Monographs Details:
Authority:
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
Family:
Malvaceae
Malvaceae
Description:
Species Description - Attractive when in bloom by large, rose-tinted flowers, this tall, shrubby weed is frequent in fields and waste and cultivated grounds, at lower and middle altitudes in Porto Rico, as also on Vieques and Culebra. It is distributed nearly throughout the West Indies, except the Bahama Islands, and widely, in continental tropical America, in Florida and in the tropical parts of the Old World. The plant is, probably, native of Asia, long ago naturalized in America; Linnaeus, decribing it botanically in 1753, records it as Chinese. Urena (Malabar name) consists of only a few species, tropical and subtropical in distribution, regarded by some botanists as races or varieties of a single species, because the differences between them are chiefly in their leaves, their flowers and fruits being much alike. They are hairy, or velvety shrubs, with soft wood, alternate, stalked, variously toothed, lobed or cleft leaves, and large, rose to purple, chiefly axillary and solitary flowers, the inner bark fibrous. The leaves are palmately veined, the mid-vein and sometimes 2 of the lateral veins bearing a characteristic, oblong gland on the under-side near the base. The involucre of the flower is bell-shaped and 5-cleft, the calyx deeply 5-cleft. The petals are wedge-shaped at the base; the stamens are united into a tube about as long as the petals; the 5-celled, tubercled ovary contains 1 ovule in each cell, the style is 10-cleft, the stigmas discoid. The 5-carpellary fruit is armed with barbed bristles. Urena lobata (lobed leaves) may reach 2 meters in height, but is usually lower. The branches are stella-hairy; the nearly orbicular, angulate-lobed and toothed, lower leaves are from 2 to 12 centimeters long, the upper side dark green, the under side whitish-velvety; the uppermost leaves are often narrower than the lower ones, ovate to oblong. The short-stalked flowers have the involucre and the calyx from 5 to 9 millimeters long, the petals from 12 to 15 millimeters long. The velvety, depressed, barbed fruit is about as long as the calyx. Our illustration was first published in "Addisonia," plate 330, June, 1925. Two other species of Urena occur in Porto Rico.
Species Description - Attractive when in bloom by large, rose-tinted flowers, this tall, shrubby weed is frequent in fields and waste and cultivated grounds, at lower and middle altitudes in Porto Rico, as also on Vieques and Culebra. It is distributed nearly throughout the West Indies, except the Bahama Islands, and widely, in continental tropical America, in Florida and in the tropical parts of the Old World. The plant is, probably, native of Asia, long ago naturalized in America; Linnaeus, decribing it botanically in 1753, records it as Chinese. Urena (Malabar name) consists of only a few species, tropical and subtropical in distribution, regarded by some botanists as races or varieties of a single species, because the differences between them are chiefly in their leaves, their flowers and fruits being much alike. They are hairy, or velvety shrubs, with soft wood, alternate, stalked, variously toothed, lobed or cleft leaves, and large, rose to purple, chiefly axillary and solitary flowers, the inner bark fibrous. The leaves are palmately veined, the mid-vein and sometimes 2 of the lateral veins bearing a characteristic, oblong gland on the under-side near the base. The involucre of the flower is bell-shaped and 5-cleft, the calyx deeply 5-cleft. The petals are wedge-shaped at the base; the stamens are united into a tube about as long as the petals; the 5-celled, tubercled ovary contains 1 ovule in each cell, the style is 10-cleft, the stigmas discoid. The 5-carpellary fruit is armed with barbed bristles. Urena lobata (lobed leaves) may reach 2 meters in height, but is usually lower. The branches are stella-hairy; the nearly orbicular, angulate-lobed and toothed, lower leaves are from 2 to 12 centimeters long, the upper side dark green, the under side whitish-velvety; the uppermost leaves are often narrower than the lower ones, ovate to oblong. The short-stalked flowers have the involucre and the calyx from 5 to 9 millimeters long, the petals from 12 to 15 millimeters long. The velvety, depressed, barbed fruit is about as long as the calyx. Our illustration was first published in "Addisonia," plate 330, June, 1925. Two other species of Urena occur in Porto Rico.
Discussion:
Cadillo Urena Mallow Family Urena lobata Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 682. 1753.
Cadillo Urena Mallow Family Urena lobata Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 682. 1753.
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