Vitex
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Authority
Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.
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Family
Verbenaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
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Genus Description - Trees, shrubs, or rarely woody vines, with obtusely 4-angled branches. Leaves palmately compound, 3-7-foliolate, seldom unifoliolate, opposite or ternate, petiolate, the leaflets entire or toothed at margins, petiolulate. Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic, in axillary cymes or terminal panicles; bracts usually smaller than the calyx; calyx bell-shaped to tubular, with 5 unequal teeth or 5-parted; corolla trumpet-shaped, the limb spreading, 2-lipped, with 5 rounded lobes; stamens 4, the filaments in 2 pairs of unequal length, inserted on tube, included or exserted; ovary 2-locular but becoming imperfectly 4-locular, each locule with a single ovule, the style elongate with a bifid stigma. Fruit a more or less fleshy drupe, subtended by an accrescent calyx.
Distribution and Ecology - A genus of about 250 species of tropical and temperate zones.