Erithalis fruticosa L.

  • Title

    Erithalis fruticosa L.

  • Authors

    Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

  • Scientific Name

    Erithalis fruticosa L.

  • Description

    Flora Borinqueña Erithalis fruticosa Jayajabico Black Torch Family Rubiaceae Madder Family Erithalis fruticosa Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, edition 10. 930. 1759. Erithalis odorifera Jacquin, Selectarum Stirpium Americanarum 72.1763. This shrub, or small tree is of much interest as it is a species of great variability in height, and in the size of leaves, flowers, and fruits, apparently consisting of several races, differing in these features. It is common along the coasts of nearly all the west Indian Islands south to Trinidad, ranges north to Florida, and grows also in Central America. In Porto Rico it inhabits coastal woodlands, thickets, and hillsides, nearly always within the reach of spray, growing also on the small islands Mona, Vieques, Cayo Icacos and Culebra, and we therefore regard it as a halophyte. The Spanish popular names Tea and Teillo are also recorded as used for it. Erithalis (Greek, very green) is a Linnaean genus, with about 6 species of evergreen shrubs and small trees, natives of the West Indies, Florida, and Central America, the one here illustrated typical. They are smooth shrubs and trees, with dark green, opposite, stalked, untoothed leaves, and small, regular flowers in terminal and axillary, loose clusters. The calyx is short and broad; the corolla has a very short tube and 4 or 5 narrow lobes, or is salverform in some species; there are from 5 to 10 stamens with slender filaments and narrow anthers; the ovary is from 5-celled to 10-celled, with a single ovule in each cell, and the style is stout. The small, fleshy, berry-like fruits contain from 5 to 10 nutlets, each 1-seeded. Erithalis fruticosa (shrubby) is a shrub from 0.6 to 4 meters high, or a small tree up to about 8 meters in height, with slender, round twigs. Its shining leaves are firm in texture, in shape from oblong to obovate or nearly orbicular, from 4 to 15 centimeters long, rounded at the apex, or short-pointed, their stalks 4 to 20 millimeters long. The flowers are several, or many, in stalked clusters the calyx is only 1 or 2 millimeters long, minutely toothed; the white corolla deeply 4-parted, or 5-parted, from 4 to 10 millimeters long, its segments narrowly oblong. The globose or depressed fruit is from 2 to 5 millimeters in diameter, with from 5 to 10 grooves, black when ripe. Another species, Erithalis revoluta, endemic, and known only from Cuba Gorda, in coastal woods, near Guanica, has pointed leaves with revolute margins, a deeply 5-toothed calyx, and obovoid fruits.