Tabernaemontana oppositifolia (Spreng.) Urb.

• Title

  Tabernaemontana oppositifolia (Spreng.) Urb.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Tabernaemontana oppositifolia (Spreng.) Urb.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Tabernaemontana oppositifolia Palo de lechoso Family Apocynaceae Dogbane Family Rauwolfia oppositifolia Sprengel, Neue Entdeckungen 3: 33. 1822. Anahata odorata Sprengel, Systema Vegetabilium 1: 582. 1825. Tabernaemontana Berterii De Candolle, Prodromes 8: 367. 1844. Tabernaemontana oppositifolia Urban, Symbolae Antillanae 4: 493. 1910. No English name has been given to this broad-leaved milky-sapped tree, endemic in Porto Rico, where it grows in wet or moist districts, locally abundant, sometimes attaining considerable size, but often low and shrubby. Pegoge is recorded as another Spanish name applied to it. Its white, clustered flowers are attractive, its paired pods interesting. Only this species of the genus grows in Porto Rico. Tabernaemontana, dedicated by Linnaeus to J. T. Tabernaemontanus, a German botanist who died in 1590, comprises some 150 species of tropical shrubs and trees, with milky sap, opposite, untoothed leaves, and rather large, clustered, regular flowers. The short calyx has 5, blunt lobes; the salverform corolla is also 5-lobed, the lobes sinistrorsely twisted; the 5 stamens are borne on the tube of the corolla; the ovary is composed of 2 carpels, each containing many ovules, and the style is topped by a stigma which has an annular membrane at its base. The fruit consists of 2, fleshy, or leathery, short pods, which fall away without opening. Tabernaemontana oppositifolia (opposite leaves, but the specific name is not distinctive) may reach about 10 meters in height, but is usually much smaller, and is smooth throughout. The elliptic, oblong, or obovate, thin, pointed leaves are from 6 to 18 centimeters long, with unequal stalks about 2 centimeters long, or shorter. The calyx is about 5 millimeters long; the tube of the white corolla is from 10 to 13 millimeters long, the lobes about as long. The pods are oblong, reflexed, long-tipped, ridged, about 5 centimeters long. Tabernaemontana coronaria, Crape Jasmine, of unknown geographical origin, is commonly grown in gardens for its large, double flower. We have observed single-flower bushes growing in sand near Dorado and on the Loiza road.