11. Thevetia Linnaeus, Opera Var. 212. 1758. name conserved.
[I]
[For André Thevet, sixteenth-century French priest and explorer]
Patricia Sabadin
Alexander Krings
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.
Species ca. 8 (1 in the flora): introduced, Florida; United States, Mexico, West Indies, Central America, South America; introduced also in Bermuda, Asia, Africa, Indian Ocean Islands, Pacific Islands, Australia.
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 Alvarado-Cárdenas, L. O. and H. Ochoterena. 2007. A phylogenetic analysis of the Cascabela-Thevetia species complex (Plumerieae, Apocynaceae) based on morphology. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 94: 298–323. Williams, J. K. and J. K. Stutzman. 2008. Chromosome number of Thevetia ahouai (Apocynaceae: Rauvolfoidae: Plumerieae) with discussion on the generic boundaries of Thevetia. J. Bot. Res. Inst. Texas 2: 489–493.
