Homalium racemosum Jacq.

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Salicaceae

• Scientific Name

  Homalium racemosum Jacq.

• Description

  Species Description - A small tree, sometimes about 10 meters high, with broad, alternate, toothed leaves, and small, regular, greenish-white flowers, usually numerous, in axillary clusters, it grows in woodlands and forests at lower and middle altitudes in Porto Rico, inhabiting moist and dry parts of the island, is distributed through the Greater Antilles, and in Antigua, Guadeloupe and Martinique. The wood is recorded as hard, strong, and heavy. Homalium (Greek, equal, referring to the equal clusters of stamens) is a genus with about 30 species of trees and shrubs, natives of tropical regions. It was established by Jacquin in 1760, the species here illustrated typical. Their leaves are pinnately veined, their small, regular and perfect flowers clustered. The calyx has a short tube, and from 5 to 7 segments; there are from 5 to 7 petals, borne at the mouth of the calyx-tube; the stamens are from 2 to 8 together in fascicles opposite the petals, their filaments slender; the ovary is 1-celled, the styles from 2 to 5, the stigmas small. The fruit is a few-seeded capsule, splitting above into from 2 to 5 valves. Homalium racemosum (the flower-clusters are slender, racemes or panicles) reaches maximum height of about 10 meters, but is usually lower, and often shrubby; the twigs are slender and smooth. The elliptic to ovate, short-stalked, pointed leaves are from 5 to 12 centimeters long; they are smooth on both sides, or have a few hairs in the axils of the veins beneath. The flowers are numerous, in clusters often longer than the leaves, the individual ones on stalks from 1 to 4 millimeters long; the from 5 to 7, ovate or lance-shaped calyx-segments are about 3 millimeters long, the finely hairy, ovate petals about 5 millimeters long; the stamens are 3 or 4 in each fascicle; there are 3 separate styles, and the conic ovary is densely hairy. There are 2 other species of Homalium recognized in the Porto Rico Flora, both endemic here, both very closely related to Homalium racemosum.

• Discussion

  Tostado Flacourtia Family Homalium racemosum Jacquin, Enumeratio Systematica Plantarum 24. 1760.