Cerbera thevetia L.

• Title

  Cerbera thevetia L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Cerbera thevetia L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Cerbera Thevetia Cabalonga Lucky-nut Family Apocynaceae Dogbane Family Cerbera Thevetia Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 209. 1753. Thevetia nereifolia Jussieu; Steudel, Nomenclator Botanicus, edition 2: 680. 1841. The English name of this showy, yellow-flowered shrub or small tree comes from its peculiar, hard, somewhat 3-sided and flattened fruit, fancied to bring good fortune to those who posess it. The tree is occasional in coastal thickets in Porto Rico, and distributed nearly all over the West Indies, north to Florida, with a wide range in tropical continental America, much planted for ornament, the large, yellow flowers, and numerous, bright green, narrow and long leaves elegant and attractive; the white sap gives it also the English name Milk-tree. Cerbera, named by Linnaeus for Cerberus, the three-headed dog of mythology has about 7 species of smooth trees or shrubs natives of tropical America, only the one here illustrated in Porto Rico. They have alternate, 1-nerved, untoothed leaves, and large, yellow flowers clustered at the ends of branches. The 5-cleft calyx has many, small glands at the base, within; the funnelform corolla has a slender cylindric tube, abruptly expanded above into a bell-shaped throat, the limb with 5, broad, rounded lobes; there are 5 stamens, borne among scales, at the top of the corolla-tube; the 2-celled and 2-lobed ovary has 2 ovules in each cell; the style is very slender, the disk-like stigma with a 2-lobed tip. The fruit is compressed, broader than high, with thin flesh and a 2-celled pit. Cerbera Thevetia (name of a related genus) may reach a height of about 10 meters, but is usually much smaller, sometimes shrubby; the twigs are stout, and densely leafy. The narrow, nearly stalkless leaves are from 7 to 15 centimeters long, and from 5 to 10 millimeters wide, pointed at the ends, the upper surface shining. There are usually several flowers in the clusters; the calyx-segments are broadly lance-shaped, about 7 millimeters long; the bright yellow corolla is about 7 centimeters long. The triangular, compressed fruit is 3 or 4 centimeters wide, about 2 centimeters high, and 1 or 1.5 centimeters thick.