Quararibea turbinata (Sw.) Poir.
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
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Family
Malvaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
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Species Description - Characterized by leaves delightfully fragrant in drying, the attractive, white flowers also peculiarly odorous, this widely distributed tree of tropical America is occasional in Porto Rico woodlands and forests, in the wet or moist districts, at lower and middle elevations. Its range extends from Haiti to St. John, in the Lesser Antilles from St. Eustatius to Tobago, and is recorded to extend into South America. Branches cut from this tree are used for mixing drinks called swizzles, whence the English name. Quararibaea (Guiana name) is a genus established by the French botanist Aublet in 1775, with a French Guiana species typical; there are about 10 species, aromatic trees and shrubs, natives of tropical America, only the one here illustrated found in Porto Rico. They have alternate leaves, and rather small, solitary or clustered, lateral or axillary flowers. The calyx is tubular-obconic, with from 3 to 5 lobes; and there are 5 petals; the stamens are united by their filaments into a column bearing many aggregated anthers; the ovary is stalkless and few-celled, with 2 ovules in each cell; the very slender style is topped by the small stigma. The small, leathery, globose or ellipsoid fruit does not open. Quararibaea turbinata (top-shaped) may reach a height of about 10 meters; the bark, twigs and leaves are smooth. Its leaves are elliptic or broadly lance-shaped, thin, untoothed, rather strongly pointed, or blunt, from 7 to 15 centimeters long, or sometimes longer. The flower-stalks are shorter than the leaf-stalks, sometimes very short, the flowers few together or solitary, top-shaped in bud; the calyx is from 8 to 13 millimeters long; the nearly white petals are somewhat shorter than the calyx and about as long as the stamen-column. The short-stalked fruit becomes nearly globular, 1 to 2 centimeters in diameter, partly enveloped by the expanded calyx when young, and finely many-striate.
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Discussion
Garrocho Swizzle-stick Tree Bombax Family Myrodia turbinata Swartz, Prodromus Descriptorum Vegetabilium 102.1788, Quararibaea turbinata Poiret, in Lamarck, Encyclopédie Méthodique Botanique Supplement 4: 636.1816.