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(Last Modified On 5/21/2013)
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(Last Modified On 5/21/2013)
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Genus
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Crescentia L.
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PlaceOfPublication
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Sp. PI. 2: 626. 1753
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Note
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TYPE: C. cujete L.
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Synonym
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Pteromischus Pich6n, Bull. Soc. Bot. France 92: 227. 1946. TYPE: P. alatus (H.B.K.) Pichon = Crescentia alata H.B.K.
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Description
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Small to medium-sized trees, branching rachitic, crown open. Leaves simple or 3-foliolate, borne on thick twigs in alternate fascicles resulting from the condensation of short-shoots. Inflorescence of 1-2 cauliflorous flowers arising from nodes on the trunk and older branches. Flowers with the calyx large, usually bilabiately split; corolla off-white, usually with maroon penciling, espe- cially on lobes and on the tube inside, the lobes deltoid, acuminate; stamens subexserted, the anthers glabrous, the thecae thick, somewhat divergent; pollen grains single, 3-colpate, the exine microreticulate; ovary ovoid-elliptic, lepidote, 1-locular, the ovules multi-seriate on 4 parietal placentae. Fruit a pepo or cala- bash, large, more or less spherical, indehiscent with a hard woody shell, pulpy inside; seeds small, less than 8 mm long and 9 mm wide, flat, not winged, embedded in the pulp.
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Habit
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trees
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Distribution
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Five species in tropical America ranging from Mexico and the West Indies to Amazonian Brazil, also cultivated through most of the tropics. Probably not native to Panama.
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Key
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a. Leaves all simple, more than 3.4 cm long; fruit more than 13 cm in diameter, widely cultivated ...... 2. C. cujete aa. Leaves 3-foliolate and simple in each fascicle, the simple leaves less than 3.2 cm long; fruit less than 10 cm in diameter, rarely cultivated ...... 1. C. alata
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