Scolosanthus Vahl

George R. Proctor (2012). Flora of the Cayman Isands (Second Edition). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Morphology General Habit

Spiny or rarely unarmed shrubs; leaves opposite or fascicled, coriaceous, short-petiolate or sessile; stipules minute, interpetiolar, connate, forming a short sheath around the stem, persistent.

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers

Flowers bisexual, 4-merous, actinomorphic, in axillary fascicles or solitary; hypanthium obovoid or obconical, crowned by a small 4-lobed calyx; corolla narrowly funnel-shaped (rarely bell-shaped), the tube longer than the lobes, the lobes imbricate in bud, erect or spreading at anthesis

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Androecium Stamens

Stamens 4, included, the filaments connate at the base; ovary inferior, 2-carpellate, each carpel with one pendulous ovule; style filiform, bilobed

Morphology Reproductive morphology Fruits

Fruit a more or less compressed-globose fleshy drupe containing 1 or 2 pyrenes, each pyrene with a single seed.

Distribution

A genus of about 23 described species confined to the Bahamas and Greater Antilles. Of these, 1 is credited to the Bahamas, 9 to Cuba, 9 to Hispaniola, 2 to Jamaica and 3 to Puerto Rico. All are endemic to their respective islands except for 2 shared by Hispaniola and Puerto Rico (Scolosanthus densiflorus and S. versicolor, the latter also occurring in the Virgin Islands).

Note

The only two entirely non-spiny species are S. howardii of Jamaica and S. roulstonii of Grand Cayman.