Plumeria alba L.

• Title

  Plumeria alba L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton

• Scientific Name

  Plumeria alba L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Plumiera alba Aleli cimarron White Paucipan Family Apocynaceae Dogbane Family Plumiera alba Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 210. 1753. Inhabiting coastal thickets and hillsides, but not restricted to saline influence, this small, narrow-leaved tree, with attractive, large, clustered, white flowers, and copious milky sap, is frequent in such situations in both moist and dry parts of Porto Rico, and grows also on the small islands Cayo Muertos, Cayo Icacos, Vieques and Culebra, ranging eastward through the Virgin Islands, and southward, through the Lesser Antilles to Grenada; it has also been found on the Cayman Islands. The yellowish wood is hard, tough, heavy and strong. Nosegay-tree is another English name, and Tabeiba a Spanish one. The tree is often planted for ornament. Plumiera, dedicated by Linnaeus to the distinguished French botanist Charles Plumier, who was born in 1646, has some 45 species of tropical American trees and shrubs, with stout branches, milky sap, alternate, untoothed leaves, and large, regular flowers in terminal clusters. The small calyx is 5-cleft, the salverform corolla 5-lobed; the 5 stamens are borne near the base of the corolla; the pistil is composed of 2, many ovuled, separate carpels, with short styles, and 2-lobed stigmas. The fruit is a pair of slender follicles, which open longitudinally, releasing the flat, winged seeds. Plumiera alba (white flowers) attains maximum height of about 10 meters, but is usually lower. The narrowly lanceolate, rather thick, pointed, or blunt leaves are from 10 to 25 centimeters long, and from 1 to 3 centimeters wide, with stalks from 1 to 3 centimeters long; they are smooth on the upper side, but often white-velvety beneath, and the lateral veins are nearly at right-angles with the midvein. The flowers are several, or many, in smooth, stalked clusters; the calyx is only 2 or 3 millimeters long; the white corolla has a yellow eye, its tube about 2 centimeters long, the obovate, rounded lobes somewhat longer. The follicles are 10 or 12 centimeters long, and about 1.5 centimeters thick. Plumiera rubra, an introduced species, is also illustrated in this work, and there are 3 other native species of the genus.