Hura

  • Authority

    Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

  • Family

    Euphorbiaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Hura

  • Description

    Genus Description - Monoecious, large trees, producing copious, poisonous, milky latex; bark with short conical thorns. Leaves simple, alternate, and serrate; petioles long, with 2 round glands at apex; stipules large, deciduous. Flowers unisexual; calyx cup-shaped; corolla wanting; nectary disk wanting. Staminate flowers in long pedunculate, axillary spikes; stamens numerous, with connate filaments forming a tube with 2 or 3 whorls of anthers; pistillode absent. Pistillate flowers solitary in leaf axils, much larger than the staminate ones; ovary ovoid, with 5-20 carpels, these with a single ovule, the styles connate into an elongate tube, with spreading, radiating lobes at apex. Fruit a strongly depressed, woody capsule, with fluted, rounded equatorial outline, the locules with explosive dehiscence, the columella persistent; seeds nearly coin-shaped.

  • Distribution

    A genus of 2 or 3 species of tropical America.

    Saint John Virgin Islands of the United States South America|