Dodonaea viscosa Jacq.

• Title

  Dodonaea viscosa Jacq.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Dodonaea viscosa (L.) Jacq.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Dodonaea viscosa Chamiso Gitaran Family Dodonaeaceae Dodonaea Family Ptelea viscosa Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 118. 1753. Dodonaea, viscosa Jacquin, Enumeratio Systematica Plantarum 19.1760. The Dodonaea Family consists mostly of the genus Dodonaea, containing about 50 species of shrubs and trees of tropical and subtropical regions both in the Old World and the New. It is a specialized group of plants, with few immediate living relatives, but has by some authors been included in the Soapberry Family (Sapindaceae). Australasia is the home of the majority of species, and the ancestors of the family may have originated there and spread by migration to other parts of the world. The generic name commemorates Rembert Dodoens, a Dutch herbalist, who lived from 1518 to 1585. They have alternate, mostly simple leaves, those of many kinds exuding a viscid resin, and clustered, small, more or less imperfect flowers without petals. The calyx is composed of from 3 to 5, nearly equal sepals, there are from 5 to 8, separate stamens with short filaments and long bluntly 4-angled anthers, the ovary is 3-celled, or 4-celled, containing 2 ovules in each cell, and the styles are united. The fruit is a dry, membranous or leathery capsule, usually netted-veined andfrom 2-angled to 6-angled, the angles often winged, and it splits at maturity into as many valves as there are angles, releasing the seeds. Dodonaea viscose (Latin, viscid, referring to the sticky-foliage) is the only species of the genus known to grow on the mainland of Porto Rico, where it is frequent in coastal thickets, but another, Dodonaea Ehrenbergii grows on the island Mona. D. viscosa, has wide distribution along nearly-all the coasts of the West Indies and tropical America, except the Bahama Islands, and ranges north into southern Florida, and south to Brazil; it is also found on the island Guam in the Pacific Ocean. It is the species upon which, the genus was founded by Jacquin in 1760, based upon a plant in Jamaica. This shrub reaches a maximum height of about 5 meters, with slender twigs; its leaves are rather narrow, broadest above the middle, thin, blunt or rounded, but usually minutely tipped, short-stalked, from 5 to 12 centimeters long, and so viscid that they adhere to paper in drying. The small, green flowers are slender-stalked in clusters at the ends of the twigs, with a calyx 5 or 6 millimeters broad. The fruit is 3-angled, each angle broadly winged, the wings netted-veined; it appears notched at both ends and is from 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters long and wide. Several related species of non-maritime regions in many parts of the world have been included in this species by authors.