Common Trees of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

DOGBANE FAMILY (APOCYNACEAE)
219. Palo amargo, bitter-ash Rauvoliia nitida Jacq.
This small tree or shrub with white latex is distinguished
by its shiny yellow-pn lance-shaped
or narrowly elliptic leaves 2%-6 inches Ion and
a/4-ls/4 inches wide, long-pointed at apex an I f base,
slightly turned under at edges, attached to the
oups of 4 of unequal size (whorled).
%fs,"afwhitish flowers are about lh inch across
and the reddish to blackish rounded fruits about
% inch long and inch brond.
Commonly a shrub or small tree to 20-40 feet
high and to 1% feet in trunk diameter, evergreen
with open rounded crown. The bark is smoothish,
slightly fissured and warty, very light brown, and
thin. Inner bark is light green and bitter. The
twigs are bright green with rnised brown dots
(lenticels), enlarged at the nodes, and becoming
brownish.
The slightly thickened leathery leaves have
petioles I/a-s/4 inch long and blades green or yel-
low green on upper surface and lighter yellow
green beneath.
The small flower clusters (cymes) are terminal
or lateral, branched, 1-11h inches long and brond,
shorter than the leaves, with several to many flow-
ers. The white and greenish flowers are tubular,
about % inch long, with 5 spreading lobes 4/4 inch
across; the green 5-lobed calyx is less than 4/8 inch
long; corolla has a narrow greenish tube j/4 inch
long and 5 rounded white lobes; 5 minute stamens
are inserted near mouth of corolla tube; and the
pistil is composed of n 2-lobed ovary with slender
style and enlarged stigma.
The fleshy fruits, with milky juice, turn from
green to reddish and blackish and contain 1 or 2
brownish seeds s/16 inch long. Flowering and
fruiting nearly throughout tho year.
The sapwood is light brown, and the heartwood
clenr yellow. The hard, lightweight wood is emoyed
for posts in Puerto Rico.
PI or furniture and musical instruments E1sewhe%ase has een
suggested.
In the coastal and limestone forests and thickets
of Puerto Rico, growing in the o en and robably
requiring light. Also in Mona, 6eques, &. Croir,
St. Thomas, St. John, and Tortola
P~LIC FORE~TS.-Cnmbalache, au6nica.
RANGE.-Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola,
Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, St. Kitts, Guadeloupe,
and Martinique. Also recorded long ago
from St. Barth6lemy.
OTHER CONMON NAMES.- a10 de muiieco, ca-
i
chimbo (Puerto Rico) ; bitter ush, milkbush (Virfin
,Islands) ; palo de leche (Dominican Repubic)
, huevo de gallo (Cuba) ; smooth rauvolfia
(Bahamas) ; bois lnit femelle (Haiti).
The name of a low shrub (Ra.uvuljia tetraphylla
L. has been misapplied to this s ecies.
?l!he genus Rauvol* (also spe f' led Rawwol*)
has attracted much attention in recent years becnuse
the root of a shrubby species in India has
yielded a drug for the treatment of high blood
pressure and certain mental illnesses. Related species
are also under investigation.
Another native species is a shrub 3-10 feet high
known as bitterbush (Rauvol$a viridis Roem. &
Schult. ; synonym R. Zumarclcii A. DC.). It has
slightly unequal leaves in groups of 4 (whorled),
ovate to elliptic, most1 11h-4 inches long, thin,
dull green instead of diny, and smaller blackish
fruits about 4/4 inch broad. It grows in coastal
thickets of eastern Puerto Rico Mona, Icacos,
Culebrn, Vieques, St. Croix, St. ~Aomas, St. John,
nnd Virgin Gorda and other islands to Hispaniola
and northern South America.