Moluchia pyramidata (L.) Britton

• Title

  Moluchia pyramidata (L.) Britton

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton

• Scientific Name

  Moluchia pyramidata (L.) Britton

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Moluchia pyramidata Bretonica pyramidal Smooth Moluchia Family Sterculiaceae Chocolate Family Molochia pyramidata Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 674. 1753. Moluchia pyramidata Britton, Memoirs of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden 1: 69. 1918. A slender, low, branched, nearly smooth, slightly woody plant, with small leaves, and small, pink, or red flowers, followed by characteristic, 5-angled, capsular fruits. It is common at lower altitudes in Porto Rico, in dry and moist districts, growing on hillsides and banks, and in fields, and cultivated grounds, ascending to 200 meters elevation, and is distributed nearly throughout tropical and subtropical America, north to Texas, and also in tropical parts of the Old World. Moluchia (name changed from Melochia) established as a genus by the German botanist Medicus in 1787, consists of about 6 species, herbs, shrubs, or small trees, tropical and subtropical in distribution, with alternate, toothed leaves, and small, mostly clustered, regular flowers. The calyx is 5-cleft, and there are 5, flat, narrow petals; the 5 stamens, opposite the petals, are somewhat united by the lower parts of their filaments; the 5-celled ovary has 2 ovules in each cavity, and the 5 styles are separate, at least above, the stigmas club-shaped. The fruit is a pyramidal, 5-valved, 5-seeded capsule. Moluchia pyramidata (pyramidal capsules) is decumbent, or nearly upright, nearly smooth, except for a line of hairs along the young branches. The thin, pointed, sharply toothed, short-stalked leaves are from 2 to 6 centimeters long, ovate, lance-shaped, or the lower ones nearly orbicular. The flowers are few, or solitary, on somewhat hairy stalks about as long: as the leaf-stalks, terminal, or opposite the leaves; the lance-shaped calyx-lobes are 3 or 4 millimeters long, the obovate, pink, red,or lavender (rarely white) petals about 6 millimeters long. The membranous, swollen, sharply 5-angled capsule is 6 or7 millimeters long, short-beaked, each angle with a short cusp at the base. Another species, Moluchia tomentosa, is also illustrated in this work.