Exothea paniculata (Juss.) Radlk.

• Title

  Exothea paniculata (Juss.) Radlk.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Exothea paniculata (Juss.) Radlk.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Exothea paniculata Gaita Butter Bough Family Sapindaceae Soap berry Family Melicocca paniculata Jussieu , Memoires des Museum d'Histoire Naturelle 3: 187. 1817. Exothea oblongifolia Macfadyen, Flora of Jamaica 1: 232.. 1837. Exothea paniculata Radlkofer; Durand, Index Generum phanerogamorum 81: 1888. A tree, attaining large size, locally distributed in moist and dry parts of Porto Rico, at lower and middle elevations, on hillsides, or in arroyos, found also on the small islands Mona and Vieques; it ranges through the Greater Antilles, northward into the Bahama Islands and southern Florida; occurs on St. Eustatius and St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles and, on the continent, in Guatemala. Its small, white flowers, numerous in broad clusters, are attractive; the hard, reddish-brown, heavy wood is used in cabinet work and for tool-handles. The genus Exothea is regarded as monotypic, only one species being definitely known. It was established by the British botanist Macfadyen in 1837, in his uncompleted book describing plants of Jamaica, now rare, the name signifying to expel, because he separated it from the Linnaean genus Melicocca, in which it was first classified. Exothea paniculata (compound flower-clusters) may become about 20 meters high, with a trunk about 0.5 meter in diameter, the thin reddish-brown bark scaly when old. The alternate, short-stalked leaves have from 2 to 6, nearly or quite smooth, oblong to elliptic-obovate, untoothed leaflets, which are from 5 to 13 centimeters long, dark green and shining on the upper surface, and nearly stalkless. The terminal and axillary clusters of flowers are somewhat hairy; the flowers are mostly dioecious, staminate on one tree, pistillate on another, but the two kinds are sometimes inter-mixed; they have 5, ovate sepals about 3 millimeters long, and 5 ovate-oblong, white petals about as long as the sepals; the staminate flowers have 7 or 8 perfect stamens, and no pistil; in the pistillate flowers there is a 2-celled, hairy ovary topped by a short style, and usually some short, imperfect stamens. The fruit is a berry-like, globose, purple stone-fruit from 10 to 13 millimeters in diameter, with juicy, orange pulp.