I From the Bulletin of the Tcrrf.y Botanical Club 39; 1-14. 12 F 1912.] 



Studies of West Indian plants IV 



Nathaniel Lord Britton 



16. DENDROPANAX IN THE WEST INDIES 



1. Dendropanax arboreum (L.) Dene. & Planch. 



A tree, up to 20 m. high, but usually much smaller and often 

 flowering as a shrub. Leaves chartaceous, from ovate to obovate, 

 mostly acuminate at the apex, narrowed or rounded at the base, 

 often 2 dm. long; inflorescence from shorter than the leaves to 

 equaling them, or longer, the 20 umbels or fewer racemosely 

 arranged and umbellate at the summit, sometimes leafy-bracted, 

 but the bracts usually small, ovate to lanceolate; peduncles of 

 the umbels slender, ascending, up to 3 cm. long in fruit; pedicels 

 1 3^ to 3 times as long as the flowers, somewhat elongating in 

 fruit; petals white or greenish ; calyx rather sharply toothed, about 

 2 mm. wide at flowering time; fruit black, strongly lobed, 6-8 mm. 

 thick. 



Widely distributed at lower and middle altitudes in moist 

 or wet districts in Jamaica, Cuba, Hispaniola, Porto Rico, and 

 on Signal Hill, St. Thomas. Ascends to 1,600 meters in Jamaica. 



2. Dendropanax samydifolium (C. Wright) Seem. 

 This species is known to me only from the original specimens 



collected by Wright at S. Felepina near La Grifa, western Cuba; 

 Wright's description calls for a tree up to 13 meters high. The 

 leaf base is decurrent on the petiole. The species seems very 

 closely related to D. arboreum, which is abundant in the mountains 

 and hills of western Cuba. 



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