Common Trees of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

SOAPBERRY F M
141. Jaboncillo, wingleaf soapberry
Small to medium-sized tree sometimes planted
for shade, characterized b : (1) pinnate leaves
8-16 inches long, with usua ?' ly 6-12 paired elliptic
to lance-shaped dull green leaflets, the green axis
often with a wing j/4-h inch wide; (2) very numerous
small 5-parted whitish flowers s/16 inch
across in lar e branched lateral clusters 6-18 inches
long; and 6) shiny brown ball-like berries %-I
inch in diameter, borne singly or sometimes 2 or 3
together, containing yellow, sticky, bitter, poisonous
flesh and 1 round black poisonous seed.
An everpen tree 20-60 feet high and 1 foot in
trunk diameter, sometimes lar er with broad
crown. The light gray or brown fnrk is smoothish
becoming fine1 fissured and scaly.
Inner and wartE bar is light orange g rown, slight1 bitter
and astringent. The stout twigs are lig K t gray
with raised reddish-brown dots (lenticels), finely
hairy when young.
The alternate leaves have paired leaflets with or
without a single terminal one. Leaflets are stalkless
or near1 so, 21/24 inches lon and 1-2% inches
wide, most ?? y short-pointed at sth ends, often
oblique and unequal-sided with side toward leaf
apex much broader, thin, not toothed on edges,
beneath slightly paler and sometimes soft hairg:
The male flowers produced in great quantities
seem to fall from the tree almost like rain and litter
the ground beneath. Flowers are mostly male but
some are female or bisexual (polygamous). In
male flowers there are 5 spreadin
l/lB inch long, unequal, the outer 2 eing smaller,
whitish and tinged with peen; 5 whlte hairy
petals rounded and smaller than sepals; 8 light
yellow stamens more than x6 inch long on a light
green disk; and a mlnute brown nonfunctional
pistil. Female flowers have besides the sppala and
petals shorter stamens and a greenish plstil more
than '/la inch long with 3-celled ovary and slender
style.
One or sometimes 2 or 3 fruits develo from a
pistil, the abortive ones remaining as dis E like appendages
at base. Inside the tmnshicent yellow
flesh is the poisonous seed S/s-1/2 inch in diameter.
Branches of the flower cluster (panicle) become
hard and woody when the fruits mature.
Sapwood is whitish, and heartwood yellow or
Sapindus saponaria L.
lipht brown. The wood is hard and hea 3' (.E-
cific gravity O.$), coarse-textured, and not ura e
when exposed. Used locally for posts and else-
where employed in carpentry.
The common names refer to the use of the fleshy
fruit as a substitute for soap. When cut up, the
fleshy part, which contains about 30 percent sap-
onin, produces suds abundantly in watq.
Crushed seeds serve as a fish poison when
thrown into a stream. An insecticide has been
made from p und seeds, and medicinal oil ex-
tracted also. Ot.her uses of the seeds are as beads
in necklaces, as marbles, and formerly as buttons.
Infusions of bhe roots and leavea have been pre-
pared for home remedies. A shade tree and honey
plant.
In the dry coastal region of Puerto Rico, infre-
uently plantad for shade. Also in Vieques, St.
Zroix, St. Thomas, and St. John.
PUBLIO ~o~m~.-Aguirre.
R~~o~.--Comrnon and widely distributed in
tropical America and s read farther thro h cultivation.
Southern F t' orida including Xorida
Keys (grown also in California and Bermuda)
and throughout West Indies from Bahamas and
Cuba to Trinidad. Also from Mexico to Ecuador,
Galapagos Islands, Peru, Ar tina, Paraguay,
and Brazil. Introduced into b
Id World tropics.
OTElER COAfAfON ~~XES.--go&pberry (virgin
Islands) ; jaboncillo (Spanish) ; palo amargo,
chorote, mata de chivo (Dominican Republic) ;
giiiril, huiril, jaboncillal (Guatemala) ; pac6n
(Honduras) ; pacfin (El Salvador) ; pac6n, cuyus
(Nicaragua) ; lirnoncillo (Panama) ; chumbmo,
chumbimbo, chocho (Colombia) ; paraparo, pepo
(Venezuela) ; jurupe (Ecuador) ; mlluc~ (Peru) ;
jisoto&o (Bolivia) ; yequiti, casita, palo-'aMn
(Arpntina) ; wingleaf soa be^, soap b, rry
(United States) ; soapberry ( E nghsh) ; soapseed
Trinidad) ; soap-tree, soapseed-tree, jabon-ch6
(British Honduras) ; savonette pays, graine canique,
bois savonette (Haiti) ; savonier, savonettier,
savonette montape, bols maweux, savonette
mousseuse (Guadeloupe) ; savonetapel (Curagao) ;
sop0 sirie (Surinam) ; saboeiro, saboneteiro
(Brazil).