Enallagma latifolia (Mill.) Small

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Bignoniaceae

• Scientific Name

  Enallagma latifolia (Mill.) Small

• Description

  Species Description - This tree reaches its best development when growing in wet soil, along streams or marshes, but is not restricted to such habitats, being occasional on hillsides in moist or wet climates. In Porto Rico we have observed it only at low elevations. The natural distribution is eastward, through the Virgin Islands; southern Florida, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Haiti, Jamaica; Trinidad and Venezuela; Central America. Enallagma (Greek, given in exchange) a genus first recognized by the eminent French botanist Baillon in 1891, consists of only a few species of trees and shrubs, all tropical American, the one here illustrated, and the only one inhabiting Porto Rico, typical, distinguished from the true Calabashes (Crescentia) by having a 2-celled fruit, that of the latter having only a single cavity. Their leaves are alternate, broad, toothless, short-stalked, their large flowers long-stalked, few or solitary at the ends of branches. The calyx is closed in the flower-bud, but cleft as the flower expands; the corolla has a swollen tube and an oblique,slightly lobed limb; there are 4, short stamens, in 2 pairs, borne on the corolla-tube; the ovary is stalkless, and at first 1-celled, containing many ovules, the style slender, the stigma 2-lobed. The large ellipsoid or nearly globular fruit is woody or leathery, smooth, becoming 2-celled as it matures, and falls to the ground without opening, containing many, flattened seeds. Enallagma latifolia (broad-leaved) is a tree from 5 to 10 meters high, with long and slender, arching or partly drooping branches, the twigs and leaves smooth, the bark smooth, or shallowly fissured. The leaves are elliptic, or broadest above the middle, short-stalked, rather thin, mostly abruptly short-pointed, from 7 to 20 centimeters long, narrowed at the base. The flower-stalks are 2 or 3 centimeters long, the calyx about 3 centimeters long, cleft about to the middle or beyond; the corolla is from 4 to 5 centimeters long, purplish or yellowish, with a brown-margined limb. The fruit is from 6 to 8 centimeters long.

• Discussion

  Higuerillo Black Calabash Trumpet-creeper Family Crescentia latifolia Miller, Gardeners' Dictionary, edition 8, No.2.1768. Crescentia cucurbitina Linnaeus, Mantissa Plantarum 2: 250. 1771. Enallagma cucurbitana Baillon, Histoire des Plantes 10: 84. 1891. Enallagma latifolia Small, Flora of Miami 171, 800. 1913.