Yellowwood [Greek okhros, pale yellow, probably alluding to color of stem, leaf, and fruit of some species]

David E. Lemke

Shrubs or small trees; latex milky. Stems erect, unarmed, glabrous. Leaves persistent, opposite [whorled], petiolate; stipular colleters intrapetiolar; laminar colleters absent. Inflorescences subterminal or axillary, cymose, pedunculate. Flowers: calycine colleters absent; corolla white or cream [pale yellow], salverform, aestivation dextrorse; corolline corona absent; androecium and gynoecium not united into a gynostegium; stamens inserted at top of corolla tube; anthers not connivent, not adherent to stigma, connectives not appendiculate or enlarged, locules 4; pollen free, not massed into pollinia, translators absent; nectary annular. Fruits drupaceous, paired or solitary, erect, red [yellow, orange], ellipsoid to ovoid, compressed, smooth, glabrous. Seeds elliptic or orbiculate, flattened, narrowly winged, not beaked, not comose, not arillate. x = 10.

Species ca. 40 (1 in the flora): introduced, Florida; Asia, Indian Ocean Islands (Réunion), Pacific Islands, Australia.

According to P. Boiteau (1981), the hard, fibrous endocarp of Ochrosia fruits facilitates flo­tation and dispersal by water.

Lower Taxon

• Ochrosia elliptica Labillardière