Montezuma speciosissima DC.

• Title

  Montezuma speciosissima DC.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Montezuma speciosissima Sessé & Moc. ex DC.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Montezuma speciosissima Maga Family Malvaceae Mallow Family Montezuma speciosissima Sessé & Mocino DeCandolle, Prodromus I: 477, 1824. Thespesia grandiflora DeCandolle, Prodromus I:456,1824. Maga grandiflora Urban, Symbolae Antillanae I:281,1912. Maga is, in many respects, the most interesting wild tree of Porto Rico. It grows, naturally, in no other part of the world, and we thus designate it as endemic. Its very large, rose to crimson flowers are among the most elegant of those of any tree. The large, nearly orbicular leaves, densely borne on the young branches, make it a desirable shade-tree, and it is much planted along the highways. The hard and durable, brown, strong and heavy wood, is prized for furniture, posts, interior construction of houses and for musical instruments. The tree has an unusual bibliographic history. The generic name Montezuma was given to it in manuscript early in the last century, or still earlier, by the Spanish botanists Sessé and Mocino, in honor of the famous Aztec ruler, who died in 1520, but this name was not published until 1824, by the celebrated Swiss botanist DeCandolle, who had access to sketches of plants made by the Spanish botanists; these were all supposed to be from Mexico,and this supposition was continued by subsequent students until 1923, when this one was identified by Paul C. Standley with our Porto Rican Maga. DeCandolle, in the same volume of his "Prodromus," having an actual specimen from Porto Rico, described it under the name Thespesia grandiflora, regarding it as a species of, the same genus as the common tropical sea-side tree known as Emajaguilla in Spanish, and Otaheite in English (Thespesia populnea) to which it is related, but recent botanists agree that it is generically distinct; in 1912, the German botanist Urban gave it the botanical name Maga, the same as the popular name in Porto Rico, but Montezuma has priority by 88 years. The specific name speciosissima refers to its elegant flowers. Maga reaches a maximum height of about 15 meters with a trunk diameter up to about 40 centimeters. In the wild state it appears to be now mostly restricted to the north-central and western parts of Porto Rico, but originally it may have had wider distribution, and have attained greater size than trees known to us today. It has a thick, gray, fissured bark, and stout minutely scaly twigs. The dark green, rather thin leaves are sometimes as much as 2 decimeters long and nearly as broad as long on young trees, much smaller on old ones; they are pointed, borne on long stalks, and have 5 or 7 nerves. The flowers appear singly among the leaves, drooping on long stalks; they have a nearly bell-shaped, scaly calyx, and 5 obliquely rounded, glistening petals about 8 centimeters long, crimson on the inner side, finely hairy on the outer; the numerous stamens are yellow. The fruit, is round and smooth, leathery in texture, from 3 to 5 centimeters in diameter; after falling and decaying it is seen to contain several large smooth seeds Montezuma cubensis Britton &. Wilson, the only other known species of the genus, inhabits Santa Clara Province, Cuba; the flowers and the leaves of this tree are smaller than those of Maga.