Coccoloba pyrifolia Desf.

• Title

  Coccoloba pyrifolia Desf.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Coccoloba pyrifolia Desf.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Coccolobis pirifolia Uvero Pear-leaved Grape-tree Family Polygonaceae Buckwheat Family Catalogus Plantarum Herti Regii Parisiensis Coccolobis pirifolia Desfontaines, Cat. Hort. Paris, edition 3,289.1829. Frequent, or occasional in woodlands and thickets in wet or moist parts of Porto Rico, and recorded as observed many years ago, on St. Thomas, this tree, or shrub is otherwise definitely known only from Jamaica, where it is locally plentiful; further botanical exploration of Cuba and Hispaniola may, perhaps, reveal its existence on those islands. In Porto Rico it ranges from sea-level up into the mountains, reaching an elevation of at least 800 meters. For an account of the genus Coccolobis, we refer to our description of Coccolobis Uvifera, the Sea Grape, or Uva del mar. Coccolobis pirifolia (pear-leaved) may form a tree about 10 meters high, but is usually smaller, and sometimes shrubby. Its twigs are slender and smooth. The broad, smooth, elliptic, or ovate leaves are rather firm in texture, pointed or blunt, from 4 to 10 centimeters long, with stalks from 6 to 12 millimeters long, the slender veins inconspicuous on the upper surface. The very slender flower-clusters, borne at the ends of branches, are smooth, and usually longer than the leaves, the small, individual flowers without stalks, subtended by minute bracts; the bell-shaped, greenish calyx is about 1 millimeter long. The drooping clusters of fruit are more conspicuous than the flowers, nearly globular, the individual fruits about 4 millimeters in diameter, coronate.