Authority:

Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

Family:

Rubiaceae

Description:

Genus Description - Annual or perennial herbs, often woody at base. Leaves opposite, appearing verticillate because of short axillary branches, short-petiolate or sessile; stipules interpetiolar, connate into sheath, with filiform appendages, persistent. Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic, sessile, in axillary or terminal glomerules; hypanthium small, obovoid, crowned by a small, 4-lobed calyx; corolla funnel-shaped, the tube longer than the lobes, the lobes 4, valvate; stamens 4, included or exserted, the filaments inserted on the throat; ovary inferior, 2-carpellate, each carpel with a pendulous ovule, the style filiform, bilobed. Fruit a cylindrical, septicidal capsule, separating into 2 dehiscent (sometimes one of them indehiscent) mericarps, these opening from the top; seeds ellipsoid or oblong.

Distribution and Ecology - A genus of perhaps 400 species (when combined with Borreria), with worldwide distribution.