Dieffenbachia seguine (Jacq.) Schott

  • Authority

    Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

  • Family

    Araceae

  • Scientific Name

    Dieffenbachia seguine (Jacq.) Schott

  • Description

    Species Description - Growing in wet, or moist fresh-water places, this large, upright, broad-leaved, endogenous herb, has small, monoecious, imperfect flowers forming a long, dense, white spadix, the pistillate ones followed by a large, dense, conspicuous cluster of orange-red berries. It is frequent in Porto Rico, grows also on Vieques Island, is distributed nearly all over the West Indies, except the Bahama Islands and Cuba, and widely in continental tropical America. The Spanish name Rabano, (English radish) refers to the similar taste of the juice. Dumb Cane is a name first applied in Jamaica. Dieffenbachia, commemorating J. F. Dieffenbach, a German botanist who lived from 1794 to 1847, was established a genus by the Austrian botanist Schott in 1832, with the species here illustrated typical. There are 25 species, or more, all natives of tropical America, only 1 of them in Porto Rico. They have stout stems and acrid, poisonous juice. The large leaves are mostly borne at or near the top of the stem, with sheathing stalks. The spadix is subtended and partly enclosed by a partly tubular, fleshy spathe; the staminate flowers have 4 or 5 stamens, the pistillate ones a 2-lobed, or 3-lobed ovary, and a rounded stigma, and 4 or 5 imperfect stamens (staminodes). The fruit is a cluster of berries. Dieffenbachia seguine (name used by the French) has stems from 0.5 to about 1 meter high. The thin leaves are oblong to ovate-oblong, pointed, from 20 to 40 centimeters long, green, or with more or less confluent stripes and spots; their sheathing stalks are sometimes 30 centimeters long. The spathe is from 18 to 20 centimeters long, the spadix as long, or shorter. The large cluster of berries is enclosed in the tube of the spathe, which it ruptures when mature.

  • Discussion

    Rabano cimaron Dumb Cane Arum Family Arum seguine Jacquin, Enumeratio Systematica Plantarum 31. 1760. Dieffenbachia seguine Schott; Schott and Endlicher, Meletemeta Botanica 1: 20. 1832.