Monographs Details:
Authority:

Kaastra, Roelof C. 1982. A monograph of the Pilocarpinae (Rutaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 33: 1-198. (Published by NYBG Press)
Family:

Rutaceae
Scientific Name:

Pilocarpus
Synonyms:

Pilocarpus racemosus Vahl
Description:

Genus Description - Branchlets with roundish or spindle-shaped lenticels usually to 1 mm long; terminal buds covered with large concave perules. Leaves alternate to subverticillate by crowding at the tips of the branchlets, simple or divided; apex of leaflets or leaves mostly emarginate. Peduncle of racemes rudimentary or lacking; pedicels alternate, adaxially incurved when in bud. Flowers pentamerous to tetramerous in P. spicatus; calyx toothed or lobed, appressed but remote from the petals when dried; petals deciduous, cohering with their hooked tips when in bud, reflexed when flowering, ovate, with the inner margin thickened and (slightly) induplicate, the apex acute and uncinately inflexed, carinate above and often impressed next to the keel; filaments deciduous, accumbent in shallow grooves of the disc, inflexed over the ovary but finally usually spreading; anthers dorsifixed mostly near middle, versatile, or immobile and recurved on the back after the shedding of the pollen, yellow; disc annular to somewhat cup-shaped, completely adnate to the ovary, with internal glands discharging on the outside and often some of them confluent to a circular canal; carpels not immersed, frequently borne on a globose gynophore, connate at base, free distally; ovules 1 or 2 per carpel; style inserted with 5 strands, pentangular, often rudimentary before the shedding of the pollen, stigma 5-lobed with a gland in each lobe. Fruits divided into mericarps, 1-4 of which usually rudimentary, the mericarps united at base only, conchate with flattened sides, rounded dorso-basically and mostly dorso-apically too (except for P. pennatifolius), frequently mucronate at apex by the persistent bases of the strands of the styles, prominently transversely arcuate-parallel-nerved internally, and externally mostly too (except for P. trachylophus), dehiscent loculicidally from the base along the ventral sutures over the tip and dorsally down to 1/3 or 1/4 above base; seeds usually kidney-shaped, slightly keeled dorsally or sometimes double keeled; testa thinly coriaceous, shining; embryo usually 1 (except for P. pauciflorus and P. riedelianus), densely punctate.

Distribution:

Mexico North America| Central America| South America|