360 BORAGINACEAE. 



4. ROCHEFORTTA Sw. Prodr. 53. 1788. 



Shrubs or small trees, mostly armed with short spines, the leaves entire, 

 petioled, often fascicled, the small flowers cymose or glomerate. Calyx 4-5- 

 parted, the lobes imbricated. Corolla subrotate, the tube very short, the 4 or 5 

 lobes broad, imbricated. Stamens 4 or 5, borne on the corolla-tube, exserted; 

 filaments filiform; anthers ovate. Disc thick. Ovary 2-celled or falsely 

 4-celled; styles 2, terminal, filiform; stigmas dilated. Drupe fleshy, globose, 

 containing 4 hard nutlets. [Commemorates Cesar de Rochefort, a French 

 naturalist of the seventeenth century.] About 8 species, natives of the West 

 Indies and northern South America. Type species: Bochefortia cuneata Sw. 



1. Rochefortia bahamensis Britton, Bull. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 5: 317. 1907. 



A shrub or small tree up to 4 m. high, with a trunk 6 dm. thick, the bark 

 scaly, the branches spreading, the twigs gray-green, flexuous, sometimes with 

 spines 4-6 mm. long at the nodes. Young foliage sparingly puberulent, soon 

 glabrous; leaves coriaceous, obovate to orbicular, 2-6 cm. long, obtuse or 

 emarginate at the apex, obtuse to cuneate at the base, the midvein prominent, 

 the few lateral veins inconspicuous, the upper surface dark-green and dull or 

 faintly shining, the under surface somewhat lighter green, the petioles 2-10 

 mm. long, green or yellowish ; cymes axillary, 2-4-flowered, their peduncles 

 pubescent, 5 mm. long or less ; calyx sparingly pubescent, obconic, about 4 mm. 

 long, its 5 lobes nearly orbicular, ciliate ; corolla greenish-white, 6 mm. long, 

 cleft to about the middle, its lobes oblong, obtuse; filaments about as long as 

 the anthers; ovary ovoid, about 3 mm. long, the two styles erect or a little 

 incurved. 



Scrub-lands and rocky coppices, Watling's, Crooked, Acklin's and Fortune 

 Islands. Endemic. Bahama Rochefoetia. 



Cordia gerascanthoides Kunth, referred to by Dolley as Bahamian, has not been 

 found by us in the archipelago. The record is, presumably, erroneous. 



Cordia alba (Jacq.) R. & S. is doubtfully recorded as Bahamian by Urban (Symb. 

 Ant. 4 : 516) from his examination of a barren specimen, which proves to be Sebesten 

 Sebestena. 



Family 6. BORAGINACEAE Lindl. 



Borage Family. 



Herbs or shrubs. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite or vertieillate, 

 estipulate, mostly entire and hispid, pubescent, scabrous or setose. Flow- 

 ers perfect, usually regular, in one-sided scorpioid spikes, racemes, cymes, 

 or sometimes scattered. Calyx inferior, mostly 5-lobed, 5-cleft, or 5-parted, 

 usually persistent. Corolla gamopetalous, mostly regular and 5-lobed, 

 rarely irregular. Stamens as many as the corolla-lobes and alternate with 

 them, inserted on the tube or throat ; anthers 2-celled, the sacs longitudinally 

 dehiscent. Disk commonly inconspicuous. Ovary superior, of 2, 2-ovuled 

 carpels, entire, or the carpels commonly deeply 2-lobed, making it appear 

 as of 4, 1-ovuled carpels; style simple, entire or 2-cleft; ovules anatropous 

 or amphitropous. Fruit mostly of 4, 1-seeded nutlets, or of 2, 2-seeded 

 carpels. Endosperm fleshy, copious, or none; cotyledons mostly flat or 

 plano-convex; radicle short. About 85 genera and 1,500 species, of wide 

 distribution. 



Fruit drupaceous. 



Fruit hollowed at base ; coastal canescent shrub. 1. Mallotonia. 



Fruit not hollowed at base; Bahama species vines. 2. TourneforHa: 



Fruit separating into nutlets. 3. Heliotr opium. 



