Eugenia borinquensis Britton

• Title

  Eugenia borinquensis Britton

• Author(s)

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Eugenia borinquensis Britton

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Eugenia borinquensis Luquillo Mountains Eugenia Family Myrtaceae Myrtle Family Eugenia borinquensis Britton; Britton & Wilson, Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands 6: 38. 1925. Restricted in distribution to the mountain forests of eastern Porto Rico, this endemic small tree or shrub is always of interest to climbers of Mount El Yunque, where it forms thickets, near the summit, conspicuous by large, round leaves, and large, white, purple-mottled flowers. No popular names have been applied to it, to our knowledge; when first described, botanically, in 1890, from herbarium specimens obtained by the German collector Sintenis, it was named Myrtus Sintenisii, but subsequent study showed it not a true Myrtle, and it was transferred to the genus Eugenia, which already contained a Eugenia Sintenisii, a different plant, and requiring change of the first specific name. Eugenia is an enormous genus of some 600 species, of tropical and subtropical distribution, all trees or shrubs, mostly with smooth foliage. The name, given by Linnaeus, commemorates Prince Eugene of Savoy, a patron of Botany and horticulture, who lived from 1663 to 1736. The opposite, thick, pinnately veined leaves are pellucid-dotted, and without teeth. The axillary, solitary, or variously clustered flowers have 4 or 5 calyx-lobes and petals, numerous stamens, and a 2-celled or 3-celled inferior ovary. The berry-like fruit is crowned by the persistent calyx-lobes. Eugenia borinquensis (Porto Rican) may become 7 or 8 meters high, but is usually lower, or shrubby, the branches forking, the straight, stiff twigs flattened under the hairs of leaves. The leaves are nearly orbicular, rigid, strongly pinnately veined and reticulated, from 4 to 10 centimeters broad, with a somewhat heart-shaped base, and stout stalks only 1 or 2 millimeters long, appearing almost stalkless. The flowers are solitary or few together in the leaf-axils, or appearing terminal, on stalks about 2 centimeters long; the outer, rounded calyx-lobes are about 4 millimeters long, the petals about 15 millimeters long. The oval or nearly globular, reddish-green fruit is about 2 centimeters in diameter. About 24 other species of Eugenia grow in Porto Rico.