216 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



upward leaving the trunk marked regularly with scars. The leaf-stems are hol- 

 low, and in Guam are often used as trumpets hy the natives, some of whom are 

 skillful in sounding military bugle calls upon them. The root is turnip-shaped, the 

 lower part extending deep into the earth seeking moisture and giving stability to 

 the tree. The wood is soft, white, and, spongy, and decays rapidly. It is useless. 

 The trunk of a tree can be cut through by a single stroke of a machete. Before 

 ripening the fruits are green. On reaching maturity they become yellow and squash- 

 like. They may be eaten either with salt or sugar. To a novice they are inferior 

 in flavor to a musk melon. They vary in size and shape. Those growing in Guam 

 are small and inferior to the varieties cultivated in countries where they are used as 

 a food-staple. They contain a great number of dark-brown seeds, which turn black 

 in drying and have a mustard-like pungent flavor. The fruit developes so rapidly 

 that buds of flowers and ripe fruits are often seen on a tree at the same time. 



The papaw is a native of tropical America, but it has become established through- 

 out the entire tropical world. In Guam it appears spontaneously in waste places. 

 Little attention is given to it by the natives. Though they eat it if other kinds of 

 fruit be scarce, they do not appear to esteem it as an article of food. 

 References: 



Carica papaya L. Sp. PI. 2: 1036. 1753. 



Caricature plant. See Graptophyllum pictum. 



Carinta herbacea. Groundberry. 



Family Rubiaceae. 



Local names. — Bejuco guara (Cuba); Naunau, Matamata-Aitu (Samoa); Kapu- 

 kapu (Rarotonga); Karinta kali (Malay Archipelago). 



A small, slender, creeping, perennial herb, bearing red, fleshy berries, somewhat 

 like those of the partridge berry (Mitchella repens) . Leaves long-petioledj more or 

 less pubescent, orbicular, deeply cordate, stipules interpetiolar, ovate, obtuse; 

 flowers small, white, growing in 1 to 6-flowered peduncled umbels; bracts linear, 

 lanceolate; calyx tube obovoid, segments 5 to 7, slender, herbaceous, persistent; 

 corolla salver-shaped, glabrous, throat hairy, lobes 4 to 7, valvate in bud; stamens 

 4 to 7, inserted on the corolla tube, included; stigma 2-fid; ovary 2-celled, the cells 

 1-ovuled; ovules erect; berry a fleshy drupe, with 2 plano-convex pyrenes; seeds 

 plano-convex, not grooved ventrally. 



This plant is widely distributed in the Tropics. It is common in the woods of 

 Samoa, Fiji, and other islands of the Pacific, in the Andaman Islands, Malay Archi- 

 pelago, Ceylon, South China, and in tropical America. It is said to possess medicinal 

 properties similar to those of the allied Evea ipecacuanha of New Granada and 

 Brazil, but of inferior quality. 6 



References: 



Carinta herbacea (Jacq.). 



Psychotria herbacea Jacq. Enum. PI. Carib. 16. 1760. 

 Geophila reniformis Don, Prod. Fl. Nep. 136. 1825. 

 Geophila was first proposed in 1803 for a genus of Liliaceae and is therefore not 

 available for the rubiaceous genus so named by Don. Carinta is an adaptation of 

 the Malayan name of this plant, Karinta kali. 



Carmona heterophylla Cav. Same as Ehretia microphylla. 

 Car rizo (Spanish). See Trichoon roxburghii. 



( i Evea ipecacuanha (Brot. ) Callicocca ipecacuanha Brot. Trans. Linn. Soc. 6: 137. 

 t. 11. 1802. Uragoga ipecacuanha (Brot.) Baill. Hist. PI. 7: 281.. 1880. 



6 Watt, Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, vol. 3, p. 488, 1890. 



