222 HORTUS JAMAICENSIS'. tabernjEMOntaka 



No English Name. ' TABEKN^IONTANA. 



Ci.. 5, or. 1. Pentandria monogynia. Nat. or. Contort*. 



This is named in memory of James Theodore, sirnamed Taberncemontanus, wbe 

 published some botanical works, and died in 1590. 



Gen. char. Calyx a five-cleft acute perianth, converging, very small ; corolla one- 

 petaled, funnel form, tube cylindric, long ; border five-parted, segments obtuse ; 

 nectary five glands, bifid, standing round the germ : stamens five very small fila- 

 ments, from the middle of the tube, with converging anthers : the pistil has two 

 simple germs, an awl -shaped style, and oblong beaded stigma : the pericarp two 

 follicles, horizontally refiexed, ventricose, acuminate, one-celled, one-valved ; 

 seeds numerous ovate-oblong, obtuse, wrinkled, immersed in pulp, imbricate. 

 Three species are natives of Jamaica. 



1. LAURlFOLiA. LAUREL-LEAVED. 



Nerium arboreum folio laliore obtusr, /lore luteo minore. Sloane, v. 

 2, p. 62, t. 1S6, f. 2. Frutescens foliis subniudis ovatis venosis. 

 Browne, p. 182. 



Leaves opposite, oval, bluntish. 



Stem as thick as the human leg, fifteen feet high ; bark whitish, smooth ; branches 

 crooked, towards their ends grow the leaves, which are on inch long pedicels, four 

 inches long and two broad, of a lucid green, nerved and smooth. The flowers arc ax- 

 illary, in clusters, peduncled, yellow, and sweet scented The pods are forked like 

 horns. It grew on the banks of the liio-Cobrc, under the town of St. Jago de la Vega. 

 Sloane. 



2. DISCOLOR. TWO-COLOURED. 



Leaves opposite ovate-lanceolate ; peduncles axillary, two-flowered. 

 This is a shrub a fathom in height, with a smooth ash-coloured bark ; branches iud- 

 dichotomous, spreading, round, with four-cornered smooth branchlets. Leaves en- 

 tire, very slightly nerved, smooth on both sides, deep green above, pale beneath ; pe- 

 tioles middling, angular, smooth; peduncles terminating, filiform, half an inch long ; 

 pedicels longer titan the peduncles, one flowered, Flowers whitish or yellowish, small; 

 calvcine segments erect, acute; tube of the corolla half an inch long, swelling at the 

 base and in th'e middle ; segments at the-border roundish, waved, twisted; filaments 

 inserted into the middle of the tube ; anthers ovate, within the lube; stigma headed. 

 S'wartz. 



3. CITRIFOLIA. CITRON-LEAVED. 



Leaves opposite, ovate ; flowers lateral, glotnerate-umbelied. 



This rises with an upright woody stalk to the height ol fifteen or sixteen feet, covered 

 with smooth gray bark, abounding with milky juice, and sending out several branches 

 from the side, which grow erect and have many joints. Leaves thick, milky, from live 

 to six niches long, and two inches broad in the mid lie, drawing toa point at each end; 

 they are of a lucid green, have many transverse wins, and stand opposite on footstalks 

 an inch long The flowers' come on tin roundish axillary .branches, small, of a bright 

 yellow colour, and have a:i agreeable odour ; the tube of the corolla is half an in< h long, 



the 



