Tecoma stans (L.) Juss. ex Kunth
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
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Family
Bignoniaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
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Species Description - Widely distributed naturally throughout tropical America, and much planted for ornament, this yellow-flowered shrub or small tree is a conspicuous and elegant element of the vegetation; it ranges northward into the Bahama Islands and southern Florida. Ruibarba is another Spanish name for it, and among other English names we have Yellow Cedar, Trumpet-flower and Ginger Thomas. The generic name Tecoma, established by the French botanist Jussieu in 1789, was taken from the Aztec name Tecomaxochitl. The direct translation of the Spanish name Roble amarillo is Yellow Oak, arising from the supposed similarity of the wood of this and other tropical American trees of the Family Bignoniaceae to the wood of some kinds of true Oaks of the north temperate zone, but botanically considered it is not at all related to oaks, nor to elders, nor to cedars. Tecoma contains about 10 species of trees and shrubs, natives of tropical and warm-temperate America. Most of them have pinnately compound leaves, and their large and showy flowers are in clusters at the ends of the branches; the narrowly bell-shaped calyx is 5-toothed; the funnelform, bell-shaped corolla has 5, nearly equal lobes; there are 4 stamens in 2 pairs, borne on the tube of the corolla; the ovary contains many ovules, the style is slender, the stigma 2-lobed. The fruit is long and narrow, splitting longitudinally when ripe and releasing the many, thin, winged seeds, which may be blown to long distances by the wind. Tecoma stans is a shrub, or a small tree, reaching a maximum height of about 8 meters, with smooth twigs, leaves and flowers. Its leaves are opposite, stalked, pinnately compound, with from 5 to 13, rather narrow, pointed, toothed leaflets from 3 to 11 centimeters long. There are several or many flowers in each cluster, borne on short and slender stalks; the calyx is about 3.5 millimeters long, its teeth broad and pointed; the bright yellow corolla is from 3 to 5 centimeters long, with broad lobes and a nearly cylindric tube; the stamens are about as long as the corolla-tube. The fruit is a slender, beaked capsule, 10 to 20 centimeters and 5 or 6 millimeters thick.
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Discussion
Roble amarillo Yellow Elder Trumpet-creeper Family Bignonia stans Linnaeus, Species Plantarum, 2nd Edition, 871. 1763. Tecoma stans Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth, Nova Genera et Species Plantarum 3: 144. 1819. Stenolobium stans Seemann, Journal of Botany 1: 88. 1863.