Crescentia linearifolia Miers
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Authority
Gentry, Alwyn H. 1980. Bignoniaceae--Part 1. (Crescentieae and Tourrettieae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 25: 1-130. (Published by NYBG Press)
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Family
Bignoniaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Type. Virgin Islands. St. Thomas: Oersted s.n. (holotype, P; isotype, C (as 7963), MO; fragm., BM).
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Synonyms
Crescentia microcarpa Bello
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Description
Species Description - Small tree or shrub to 7 m tall and 20 cm dbh, with open crown of slender spreading wand-like branches. Leaves in fascicles of 2-6 from the enlarged nodes, usually more or less linear, often almost needle-like, 0.5-8.8(-15) cm long, 0.1-1.8(-2.5) cm wide, rounded to acuminate at apex, cuneate-attenuate to base, petiole lacking, chartaceous, secondary venation strongly ascending, very indistinct, hardly differentiated from similarly indistinct tertiary venation, conspicuously scattered lepidote below, otherwise glabrous, drying grayish-olive. Inflorescence usually a single axillary flower, scattered along branch tips, the pedicels 0.5-1 cm long, glabrous or sparsely subpuberulous. Flowers with calyx bilabiately split to base, each lobe 1.1-1.5 cm long and 0.8-1 cm wide, glabrous except for some scattered plate-shaped glands; corolla greenish with brown striations, tubular-campanulate with a transverse fold midway across lower side of throat, fleshy, 3-3.5 cm long, 1.5-2.5 cm wide at mouth of tube, the tube 3-3.5 cm long, the lobes irregularly triangular with the apex extended as a narrow point, glandular-lepidote on lobes and sparsely on outside of tube; stamens exserted or subexserted, the anther thecae thick, divergent, 4-5 mm long; ovary ovoid, the ovules multiseriate; disc annular-pulvinate. Fruit a pepo or calabash, globose to ellipsoid, 3-5 cm long, 3-4 cm wide, the thin hard shell smooth, lepidote-punctate; seeds small, thin, wingless, scattered through the pulp of the fruit.
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Discussion
Some Puerto Rican and Virgin Island material, notably Little 21669 from Piñeros Island and Raunkiaer s.n. from St. Jan, has rather different larger oblanceolate to very narrowly elliptic leaves to 15 cm by 2.5 cm and might represent introgression from C. cujete or possibly “founder effect” variation in an isolated small island population.
The single mainland collection from northern Belize cited above is referred here with much hesitation. Morphologically it falls well within the range of variation of West Indian C. linearifolia but it is not very different from the small-leaved Belize population of C. cujete of which it could be an extreme form. Its leaves are 2-8 by 0.4-1.2 cm, and the clearly linear largest leaves are 20 times as long as wide; a few microphyllous leaves also occur at some nodes. If this collection were included under C. cujete, as geographical considerations might suggest, then C. linearifolia itself would probably have to be reduced to the synonymy of C. cujete. It is unfortunate that no fruits were preserved with the Belize collection. -
Common Names
higüerita, higüerito, higüerita, calebasse marron
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Objects
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Distribution
Dry coastal forests below 100 m from Hispaniola and Puerto Rico to the northernmost Lesser Antilles; apparently disjunct in northern Belize.
Belize Central America| Orange Walk Belize Central America| Dominican Republic South America| Haiti South America| Puerto Rico South America| Virgin Islands South America| Saint Thomas Virgin Islands of the United States South America| Saint John Virgin Islands of the United States South America| St.Martin-St.Barthélémy South America|