Brunfelsia americana L.

• Title

  Brunfelsia americana L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Brunfelsia americana L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Brunfelsia americana Rain-tree Aguacero Family Solanaceae Potato Family Brunfelsia americana Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 191. 1753. Brunfelsia americana pubescens Grisebach, Flora of the British West Indian Islands 432. 1861. Both English and Spanish names for this shrub, which is frequently seen in Porto Rico gardens especially on the southern side of the island, refer to the idea that it blossoms immediately after heavy rains; this observation is vouched for by residents, and we have no reason for doubting its accuracy, but we are unable to verify it from our own knowledge; on the other hand, we have seen it profusely flowering during periods of long drought. When in bloom it is one of the most elegant and attractive of all shrubs, covered in the morning by long, fragrant, white flowers, which fade yellow in the afternoon. It is a native in eastern Porto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Lesser Antilles south to Dominica, and is well known as a garden shrub elsewhere in tropical regions. Aleli is another Spanish name for it. The genus Brunfelsia was accepted by Linnaeus from the writings of his predecessor Plumier; it commemorates Otto Brunfels, a German physician and botanist, who died in 1534. About 30 species are known, natives of the West Indies and of South America; the one here illustrated is the type of the genus, first known to botanists from the French Antilles. They are shrubs and trees, their leaves alternate and without teeth, the flowers of the West Indian kinds large, long and showy, those of Brazilian species smaller, the bell-shaped or tubular calyx is 5-toothed, or 5-lobed; the corolla is salverform, with a nearly cylindric, often much elongated tube, and a spreading, 5-lobed limb; there are 4 stamens in 2 pairs of 2, all with anthers, or 1 pair sterile; the pistil has a 2-celled ovary containing many ovules, a style which is incurved at the apex and a 2-lamellate stigma. The nearly globular fruit is leathery or somewhat fleshy, and remains closed, or bursts tardily to release the many, small, roughened seeds. Brunfelsia americana is usually a shrub 3 meters high or lower, but occasionally forms a small tree about 5 meters high. Races of it, or individual bushes are variously hairy, some being essentially smooth, some quite woolly, and the leaf-form while broad, is also various, elliptic, oblong or broadest above the middle, pointed, blunt or rounded. The leaves are from 5 to 10 centimeters long. The flowers are short- stalked, and usually solitary on the numerous twigs; the bell-shaped calyx is about 6 millimeters long; the white corolla, fading yellow, usually has a purplish eye, its slender tube 4 or 5 centimeters long, its limb 3 or 4 centimeters broad, with rounded lobes. The globose, yellow fruit is from 1 to 2 centimeters in diameter. Our illustration was first published in "Addisonia" , plate 546, May, 1952.