250 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 
Cotton-tree, silk. See Ceiba pentandra. 
Cowhage or Cowitch plant. See Stizolobium pruriens. 
Cowpea, twining (United States). See Vigna sinensis. 
Crab’s-eye seeds (West Indies). See Abrus abrus. 
Cracca mariana. GOAT’S-RUE. 
Family Fabaceae. 
An undershrub. Stem erect, terete, villous; leaves pinnate, with 4 pairs of leaflets, 
sessile; leaflets oblong, smooth above, silky-silvery beneath; stipules lanceolate, 
elongate, hairy; axillary flowers close together, subsessile, the terminal ones sub- 
racemose; pods narrow, upright, velvety-hairy, 10 to 12-seeded, Type specimen 
from Marianne Islands, its leaflets nearly 5 em. long by 8 to 12 mm. wide. Flowers 
not. observed. 
REFERENCES: 
Cracea mariana (DC.) Kuntze, Rev. Gen, 1: 175. 1891. 
Tephrosia mariana DC. Prod. 2: 253. 1825, 
Crape myrtle. See Layerstroemia indica. 
Crescentia alata. CROSS8LEAF. CALABASH TREE, 
Family Bignoniaceae. 
LocaL NAmrEs.—Hfkara (Guam); Jicara (Spanish, Mexico); Hojacruz (Manila); 
Xicali (Aztec). 
A small tree with many wide-spreading branches and trifoliolate leaves with 
winged petiole, bearing gourd-like fruit upon the trunk and larger limbs. Branches 
angled, without thorns; leaves growing in threes from the axil, the middle one peti- 
olate, 3-foliate, the lateral ones simple, smaller, sessile; petiole of the 3-foliolate leaf 
broadly winged, forming together with the 3 leaflets a cross-shaped leaf; leaflets 
linear-lanceolate or cuneate with crenate apex, membranous, sometimes 4 or 5 from 
end of petiole, but these probably abnormal; bark thin, greenish; flowers develop- 
ing from buds on the trunk and the older limbs and branches, the tree therefore 
“ cauliflorous,’’@ as in the case of Theobroma cacao and Averrhoa carambola. Flowers 
large, fleshy, purplish, usually solitary, with a very short pedicel; calyx 2-parted, 
deciduous; corolla campanulate, open-mouthed, tube curved, with a fold in the 
throat; limb unequally 5-parted; stamens 4, didymous; ovary 1-celled, stigma 2- 
lamellate; fruit globose, hard, indehiscent, many-seeded, in Guam about 10 em. in 
diameter. 
This species, first described from Acapulco, Mexico, has been introduced into the 
Philippines and Guam. It was described by Padre Blanco as Crescentia trifolia.» 
“They call it ‘cross-leaf’ (hoja de cruz),’”” he says, ‘‘ because the three leaflets with 
the winged petiole form a cross.’’ Its spreading branches form good perches for 
fowls, and in building a rancho a site is often selected near one of these trees, so that 
it may serve for this purpose. The fruit is too small to serve as calabashes, and it is 
not used in Guam. 
REFERENCES: 
Crescentia alata H. B. K. Nov. Gen. & Sp. 8: 158. 1818. 
Crescentia trifolia Blanco. Same as Crescentia alata. 
“Cauliflorie, d. hh. Bliithenbildung am alten Holze in den immerfeuchten trop- 
ischen Wiildern nicht selten. Sie kommt dadurch zu Stande, dass ruhende axilliire 
Knospen sich nach mehreren bis vielen Jahren weiter entwickeln und die Rinde 
durehbrechend, ihre Bliithen frei entfalten. (Schimper, Pflanzen-geographie auf 
physiologischer Grundlage, p. 360, 1898.) 
’Blanco, Flora de Filipinas, 489-490, 1837. 
