Coccoloba caracasana

Last updated

Coccoloba caracasana
Papaturro.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Polygonaceae
Genus: Coccoloba
Species:
C. caracasana
Binomial name
Coccoloba caracasana

Coccoloba caracasana (from Greek kokkolobis, the ancient name given to a vine by the appearance of its fruit) is a tree in the family Polygonaceae. [1] [2] It is known by the common name papaturro.

Contents

General description

Vegetative

This is a small to medium tree, often with multiple trunks, puberulent to glabrescent stems. The leaves are broadly oblong or suborbicular, rounded to truncate to subcordate at the base.

Reproductive

The flowers are small, greenish and fragrant, arranged in racemose inflorescences clustered in terminal and lateral spikes. The fruit is an achene with a semi-pulpous edible flesh.

Economic and ecological aspects

The distribution of this tree ranges from Guatemala to Panama and northern South America, where it is most common in the Pacific regions. It prefers sandy, loose and wet soil; it may be found along rivers. Economically, the species is useful for its edible fruit. The wood is used as firewood and for poles. The foliage is ornamental and hung for shade.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polygonaceae</span> Knotweed family of flowering plants

The Polygonaceae are a family of flowering plants known informally as the knotweed family or smartweed—buckwheat family in the United States. The name is based on the genus Polygonum, and was first used by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789 in his book, Genera Plantarum. The name may refer to the many swollen nodes the stems of some species have, being derived from Greek [poly meaning 'many' and gony meaning 'knee' or 'joint']. Alternatively, it may have a different origin, meaning 'many seeds'.

<i>Asimina</i> North American Genus of fruit trees

Asimina is a genus of small trees or shrubs described as a genus in 1763. Asimina is the only temperate genus in the tropical and subtropical flowering plant family Annonaceae. Asimina have large, simple leaves and large fruit. It is native to eastern North America and collectively referred to as pawpaw. The genus includes the widespread common pawpaw Asimina triloba, which bears the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States. Pawpaws are native to 26 states of the U.S. and to Ontario in Canada. The common pawpaw is a patch-forming (clonal) understory tree found in well-drained, deep, fertile bottomland and hilly upland habitat. Pawpaws are in the same plant family (Annonaceae) as the custard apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, soursop, and ylang-ylang; the genus is the only member of that family not confined to the tropics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apricot</span> Cultivated fruit

An apricot is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus Prunus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persimmon</span> Edible fruit

The persimmon is the edible fruit of a number of species of trees in the genus Diospyros. The most widely cultivated of these is the kaki persimmon, Diospyros kaki – Diospyros is in the family Ebenaceae, and a number of non-persimmon species of the genus are grown for ebony timber. In 2019, China produced 75% of the world total of persimmons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jujube</span> Species of plant with edible fruit

Jujube, sometimes jujuba, known by the scientific name Ziziphus jujuba and also called red date, Chinese date, and Chinese jujube, is a species in the genus Ziziphus in the buckthorn family Rhamnaceae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackfruit</span> Tree in the Moracae family

The jackfruit is the fruit of jack treeArtocarpus heterophyllus, a species of tree in the fig, mulberry, and breadfruit family (Moraceae). The jackfruit is the largest tree fruit, reaching as much as 55 kg in weight, 90 cm in length, and 50 cm in diameter. A mature jackfruit tree produces some 200 fruits per year, with older trees bearing up to 500 fruits in a year. The jackfruit is a multiple fruit composed of hundreds to thousands of individual flowers, and the fleshy petals of the unripe fruit are eaten.

<i>Sclerocarya birrea</i> Species of tree

Sclerocarya birrea, commonly known as the marula, is a medium-sized deciduous fruit-bearing tree, indigenous to the miombo woodlands of Southern Africa, the Sudano-Sahelian range of West Africa, the savanna woodlands of East Africa and Madagascar.

<i>Coccoloba</i> Genus of flowering plants

Coccoloba is a genus of about 120–150 species of flowering plants in the family Polygonaceae, which is native to the Neotropics. There is no overall English name for the genus, although many of the individual species have widely used common names.

<i>Coccoloba uvifera</i> Species of tree

Coccoloba uvifera is a species of tree and flowering plant in the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae, that is native to coastal beaches throughout tropical America and the Caribbean, including central & southern Florida, the Bahamas, the Greater and Lesser Antilles, and Bermuda. Common names include seagrape and baygrape.

<i>Monstera deliciosa</i> Species of plant

Monstera deliciosa, the Swiss cheese plant or split-leaf philodendron is a species of flowering plant native to tropical forests of southern Mexico, south to Panama. It has been introduced to many tropical areas, and has become a mildly invasive species in Hawaii, Seychelles, Ascension Island and the Society Islands. It is very widely grown in temperate zones as a houseplant.

<i>Terminalia catappa</i> Species of plant

Terminalia catappa is a large tropical tree in the leadwood tree family, Combretaceae, native to Asia, Australia, the Pacific, Madagascar and Seychelles. Common names in English include country almond, Indian almond, Malabar almond, sea almond, tropical almond, beach almond and false kamani.

<i>Celtis australis</i> Species of tree

Celtis australis, the European nettle tree, Mediterranean hackberry, lote tree, or honeyberry, is a deciduous tree native to Southern Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor. The tree was introduced to England in 1796.

<i>Coccoloba diversifolia</i> Species of tree

Coccoloba diversifolia, known as pigeonplum or tietongue, is a species of the genus Coccoloba native to coastal areas of the Caribbean, Central America, southern Mexico, southern Florida and the Bahamas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berry (botany)</span> Botanical fruit with fleshy pericarp, containing one or many seeds

In botany, a berry is a fleshy fruit without a stone (pit) produced from a single flower containing one ovary. Berries so defined include grapes, currants, and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers, eggplants (aubergines), persimmons and bananas, but exclude certain fruits that meet the culinary definition of berries, such as strawberries and raspberries. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire outer layer of the ovary wall ripens into a potentially edible "pericarp". Berries may be formed from one or more carpels from the same flower. The seeds are usually embedded in the fleshy interior of the ovary, but there are some non-fleshy exceptions, such as Capsicum species, with air rather than pulp around their seeds.

<i>Triplaris</i> Genus of flowering plants

Triplaris is a genus of plants in the family Polygonaceae. Ant tree is a common name for plants in this genus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fig</span> Species of flowering plant known as the common fig

The fig is the edible fruit of Ficus carica, a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae, native to the Mediterranean region, together with western and southern Asia. It has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world. Ficus carica is the type species of the genus Ficus, containing over 800 tropical and subtropical plant species.

<i>Rubus ulmifolius</i> Berry and plant

Rubus ulmifolius is a species of wild blackberry known by the English common name elmleaf blackberry or thornless blackberry and the Spanish common name zarzamora. It is native to Europe and North Africa, and has also become naturalized in parts of the United States, Australia, and southern South America.

<i>Auricularia auricula-judae</i> Species of fungus

Auricularia auricula-judae, commonly known as jelly ear and previously known as Jew's ear, is a species of fungus in the order Auriculariales. Basidiocarps are brown, gelatinous, and have a noticeably ear-like shape. They grow on wood, especially elder. The specific epithet is derived from the belief that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from an elder tree.

Coccoloba cereifera is a rare species of flowering plant in the knotweed or buckwheat family Polygonaceae. The species is restricted to a single mountain, the Serra do Cipó, in southern Brazil. The species is notable for its expression of a trioecious sexual system.

<i>Coccoloba gigantifolia</i> Species of flowering plant

Coccoloba gigantifolia is a species of flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae. It is endemic to the Madeira River Basin in the states of Amazonas and Rondonia in the central and southwestern Brazilian Amazon. This species resembles that of Coccoloba mollis but differs in that it has much larger leaves in its fertile branches.

References

  1. Bawa, K. S.; Opler, P. A. (1975). "Dioecism in Tropical Forest Trees". Evolution. 29 (1): 167–179. doi:10.2307/2407150. ISSN   0014-3820. JSTOR   2407150. PMID   28563295.
  2. Koenemann, Daniel Mark; Burke, Janelle M. (2020-08-11). "A Molecular Phylogeny for the Genus Coccoloba (Polygonaceae) with an Assessment of Biogeographic Patterns". Systematic Botany. 45 (3): 567–575. doi:10.1600/036364420X15935294613536. S2CID   221158486.