7 meter in diameter, the gray bark smooth, the slender twigs smooth, or nearly so. The smooth, pointed, thin, slender-stalked leaves are from 7 to 15 centimeters long. The flowers are numerous in stalked, smooth, or somewhat hairy clusters as long as the leaves, or shorter, the individual ones on stalks only 1 or 2 millimeters long; the calyx is smooth, or nearly so, the narrow, flat petals from 15 to 22 millimeters long. The oval fruit is from 15 to 20 millimeters long. There are 2 other species of Mayepea in the Porto Rico Flora.
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Discussion
Hueso blanco West Indian Fringe-tree Olive Family Chionanthus domingensis Lamarck, Tableau Encyclopédique et Méthodique Linociera domingensis Knoblauch, Botanisches Centralblatt 61: 87. 1895. Mayepea domingensis Krug and Urban, Botanische Jahrbücher 15: 344. 1892.