鸡蛋花属 ji dan hua shu

Plumeria rubra Image Credit: Olga Martha Montiel

Trees with copious latex. Branchlets 2-3 cm thick, nearly fleshy. Leaves alternate, long petiolate. Cymes terminal, 2- or 3branched, pedunculate; bracts usually large, deciduous before anthesis. Flowers fragrant, waxy. Calyx small, without glands. Corolla white, yellowish, pink-red, or rose-purple, funnelform; tube narrow, hairy inside, faucal scales absent; lobes overlapping to left. Stamens inserted at or near base of corolla tube; anthers free from pistil head, oblong, rounded at base; disc absent. Ovaries 2, distinct; ovules numerous, multiseriate on each placenta. Style short; pistil head with obtusely 2-cleft apex. Follicles 2. Seeds many, flat proximally, with a membranous wing; endosperm fleshy; cotyledons oblong, radicle short.

Seven species: tropical America, two cultivated in China.

Lower Taxa

• Plumeria obtusa Linnaeus
• Plumeria rubra Linnaeus