Juan Tomas

Rondeletia portoricensis Krug & Urban; Urban, Symb. Ant. 1:
414. 1899.
Shrub or tree, up to 20 meters high, the branches very stout, terete or subcompressed, grayish-brown, rimose, minutely fulvous-strigillose or tomentulose when young, the internodes very short; stipules tubular, 5-7 mm. long, erect, rigid, the lobes deltoid, obtuse or cuspidate, appressed-pilose or glabrate outside, white-sericeous within; leaves opposite, the petioles very stout, 1-2.5 cm. long, appressed-pilose or glabrate, the blades oval, oval-elliptic, or ellipticoblong, 9-20 cm. long, 4-8 cm. wide, acute at the base, rounded or obtuse at the apex and usually very shortly obtuse-acuminate, coriaceous, dark-green above, lustrous or sublustrous, glabrous, beneath paler, brownish, strigillose along the veins, elsewhere sparsely puberulent or glabrous, the venation impressed above, the costa prominent beneath, stout, the lateral veins prominulous, 8-10 on each side, arcuate, ascending at an angle of about 60°, the margins plane or nearly so; inflorescence axillary, paniculate, 3-7 cm. long, fewor many-flowered, the peduncles longer or shorter than the petioles, the pedicels stout, 6 mm. long or shorter; bracts and bractlets mostly minute, triangular, strigillose; hypanthium densely whitish-strigillose: calyxlobes 5, deltoid, minute, much shorter than the hypanthium; corolla white, densely retrorsepilose outside with short white appressed hairs, the tube stout-cylindric below, ampliate above ; 7-8 mm. long, the 5 lobes rounded, one third as long as the tube or shorter, puberulent within, anthers included, 1.5-2 mm. long, the filaments very short; capsule subglobose, bisulcate, 4-5.5 mm. long, 5-7 mm. broad, tomentulose; seeds 1-2.5 mm. long, flat, brown, broadly winged, the wing irregularly laciniate.
Type locality: Mount Jimenes, Sierra de Luquillo, Porto Rico. Distribution: Mountains of Porto Rico.