Brunfelsia lactea Krug & Urb.

• Title

  Brunfelsia lactea Krug & Urb.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Brunfelsia lactea Krug & Urb.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Brunfelsia lactea Vega blanca Family Solanaceae Potato Family Brunfelsia lactea Krug & Urban; Urban, Notizblatt 1: 323. 1897. Elegant when in bloom, endemic in mountain forests of Porto Rico, this tree, or shrub would form a valuable addition to flower gardens, if it should prove to be adaptable to cultivation. It is frequent at high elevations of the eastern mountains, and known otherwise only on Monte Torito, near Cayey. An account of the genus Brunfelsia may be found with our description of Brunfelsia americana. Brunfelsia lactea (milk-white, referring to the flowers) may form a tree about 12 meters high, but is usually lower, or shrubby, and is smooth throughout. Its leaves, sometimes clustered at the ends of the twigs, are leathery in texture, oval to elliptic, or obovate, pointed or blunt, netted-veined, from 5 to 15 centimeters long, and are borne on stalks about 15 millimeters long, or much shorter. The solitary, white flowers are terminal, sometimes appearing to be lateral when borne on short twigs; their stalks are about 1 centimeter long, the bell-shaped calyx 10 or 12 millimeters long, with short, ovate, rounded lobes; the salverform corolla has a rather stout tube about 7 centimeters long, and a spreading limb about as broad as the length of the tube, with broad, rounded lobes. The globose fruit is 2 to 2.5 centimeters in diameter. There are 4 species classified as Brunfelsias in the Porto Rico flora, one of them, a small tree, with long, narrow leaves and very long and slender flowers, known only from the western mountains, may represent a distinct genus.