Machaonia

• Authority

  Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

• Family

  Rubiaceae

• Scientific Name

  Machaonia

• Description

  Genus Description - Shrubs or small trees, glabrous or pubescent. Leaves opposite, 3 per node or fasciculate, petiolate or sessile; stipules interpetiolar, simple, triangular. Flowers bisexual, 4-5-merous, actinomorphic, pedicellate or sessile, in terminal compound cymes; bracts and bracteoles present; hypanthium not distinguishable from the calyx, crowned by 4-5 equal or unequal sepals; corolla short, funnelshaped, white, the tube short, villous within, the lobes rounded, imbricate in bud; stamens 4-5, slightly exserted or included, the filaments inserted in the corolla throat; ovary inferior, 2-carpellate, each carpel with a single pendulous ovule, the style filiform, bifid at apex. Fruit a dry, obconical, flattened schizocarp, splitting in 2 longitudinal mericarps; seeds 1 per carpel, cylindric to ellipsoid.

• Distribution

  A neotropical genus of about 40 species, most of which occur in the Greater Antilles.