Taonabo stahlii (Krug & Urb.) Britton

• Title

  Taonabo stahlii (Krug & Urb.) Britton

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Taonabo stahlii (Krug & Urb.) Britton

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Taonabo Stahlii Mamey del Cura Family Theaceae Tea Family Ternstroemia Stahlii Krug and Urban, Botanische Jahrbucher 21: 527. 1896. Taonabo Stahlii Britton; Britton & Wilson, Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands 5: 581. 1924. A rare little tree, or shrub, endemic in Porto Rico, known to us only from sandy soil near Bayamon, where found by Doctor Stahl, from near Dorado, and from serpentine hills on Monte Mesa near Mayaguez, and north of San German. It is an attractive evergreen, with, rather small, white flowers. Taonabo (a Guiana name) is a genus established by the French botanist Aublet, in his classical work on the plants of Guiana, in 1775. As understood by us, it includes some 20 species of evergreen, smooth trees and shrubs, natives of tropical America, with alternate or opposite leaves, and axillary flowers, usually solitary, and borne on recurved stalks. The sepals, from 5 to 7 in number, overlap; the usually 5 petals are united below the middle; the numerous stamens are borne on the base of the corolla; the usually 2-celled ovary contains few ovules, the styles are united, the stigma 2-lobed or entire. The fruit is rather leathery, usually beaked, and does not open to release the few seeds. The species of this genus have been classified by authors under the generic name Ternstroemia, Mutis, but Taonabo has priority. Taonabo Stahlii forms a small tree, sometimes 5 meters high, its elliptic or obovate, rather thick leaves are from 5 to 9 centimeters long, with a blunt, or rounded apex and a narrowed, or wedge-shaped base, their stalks about 10 millimeters long, or shorter. The recurved flower-stalks are from 8 to 12 millimeters long; the inner, nearly round sepals are glandless, and from 7 to 9 millimeters long, the somewhat shorter, outer ones are oval and glandular; the oblong, blunt petals are about as long as the inner sepals. The ovoid-conic fruit is about 12 millimeters long. Five other species of Taonabo occur in the Porto Rico Flora; of these Taonabo pachyphylla, inhabiting mountain forests near Maricao, is closely related to Taonabo Stahlii.