Miconia thomasiana DC.

• Title

  Miconia thomasiana DC.

• Author(s)

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Miconia thomasiana DC.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Miconia thomasiana Camasey rosada Pink Miconia Family Miconia Meadow-beauty Family Miconia thomasiana De Candolle, Prodromus 3: 189. 1828. Miconia vernicosa Naudin, Annales des Sciences Naturelles III. 16:191. 1851. Attractive when in bloom by large clusters of pink or rose-colored flowers at the ends of branches, this shrub, or little tree, is restricted in distribution to the eastern and northern parts of Porto Rico, mostly at lower elevations, and to the British Virgin Island Tortola. When first described it was supposed to have been collected on St. Thomas, and specifically named for that island, but has not been observed there since; from its occurrence in eastern Porto Rico, and on Tortola, it may have grown on St. Thomas before the forests there were destroyed. An account of the genus Miconia may be found with our description of Miconia laevigata. Miconia thomasiana (from the island St. Thomas) may become about 4 meters high; its young twigs, and the flower-clusters are somewhat scurfy. The ovate, or elliptic, smooth, pointed, 5-ribbed leaves are from 5 to 15 centimeters long, the margins small-toothed or continuous, the base rounded, or somewhat heart-shaped, the hairy stalks from 5 to 15 millimeters long. The flowers are loosely clustered, the individual ones on slender stalks about 2 centimeters long, or shorter; the bell-shaped, obscurely lobed calyx is about 3 millimeters long, the pink, or rose petals 5 or 6 millimeters long; the anthers are long, awl-shaped. The globose, blue berries are about 6 millimeters in diameter.