STANDLEY TREES AND SHRUBS OF MEXICO. 1285 



This plant is common in cultivation in the warmer parts of Mexico, being 

 extremely showy when in flower. It has usually been known as D. arborea. 

 Some of the cultivated forms have double flowers. It is, probably, this species 

 of which Acosta wrote in 1606, as follows : " It is true that many of these 

 flowers [of New Spain] are only good to look at, for their odor is not good, 

 or is ordinary, or else they have none at all, but there are some of excellent 

 odor. Such are those that grow on a tree called floripondio, which has no fruit, 

 but bears only flowers, which are larger than fleur de lys, shaped like hand- 

 bells, all white, and having within filaments such as one sees in a lily. It 

 bears flowers all the year long, whose odor is wondrously sweet and pleasant, 

 especially in the fresh morning air. The Viceroy Don Francisco de Tollede 

 sent some of these trees to King Philip, as a thing worthy of being planted 

 in the royal gardens." 



2. Datura arborea L. Sp. PI. 179. 1753. 



The only Mexican specimens seen are from Sinaloa, where the plant is prob- 

 ably cultivated. Native of South America, the type from Peru. 



Shrub or small tree ; leaves broadly ovate or elliptic, acuminate, entire or re- 

 pand, villosulous ; corolla white, 15 to 18 cm. long, the lobes long-cuspidate ; 

 fruit subglobose, about 6 cm. long, "Floripondio" (Colombia, Peru, Ecuador) ; 

 " borrachero," " guante " (Colombia); " floripundio " (Sinaloa). 



In Peru the leaves are applied as poultices to sores to relieve pain and ac- 

 celerate suppuration. 



Datura sanguinea Ruiz & Pav., a South American species with red flowers. Is 

 cultivated about the City of Mexico. 



3. Datura suaveolens Humb. & Bonpl. ; Willd. Enum. PI. 227. 1809. 

 Yucatan, probably in cultivation. Central and South America. 



Shrub or small tree ; leaves broadly ovate to oblong-ovate, acuminate, mostly 

 entire, finely villosulous or glabrate; corolla white, 25 to 30 cm. long, the 

 lobes cuspidate. " Campanula," " flor de campana," " floripundio bianco," 

 " arbol de la bibijagua " (Cuba). 



6. LYCITJM L. Sp. PI. 191. 1753. 



Shrubs, sometimes scandent, usually spiny; leaves entire, small; flowers 

 solitary or fasciculate in the axils or in terminal cymes, white or purplish ; 

 calyx campanulate or tubular-campanulate, 3 to 5-lobate; corolla funnelforni 

 or salverform, with short or elongate tube, the limb 4 or 5-lobate ; stamens 

 included or exserted ; fruit a globose or ovoid, 2-celled berry. 



The fruit of the Mexican species is edible but insipid. The Indians formerly 

 made considerable use of it, sometimes drying and preserving it until winter. 

 The leaves of L. barbarnm L., of the Mediterranean region, have been em- 

 Iiloyed as a substitute for Chinese tea. The young shoots of L. eiiropaeum 

 L. are said to be eaten as a vegetable in Spain and Italy. 

 Corolla tube 12 mm. long or more, tubular, only slightly ampliate above. 

 Lobes of the calyx equaling or longer than the tube. 



Stamens exserted; lobes of the calyx nearly or fully twice as long as the 



tube 1. L. macrodon. 



Stamens included ; lobes of the calyx about equaling the tube. 



Leaves glabrous 2. L. schaffneri. 



Leaves glandular-puberulent 3. L. puberulum. 



