Galactia striata (Jacq.) Urb.
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
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Family
Fabaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - We have found no popular names in use for this purplish-flowered vine, which exhibits great diversity in size of leaves, color of flowers, and amount of hairyness; the smoother plants grow for the most part in moist regions, the more hairy, even velvety races in dry. The species, made up of several races, is distributed through the Greater Antilles and the Virgin Islands, in Martinique, Trinidad, and northern South America. In Porto Rico it is frequent on hillsides and in thickets, at lower and middle elevations; we have not observed it at altitudes higher than about 400 meters; it grows also on the small islands Mona, Vieques and Culebra. Galactia (Greek, milk-yielding, the typical species, of Jamaica, was first described as having milky branches) was proposed as a genus by Patrick Browne, and published by Adanson in 1763. About 70 species are known, most of them American, perennial vines, with 3-foliolate leaves, and clustered, axillary flowers. The calyx has 4, pointed lobes; the standard petal is broad, the wing-petals and the keel narrow; there are 10 stamens, 9 of them united; the ovary contains many ovules; the style is smooth and slender. The fruit is a narrow, 2-valved pod. Galactia striata (striate, referring to the veined corolla) may become 5 meters long, or longer. Its leaflets are ovate or ovate-elliptic, thin, blunt, or somewhat pointed, from 3 to 6 centimeters long. (The slender, stalked flower-clusters are often longer than the leaves, the individual flowers on stalks 2 or 3 millimeters long; the calyx is 7 or 8 millimeters long, with lance-shaped lobes longer than the tube; the purple or purplish standard is from 8 to 10 millimeters long, about as long as the keel. The more or less hairy pod is from 3 to 7 centimeters long, from 6 to 9 millimeters-wide. Another species, Galactia dubia, also very variable, is illustrated in this work.
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Discussion
Large Galactia Pea Family Glycine striata Jacquin, Hortus Vindobonensis 1: 32, plate 76.1770. Odonia tomentosa Bertoloni, Lucubratones de re Herbaria 25. 1822. Galactia Berteriana De Candolle, Prodromus 2: 238. 1825. Galactia striata Urban, Symbolae Antillane 2; 321. 1900.