Heterotrichum cymosum (J.C.Wendl. ex Spreng.) Urb.
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
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Family
Melastomataceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
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Species Description - This characteristically viscid-hairy shrub, or small tree, is endemic in Porto Rico, growing in thickets and woodlands in wet or moist districts, attractive by clusters of white flowers at the ends of twigs; it is mostly restricted in distribution to middle and higher elevations, but we have observed it on the Sierra de Yabucoa at about 250 meters. Camasey de Paloma is another Spanish name; we find no English name recorded. Heterotrichum (Greek, various hairs), a genus established by De Candolle in 1828, includes about 12 species, natives of tropical America. They are variously hairy and have opposite, 5-nerved, or 7-nerved leaves, and rather large, clustered flowers. The calyx has a bell-shaped or subglobose tube, attached to the ovary, and from 5 to 9, very narrow lobes; there are from 5 to 9, broad, spreading petals; the stamens are twice as many as the petals, with very slender filaments; the ovary is from 6-celled to 12-celled and contains many ovules; the style is slender, and the stigma small. The fruits are many-seeded berries. Heterotrichum cymosum (cymose, referring to the flower-clusters) may form a tree up to about 10 meters high, but is usually smaller, and sometimes shrubby. The twigs have two kinds of hairs, one kind short and stellate, the other long and tipped by glands which secrete a viscid substance. The broad, thin, ovate, pointed, long-stalked, 7-nerved leaves are from 8 to 15 centimeters long, with a heart-shaped base, finely toothed margins, the pale, undersurface densely stellate-hairy, the upper surface rough, and beset with stiff hairs. The flower-clusters are broad, but shorter than the leaves, the individual flowers with very short stalks; the calyx-tube is 6 or 7 millimeters long, its outer lobes 5 or 6 millimeters long, the white, obovate petals about 9 millimeters long. The nearly globular, glandular-hairy berry is about 12 millimeters in diameter. Another species, Heterotrichum angustifolium, the generic type has been recorded as collected in Porto Rico many years ago, but its occurrence here rests on that record only, and it has probably been eliminated by destruction of forests; this is a shrub with lance-shaped, thick leaves, and inhabits Santo Domingo and Haiti.
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Discussion
Terciopilo Camasey colorado Melastoma Family Melastoma cymosum Wendland ; Sprengel, Systema Vegetabilium 2: 299. 1825. Heterotrichum Eggersii Cogniaux, Jahrbuch des Botanischen Garrtens zu Berlin 4: 282. 1886. Heterotrichum cymosum Urban, Symbolae Antillanae 4: 462. 1910.