Banisteria purpurea L.

• Title

  Banisteria purpurea L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Banisteria purpurea L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Banisteria purpurea Bull Withe Family Malpighiaceae Malpighia Family Banisteria Purpurea Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 427. 175E. Banisteria parvifolia Ventenat, Choix des Plantes, plate 51. 1803. Heteropteris purpurea Rumboldt, Bonpland and Kunth, Nova Genera et Species Plantarum 5: 164. 1822. A slender, small-leaved, woody vine, with small, but attractive, purple, clustered flowers, frequent in thickets and woodlands at lower altitudes in Porto Rico, and on the small islands Vieques and Culebra; we have not observed this plant at elevations higher than about 200 meters, and it is most abundant in dry districts. Its geographic distribution is nearly throughout the West Indies, except Jamaica and the Bahama Islands, and it ranges into northern South America. No Spanish popular name has been recorded. Banisteria is a Linnaean genus, commemorating John Banister, an English missionary and naturalist, who collected plants in Virginia and Jamaica, and died about 1692; it includes about 80 species of woody vines, shrubs, and trees, natives of tropical America, a few in tropical Africa. They have opposite, untoothed leaves, and mostly small, regular flowers in large, or broad clusters. The 5 sepals are persistent, and there are 5, purple, orange, or yellow petals; the 10 stamens have awl-shaped filaments; the ovary is 3-lobed, and there are 3, separate styles. The fruits, solitary, or 2 or 3 together, are long-winged, (samaras), the wing thickened on its lower margin. Banisteria purpurea (purple flowers) may become 5 meters long, or longer. Its short-stalked leaves vary from elliptic to ovate, or nearly orbicular, and from 1 to 5 centimeters long, and are smooth when mature. The purple flowers, several or many in the clusters, have short stalks jointed below the middle; the elliptic or ovate sepals, about 3 millimeters long, have large glands; the petals are 4 or 5 millimeters long. The samaras are striate-veined, hairy, from 2 to 5 centimeters long. There are 2 other species of Banisteria in the Porto Rico Flora, both yellow-flowered; one of them, Banisteria laurifolia, is illustrated in this work.