Caspareopsis monandra (Kurz) Britton & Rose

  • Title

    Caspareopsis monandra (Kurz) Britton & Rose

  • Authors

    Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

  • Scientific Name

    Caspareopsis monandra (Kurz) Britton & Rose

  • Description

    Flora Borinqueña Caspareopsis monandra Flamboyan blanco Napoleon's Plume Family Caesalpiniaceae Senna Family Bauhinia monandra Kurz, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 422: 73. 1873. Bauhinia Krugii Urban, Berichte der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft 3: 83. 1885. Bauhinia Kappleri Sagot, Annales des Sciences Naturelles VI. 13:317.1882. Caspareopsis monandra Britton and Rose, North American Flora 23:217.1930. A broad-leaved, showy-flowering tree, native of tropical Asia, early introduced into the American tropics, seeding abundantly, soon becoming widely naturalized, and thus being renamed as indigenous. It is common in Porto Rico, locally plentiful, as elsewhere nearly throughout the West Indies, and in northern South America from French Guiana to Colombia. Seplina is another name for it. The genus Caspareopsis (similar to Casparea, a related genus) was proposed by Britton and Rose in 1930, with the species here illustrated typical. This differs from Bauhinias in its flowers having only 1 stamen, and broader, long-clawed petals; the calyx is closed in the bud, but split along one side at flowering time. The narrow, flat pod is short-stalked. Caspareopsis monandra (one-stamen), is a tree about 15 meters high or lower, with hairy twigs, smooth and gray bark. The leaves are rather long-stalked, broadly ovate, or nearly orbicular, from 8 to 20 centimeters long, 2-lobed to about one-third their length, smooth on the upper side, hairy on the veins beneath. The flowers are few or several, in short, hairy clusters; the calyx is about 2 centimeters long; the petals are 4 or 5 centimeters long, broadest above the middle, rose-colored, one of them carmine-spotted; the stamen is about 4 centimeters long, with a narrow anther 4 millimeters long. The pod is flat, from 12 to 22 centimeters long, about 2.5 centimeters wide, smooth, splitting elastically when ripe and releasing the flat, black shining seeds.