Thevetia

Trees or shrubs; latex milky. Stems erect, unarmed, glabrous [sparsely eglandular-pubescent]. Leaves evergreen, alternate, petiolate [sessile]; stipular colleters 2 or 3 at base of petiole on each side, continuous with intrapetiolar colleters, interpetiolar colleters absent; laminar colleters absent. Inflorescences terminal, corymbiform, simple or compound, pedunculate. Flowers: calycine colleters present [absent]; corolla yellow or orange [sometimes tinted with purple], funnelform [salverform], aestivation sinistrorse; corolline corona fingerlike [3-gonous]; androecium and gynoecium not united into a gynostegium; stamens inserted near top of corolla tube; anthers connivent, agglutinated on stigma, apical connective deltoid, locules 4; pollen free, not massed into pollinia, translators absent; nectary disciform. Fruits drupaceous, solitary, pendulous, green to black [red], obpyriform to subglobose [reniform], rhombic to subterete, smooth, glabrous. Seeds reniform, flattened, not winged [winged], not beaked, not comose, not arillate. x = 10.

Distribution

Introduced; Florida, United States, Mexico, West Indies, Central America, South America, introduced also in Bermuda, Asia, Africa, Indian Ocean Islands, Pacific Islands, Australia.

Discussion

Species ca. 8 (1 in the flora).

Although some have proposed recognition of Thevetia in the narrow sense as distinct from Cascabela Rafinesque (L. O. Alvarado-Cárdenas and H. Ochoterena 2007; J. F. Morales 2009b, 2009c), the broader concept of A. O. Simões et al. (2007) of a Thevetia that encompasses both taxa is adopted here.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Thevetia peruviana