NYCTAGINACE.E 341 



1. TORRUBIA Veil. 



Glabrous or pubescent unarmed trees or shrubs. Leaves opposite or rarely alternate, 

 entire, short-stalked. Flowers perfect, or rarely unisexual; calyx tubular or funnel-shaped, 

 elongated, 5-lobed, the lobes plaited in the bud, erect or spreading; stamens inserted on 

 the base of the calyx under the ovary, minute or rudimentary in the unisexual pistillate 

 flower; filaments folded in the bud, filiform, unequal, free; anthers oblong, introrse, 2- 

 celled, the cells parallel, opening longitudinally; ovary oblong-ovoid, sessile, 1 -celled, 

 gradually narrowed into a columnar style; stigmas capitate, lacerate. Fruit fleshy, cy- 

 lindric, costate, smooth; utricle elongated, with a thin membranaceous wall confluent with 

 the thin transparent coat of the erect seed. 



Torrubia, with about 15 species is confined to tropical America, one species extending 

 into southern Florida. The genus was named in honor of Joseph Torrubia, a Spanish natu- 

 ralist of the 18th century. 



1. Torrubia longifolia Britt. Blolly. 

 Pisonia longifolia Sarg. 



Leaves oblong-obovate, rounded or occasionally emarginate at apex, gradually narrowed 

 at base, l'-l^' long, ^' wide, thick and firm, with slightly thickened undulate margins, light 

 green and glabrous, paler on the lower than on the upper surface, with a stout midrib and 



Fig, 309 



obscure veins; petioles stout, channeled, \' in length. Flowers perfect or unisexual, au- 

 tumnal, greenish yellow, short-pedicellate, in terminal long-stalked few-flowered panicled 

 cymes, with slender divergent branches, the ultimate divisions 2 or 3-flowered; bracts and 

 bractlets minute, acute; calyx funnel-shaped, divided nearly to the middle into acute erect 

 lobes about half as long as the stamens and as long as the style. Fruit ripening in the win- 

 ter or early spring, prominently costate with ten rounded ribs, fleshy, smooth, bright red, 

 f long; utricle terete, light brown. 



A tree, occasionally 30-50 high, with an erect or inclining trunk, 15 '-20' in diameter, 

 stout spreading branches forming a compact round-topped head, and slender terete branch- 

 lets light orange color when they first appear, later often producing numerous short spur- 

 like lateral branchlets, light reddish brown or ashy gray, and marked by large elevated 

 semi-orbicular or lunate leaf-scars; usually much smaller; often shrubby. Bark about 

 xV' thick, light red-brown, and broken into thin appressed scales. Wood heavy, rather 

 soft, weak, coarse-grained, yellow tinged with brown, with thick darker colored sap wood. 



