Astrocasia, Chascotheca and Chinese Lantern

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

Astrocasia tremula (Griseb.) G.L. Webster 

Endangered 

Dioecious arborescent glabrous shrub or small tree. 

CaymANNature FLORA images

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 

 

Phyllanthus caymanensis

 shrub 2.5m tall, Cayman Brac,

Collector: George R. Proctor  Aug.7, 1975

Institute of Jamaica

TROPICOS image No. 04662091

Cayman Brac Nature Notes  Scroll down to photo of Phyllanthus caymanensis

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Grand Cayman Nature Tours
Half day or full day

 

Sling-shot – Tabernaemontana laurifolia

Tabernaemontana laurifolia L.

Sling-shot, Wild Jasmine

Family: APOCYNACEAE

Grand Cayman and Jamaica, in dry, rocky woodlands on limestone

Brunt 1967, Correll & Correll, Howard & Wagenknecht, Proctor

FLORA of the CAYMAN ISLANDS by George R. Proctor p.519, Plate 49

Cayman Islands Red List status: Near Threatened 

Grand Cayman, May 26, 2014

A small tree with white latex

 Grand Cayman, May 23, 2014

BRANCHING: opposite

Grand Cayman, May 26, 2014 

LEAVES: OPPOSITE, waxy, shiny
 CaymANNature Herbarium

Grand Cayman, Dec. 7, 2005 

FLOWERS: greenish-yellow, pinwheel-like, scented

FRUIT: 2 broad, fleshy follicles, with orange arils, in which the seeds are embedded

CaymANNature Flora

Grand Cayman, Dec. 7, 2005 

It grows in dry, rocky woodlands on limestone.
Grand Cayman, March 5, 2009.  

It is a suitable small tree for landscaping, easy maintenance.

Tabernaemontana laurifolia L. The Sloane Herbarium 

Collected by Sir Hans Sloane in Jamaica

Natural History Museum, London

 

Tabernaemontana laurifolia L. TROPICOS

Collected by Sir Hans Sloane in Jamaica

Sir Hans Sloane's Voyage to Jamaica, 1687-1689, by Tony Rice

Voyages of discovery were an important part of the search for a new order in the natural world. Tony Rice charts Sir Hans Sloane's seventeenth-century expedition to Jamaica, a voyage that produced one of the world's most significant natural history collections. Sloane amassed a hoard of thousands of natural history books, objects and artworks in his quest for a rationalist approach to the study of nature.

Heliotropium humifusum

Euploca humifusa
syn. Heliotropium humifusum Kunth  

Matlike Heliotrope
Family: BORAGINACEAE 
Cayman Islands, Cuba and Hispaniola

It was found by Wilfred Kings on the 1938 Oxford University Expedition to the Cayman Islands, on Grand Cayman and Little Cayman, and by George R. Proctor on Cayman Brac (1992).

FLORA of the CAYMAN ISLANDS by George R. Proctor p.563, Plate 53

Heliotropium humifusum Kunth in H.B.K., Nov. Gen. & Sp. 3:85, t. 205. 1818.

Cayman Islands Red List status: Data deficient, suspected to be at risk   

 Matlike Heliotrope at Watler Cemetery, May 11, 2014

A dense, matlike, suffrutescent shrub, diffusely branched, clothed throughout with stiff white strigose hairs mostly with pustulate bases.

LEAVES: densely overlapping, rigid, lance-oblong, acute at the apex and 1-nerved, attached to the stem by a broad base.

FLOWERS: Calyx strigose, 2–3 mm long; corolla white with yellow eye, the tube scarcely exceeding the calyx, the expanded limb 2–3 mm across or more. Stigma capitate on a short style.

FRUIT: subglobose, enclosed by the calyx, the nutlets hispidulous.

Proctor’s FLORA Glossary p.694:
Strigose – bearing appressed, sharp, straight, stiff hairs.

Suffrutescent – a stem which is woody and perennial at the base, but has a upper herbaceous portion that dies back at the end of a growing season. The term is also used to mean ‘slightly shrubby’.

GRAND CAYMAN: Crosby, Hespenheide & Anderson 37 (GH, MICH): Kings GC 59, GC 123; Proctor 15159, 52241; Sauer 4214 (WIS).
LITTLE CAYMAN: Kings LC 48, LC 78; Proctor 28129, 35137.
CAYMAN BRAC: Proctor 35154

Cuba and Hispaniola, usually in gravel-filled pockets of dry, exposed limestone, or in sandy clearings. Cuban plants of this affinity growing on serpentine appear to represent a different species, though usually identified as being the same.

 
Crosby, Hespenheide and Anderson, June 2, 1963 
June 2, 1963 #37.   East of George Town in sand behind beach. Locally common. Flowers white with yellow centers; growing completely recumbent in sand.
M. R. Crosby, H. A. Hespenheide, W. R. Anderson, det C.D. Adams 1963. 
Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium at Florida State University.
 

Cayman Herbarium, Heliotropium humifusum, Watler Cemetery, Jenny Lane June 30, 1992

Cayman Herbarium, Heliotropium humifusum, Juniper Bay, Cayman Brac, Proctor, July 26, 1992

  June 24, 2012 Watler Cemetery, Prospect Point, Grand Cayman
Cayman Herbarium 

Matlike Heliotropes at the Watler Cemetery, Prospect Point, Grand Cayman,June 24, 2012  
CaymANNature Flora IMAGES 

May 9, 2014 Brenda Quin's plant, Parsons Circle, George Town, Grand Cayman

 May 11, 2014 Watler Cemetery, Prospect Point, Grand Cayman

 About ten years ago, Brenda Quin saw lots Heliotropium humifusum plants growing in a dry area in the vicinity of the Blow Holes, on the landward side of the main road (south coast). She described it as a ground cover with minute, white, star-shaped flowers. She tried growing one in a pot, but it didn’t take. A palm tree grew in the same pot. 

A year ago she transplanted the root-bound palm tree into a larger pot. In early May, 2014, the little ground cover emerged from a seed or root that had been dormant in the soil for about ten years.

May 9, 2014 Brenda Quin's Matlike Heliotrope - Heliotropium humifusum 
that had been dormant for about 10 years

 

Brenda Quin, 86 years old, with her little Matlike Heliotrope that had been dormant for about 10 years,
in pot with palm tree. George Town, Grand Cayman, May 9, 2014

A few tiny plants flowering by the house-shaped grave-markers at the Watler Cemetery, May 11, 2014.

CaymanCultural images

Matlike Heliotrope - Heliotropium humifusum habitat -
Pedro St. James bluff, Grand Cayman,
many little plants in flower, growing on the harsh, ironshore environment, May 28, 2015.

Matlike Heliotrope - Heliotropium humifusum,
Pedro St. James bluff, Grand Cayman, May 31, 2015.

Matlike Heliotrope - Heliotropium humifusum,
plant dries to grey so is well-camouflaged against the ironshore. 
Pedro St. James bluff, Grand Cayman, May 31, 2015.

Ironshore plants - young Silver Thatch (Coccothrinax proctorii), 
Juniper (Rhachicallis america), Seaside Twintip (Stemodia maritima) and
Matlike Heliotrope in the centre. 
The rust-coloured rock is consolidated Terra Rosa that had been swept into cavities in the rock formation.

Islands from the Sea, Geologic Stories of Cayman
by Murray A. Roed, 2006

Lots of little compact Matlike Heliotrope (Heliotropium humifusum)
plants that dry to grey, well-camouflaged against the flattened ironshore. 
Pedro St. James bluff, Grand Cayman, May 31, 2015.

Looking across Old Jones Bay to Pedro St. James bluff,
harsh environment of Heliotropium humifusum, May 31, 2015.

 1938 Oxford University Biological Expedition to the Cayman Islands 
 

Euploca ternata  (Vahl) J.I.M. Melo & Semir

Euploca ternata (Accepted name)   

= Heliotropium ternatum Vahl, Symb. Bot. 3:21. 1794.    (synonym)

Bushy Heliotrope 

FLORA of the CAYMAN ISLANDS by George R. Proctor p.563, Fig.209 
Cayman Islands Red List status: Data deficient   

Bushy Heliotrope - Heliotropium ternatum, High Rock, Grand Cayman 
Ann Stafford, Feb. 3, 2008

A mostly erect, bushy shrub up to 1.5 m tall, densely white-pubescent throughout.

LEAVES rigid, alternate, opposite or in whorls of 3, sharply acute at the apex, the hairs on the upper side with pustulate bases, the margin usually revolute.

FLOWERS few in short terminal spikes; calyx 3–4 mm long, white-strigose; corolla white with yellow eye, the tube 4 mm long, the expanded limb mostly 3–4 mm across.

NUTLETS subglobose, black.

GRAND CAYMAN: Brunt 2007. 2199; Proctor 15195.

West Indies and continental tropical America, in dry sandy or rocky thickets.

Bushy Heliotrope - Heliotropium ternatum, East End, Grand Cayman 
Ann Stafford, Aug. 8, 2010

Heliotropium ternatum, Grand Cayman, Martin Brunt

Coral/limestone ridge bordering the sea, Half Moon Bay, June 13, 1967

Heliotropium ternatum (Dominica)
July 18, 1964 R. L. Wilbur, E. L. Dunn, H. A. Hespenheide, D. R. Wiseman