Geophila D.Don
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Authority
Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.
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Family
Rubiaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Genus Description - Creeping herbs, with slender stems, rooting at nodes, glabrous or pubescent. Leaves chartaceous, long-petiolate, cordate stipules interpetiolar, entire, orbicular to ovate, persistent. Flowers bisexual, sessile, 4-7-merous, actinomorphic, subtended by an involucre of bracts, in terminal or axillary few-flowered cymes; hypanthium short, urn-shaped or cup-shaped, crowned by 5-7 lineate or subulate sepals; corolla trumpet-shaped or funnel-shaped, white, the tube longer than the lobes; stamens 4-7, included, the filaments inserted in corolla tube; ovary inferior, of 2 carpels, each carpel with a basal ovule, the style club-shaped, included. Fruit a fleshy drupe, with 2 pyrenes; seeds 1 per pyrene. A tropical genus of about 30 species, most of which occur in the Old World.