Byrsonima crassifolia (L.) Kunth
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
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Family
Malpighiaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - The large clusters of yellow flowers make this small tree or shrub conspicuous when in bloom; in Porto Rico it is restricted to hillsides or mountain slopes in the western and northwestern districts, but its range extends to Santo Domingo, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, and in the Lesser Antilles it inhabits Dominica, Barbados and Trinidad. The Spanish name Maricao, used for these shrubs and trees, and also for the quite different Haemocharis portoricensis of the Tea Family, is the same as that of a town in the western mountains of Porto Rico. Byrsonima (Greek, tanning) is a genus of shrubs and trees proposed by the French botanist Richard, first published by Adrien de Jussieu in 1811. About 100 species are now known, all natives of tropical and subtropical America. They have opposite leaves, and their flowers are in clusters at the ends of branches. The calyx is composed of 5, persistent sepals, with or without 10 small glands; there are 5 petals with broad blades and mostly with narrow claws, and 10 stamens with short filaments; the ovary is 3-lobed; there are 3, slender styles tipped with small aril-awl shaped stigmas. The fruit is round, mostly small, somewhat pulpy, and falls away without opening. Byrsonima crassifolia (thick-leaved) is a shrub or sometimes forms a tree from 5 to 10 meters high, its twigs reddish-woolly. The leaves are various in form, broad or rather narrow, pointed or blunt, from 5 to 17 centimeters long, and from 5 to 17 centimeters wide, short-stalked, rusty-pubescent beneath, or sometimes smooth on both sides. The clusters of flowers are from 6 to 20 centimeters long; the flower-stalks are reddish-woolly, from 8 to 15 millimeters long; the sepals are from 3.5 to 4.5 millimeters long, the larger petals from 7 to 10 millimeters long. The nearly globular fruit is from 9 to 12 millimeters in diameter.
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Discussion
Maricao cimarron Hog-berry Tree Malpighia Family Malpighia crassifolia Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 426. 1755. Byrsonima crassifolia Hunboldt, Bonpland and Knuth Nova Genera et Species Plantarum 5,: 149. 1822.