CaymANNature: June 2014

Flowers without petals
Family: EUPHORBIACEAE (subfamily Phyllanthoideae) / PHYLLANTHACEAE

Astrocasia tremula (Griseb.) G.L. Webster

Endangered

Dioecious arborescent glabrous shrub or small tree.

Leaves Alternate, membranous, on long slender petioles, pinnate-veined, whitish-glaucous on the underside, often deciduous before flowering.

Flowers clustered in the leaf-axils

Pistillate flowers and fruits very long-stalked, ovary 3-celled

Staminate flowers on short pedicels

Fruit an explosively dehiscent, 3-grooved capsule

Distribution: Grand Cayman and Jamaica, in rocky woodlands, Central America, northern South America

The Plant List

Tropicos

Naturalist Newsletter

A Revision of Astrocasia 1992

Astrocasia tremula

Chascotheca neopeltandra (Griseb.) Urb. synonym C. domingensis

Vulnerable

Dioecious shrub, branchlets with horizontal frond-like habit

Chascotheca on Jasmin Lane, Spotts, Grand Cayman, Sept. 3, 2006
by Sling-shot, Wild Jasmine - Tabernaemontana laurifolia

Leaves 3 veined from the base, petioles 2-6mm long, blades 1-4cm long, pale or glaucous beneath

Ironwood Forest, Grand Cayman
Cayman HERBARIUM images

Distribution: Grand Cayman, Cuba and Hispaniola in rocky limestone thickets

Roger's Wreck Trail, East End, Grand Cayman, Sept. 7, 2003

Chascotheca neopeltandra - pistillate - fruiting, Ironwood Forest, George Town,
exceedingly rocky woodland.
Old George - Hohenbergia caymanensis Britton ex.L. B. Smith,
Grand Cayman endemic giant Bromeliad, centre background,
6 months after Category 5 Hurricane Ivan hit Grand Cayman

P. Ann van B. Stafford, March 25, 2005.

Click here for maps and pictures from 2002
Ironwood Forest, Grand Cayman

The Plant List, Kew, Chascotheca neopeltandra

Chascotheca on Jasmin Lane at Spotts, Grand Cayman, June 22, 2014

by Jasmine - Plumeria obtusa

Phyllanthus nutans ssp. nutans Sw. Chinese Lantern

Phyllanthus nutans - IUCN Red List
Vulnerable

Monoecious shrub

Old Robin Road, Grand Cayman, June 17, 2002
CaymANNature FLORA_2 images

Roger's Wreck Trail, East End, Grand Cayman

Adrian's Cave, George Town, Grand Cayman

Adrian's Cave, George Town, Grand Cayman
Ironwood Forest - maps and photos

Leaf blades up to 8 cm long, always pinnate-veined

Colliers Wilderness Road, East End, Grand Cayman, Nov. 6, 2011

Leaves short-petiolate, blades usually elliptic or ovate, mostly 2–8 cm long, obtuse or rarely acute at the apex, often somewhat glaucous or purple-tinged beneath

Colliers Wilderness Road, East End, Grand Cayman, Nov. 6, 2011

Old Robin Road, Grand Cayman, June 17, 2002

Distribution: Grand Cayman, Jamaica and the Swan Islands, in various habitats, the Cayman plants in dry, rocky woodlands

Phyllanthus nutans ssp grisebachianus (Müll.Arg.) G.L.Webster

Data deficient

Little Cayman, Eastern Cuba p.442

Phyllanthus nutans ssp. grisebachianus (Müll.Arg.) G.L.Webster Cuba, 1957

Phyllanthus caymanensis Webster & Proctor

Phyllanthus caymanensis - IUCN Red List

Endangered
This species is a low shrub growing up to 2.5 metres tall but often much less. It is a facultatively drought-deciduous species, shedding leaves and branchlets in the dry season to a varying degree, depending on rainfall patterns each year. It is highly restricted to shrubland habitats on soil or pavement limestone rock which itself is a restricted habitat within the Cayman Islands, having been very heavily impacted by agriculture.

Cayman Islands endemic – Little Cayman, Cayman Brac and more recently it has been found in two areas of dry shrubland in the east interior of Grand Cayman

Monoecious shrub up to 2.5 m tall

Leaf blades not over 2.5 cm long, always pinnate-veined

Leaves membranous, short-petiolate, the blades ovate or rhombic-ovate, mostly 1.5–2.5 cm long, obtusely to acutely pointed at the apex, somewhat pale or subglaucous beneath;

Stipules 1.2–1.5 mm long.

Flowers in axillary cymules, each cluster with one central female flower and several lateral male flowers

Female flowers with filiform pedicels becoming 8–12 mm long in fruit

Capsules oblate, prominently veiny, greenish; seeds angled

Phyllanthus caymanensis, Encyclopedia of Life

Phyllanthus caymanensis, Cayman Herbarium, Little Cayman, Margaret Barwick