Myrcia splendens (Sw.) DC.

• Title

  Myrcia splendens (Sw.) DC.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Myrcia splendens (Sw.) DC.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Myrcia splendens Rama menuda Punch Berry Family Myrtaceae Myrtle Family Myrtus splendens Swartz, Prodromus Flora Indiae Occidentalis 79. 1788. Myrcia splendens De Candolle, Prodromus 3: 244. 1828. Delicately elegant when in bloom, profusely covered with clusters of small white flowers among shining leaves, this shrub, or small tree, sometimes blooming when not more than a meter high, is occasional in the wet or moist parts of Porto Rico, at lower and middle elevations, ascending into the eastern mountains; its distribution is westward through Hispaniola and Cuba, eastward in the Virgin Islands, and southward, through the Lesser Antilles from Saba to Trinidad, somewhat variable in size and shape of leaves; the original type specimens were collected in Santo Domingo Myrcia (Greek, similar to Myrtus, the Myrtle) is a genus proposed by the famous Swiss botanist De Candolle in 1826, and consists of very many species, estimated at 500, all trees or shrubs natives of tropical America; they have opposite, punctate, untoothed leaves, and small, clustered flowers. The calyx, attached to the ovary, usually has 5 lobes, and there are, usually, 5 petals; the stamens are slender, and numerous; the ovary is, usually, 2-celled, with 2 ovules in each cavity; the slender style is topped by a small stigma. The fruits are small berries, containing 1 or 2 seeds, and crowned by the calyx-lobes. Myrcia splendens (splendid) may form a tree about 10 meters high, usually much smaller, however, and often a shrub 2 meters high, or less. The slender twigs, the young leaves, and the flower-clusters are somewhat hairy. The mature leaves are smooth, ovate to lance-shaped, densely netted-veined, strongly shining, from 3 to 7 centimeters long, their stalks only 2 to 4 millimeters long. The short-stalked flowers are several or many together in axillary and terminal clusters; the ovate calyx-lobes are somewhat unequal; the white petals are about 2 millimeters long, nearly orbicular. The oval to nearly globular berries are from 6 to 8 millimeters long. There are 4 other species of Myrcia in the Porto Rican Flora.