Turnera ulmifolia L.
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Title
Turnera ulmifolia L.
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Authors
Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne
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Scientific Name
Turnera ulmifolia L.
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Description
Flora Borinqueña Turnera ulmifolia Mari-Lopez Yellow Alder Family Turneraceae Turnera Family Turnera ulmifolia Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 271. 1753. Turnera angustifolia Miller, Gardeners Dictionary, edition 8, no. 2. 1768. The Turnera Family, consisting of tropical and subtropical herbaceous plants and shrubs, characterized by flowers having 3 styles and several-cleft, or many-cleft stigmas. Turnera ulmifolia is a widely distributed shrub, various in leaf-form, in size of flowers, and in hairyness, frequent in Porto Rico, at lower elevations, growing on banks, in fields, in sandy and waste grounds, but scarcely becoming a weed; we regard it as indigenous. Its distribution extends nearly throughout the West Indies, reaching north to Bermuda, and on the continent from Mexico to Colombia and Brazil. It is the typical species of the genus. Turnera commemorates William Turner, an English herbalist, famous as "The Father of English Botany", who died in 1568. About 60 species are known, nearly all American. They are herbs, or low shrubs, with alternate, toothed leaves, and bracted, yellow flowers mostly borne solitary in the leaf-axils. The calyx is 5-cleft, and there are 5 petals and 5, separate stamens; the ovary is 1-celled, and contains many ovules; the 3 styles are very slender, the stigmas several-cleft, or many-cleft. The fruit is a capsule, which splits into 3 valves when ripe, the several, or many seeds borne near the middle of the valves. Turnera ulmifolia (elm-leaved, but the name is not definitive) is shrubby, upright, usually branched, from 0.3 to nearly 1 meter high, variously hairy. The lance-shaped to ovate-oblong, thin, short-stalked leaves are pointed, toothed, and from 2 to 11 centimeters long, bearing 2 glands at the base. The short, axillary flower-stalks partly united with the leaf-stalks, bear bracts as long as the calyx or longer; the lobes of the calyx are lance-shaped and pointed; the obovate petals are from 1 to 3 centimeters long. The capsule is from 6 to 10 millimeters long, the seeds reticulated. Turnera diffusa, another shrub of this genus, with much smaller leaves and flowers, is also illustrated in this work. Turnera pumilea, an annual herb with clustered flowers, is a third species inhabiting Porto Rico.