Bauhinia pauletia Pers.

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Caesalpiniaceae

• Scientific Name

  Bauhinia pauletia Pers.

• Description

  Species Description - Abundant along roads in southwestern Porto Rico and sometimes forming thickets, this prickly shrub, or small tree appears like an early introduced species rather than a native one, and we so regard it. There is much more of the plant distributed over a greater area than when first observed by us in that region in 1913 at Cabo Rojo; Doctor Stahl records it as growing at Cabo Rojo prior to 1885, although he mistook it for another species. In 1930 and 1931 we observed it from a point several kilometers south of Mayaguez, to the vicinity of Boqueron, and eastward to near Guanica. Elsewhere in the West Indies it is known to grow only in Trinidad; on the continent it ranges from northern Mexico to Panama, and has been recorded from Venezuela. Other Spanish names are bauhinia amarilla and Mariposa. Bauhinia commemorates two famous early Swiss botanists, Jean Bauhin, who lived from 1541 to 1613, and Casper Bauhin, 1560 to 1624. The name was first published by the French botanist Plumier, and was taken up for the genus by Linnaeus; Bauhinia aculeata, native of northern South America, is regarded as the type species; as limited by the immediate relatives of this type, the genus consists of perhaps 70, or more species of trees and shrubs, many more, included by authors are now, preferably, classified in other genera. They have broad, 2-broad leaves, and large, mostly clustered flowers. The calyx is usually closed in bud, its tube long, or short; there are 5, narrow, or broad petals, and 5 or 10, separate, perfect stamens with anthers attached to the filaments at the middle; the ovary is more or less stalked, and contains many ovules; the style is long, the stigma terminal. The pod is narrow, flat, elongated, and splits elastically when ripe, expelling the round, compressed seeds. Bauhinia Pauletia (Pauletia is a subsequent name for Bauhinia) may form a small tree, up to about 5 meters in height, but is usually lower, and shrubby, the twigs hairy and bearing a stout prickle from 2 to 4 millimeters long at the base of each leaf-stalk. The leaves are nearly orbicular, or a little wider than long, thin, about 6 centimeters long, or shorter, 2-lobed the lobes rounded, the base rounded or heart-shaped, the stalks from 1 to 2 centimeters long. The flowers are clustered, with leaf-like bracts, at the ends of the twigs, on stalks about 1 centimeter long; the tube of the calyx is about 2 centimeters long, its limb much elongated; the very narrow, drooping, white petals are from 5 to 7 centimeters long; there are 5 perfect stamens about as long as the petals or longer. The long-stalked pod is velvety, from 10 to 25 centimeters long, about 13 millimeters wide, and splits elastically when mature. Bauhinia megalandra, native of the southern Lesser Antilles, introduced at the Trujillo Plant Propagation Station, and luxuriant there as a tree 5 meters high, in 1930, is unarmed, with much larger leaves, its large flowers with 10 stamens.

• Discussion

  Araña gato Railway Fence Senna Family Bauhinia Pauletia Persoon, synopsis Plantarum 1: 455. 1805.