12. Vallesia Ruiz & Pavon, Fl. Peruv. Prodr. 28, plate 5[top]. 1794.
Pearl berry [For Francisco Vallés, 1524–1592, Spanish botanist, physician to Phillip II]
Eliane Meyer Norman
Shrubs, more rarely trees, to 12 m; latex sometimes present, milky [clear]. Stems erect, unarmed, glabrous or eglandular-pubescent. Leaves persistent, alternate, petiolate; stipular colleters interpetiolar; laminar colleters absent. Inflorescences extra-axillary, occasionally terminal, cymose, pedunculate. Flowers: calycine colleters absent; corolla white [yellowish orange], salverform, rarely urceolate-salverform, aestivation sinistrorse; corolline corona absent; androecium and gynoecium not united into a gynostegium; stamens inserted at or near orifice of corolla tube; anthers not connivent, adherent to stigma, connectives apiculate, locules 4; pollen free, not massed into pollinia, translators absent; nectary adherent to base of ovary. Fruits drupaceous, solitary (paired), erect, white, oblong-ovoid to reniform, terete to somewhat compressed, smooth, glabrous. Seeds oblong-ovoid, somewhat flattened, not winged, not beaked, not comose, not arillate. x = 10.
Species ca. 10 (1 in the flora): Florida, Mexico, West Indies, Central America, South America.
