Hamelia
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Describe the plant here...
| Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture |
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Hamelia (Henry Louis Duhamel du Monceau, 1700-1782, prominent French botanical author). Rubiaceae. Ornamental woody plants grown chiefly for their handsome scarlet or yellow flowers and for the attractive black or purple berries. Evergreen shrubs with terete branches: lvs. membranous, opposite or sometimes in whorls, petioled, entire, with interpetiolar stipules: fls. short-stalked or sessile in terminal forking cymes; sepals 5, upright; corolla tubular or bell-shaped, 5-ribbed, contracted at the base, limb with 5 short lobes; stamens 5, with the filaments connate at the base and inserted above the base of the tube; ovary inferior, 5-celled; style slender with spindle-shaped stigma: fr. a small ovoid or globular berry with numerous minute seeds.—About 13 species, by some reduced to 6, in Trop. and Subtrop. Amer. These are upright shrubs with herbaceous shoots, rather large, generally ovate-oblong acute leaves and yellow or scarlet flowers in terminal clusters followed by small black or purple berries. They can be cultivated outdoors in subtropical and tropical regions only. Propagation is by seeds and by cuttings of half-ripened wood in early summer under glass. Of the best-known species much prized in Florida and recommended for northern conservatories under the name of "scarlet bush," E. N. Reasoner writes: "Hamelia patens, a native of the West Indies and Southern Florida, along the coast, a beautiful and almost unknown plant, should become a favorite in greenhouse culture. The leaves have a purplish hue at some seasons of the year, and the flowers are of a bright orange-red color. In Florida it must surely become a favorite for open-air planting, as it is there rarely killed down by frost, and when it is it sprouts up readily from the root, and blooms the following summer. It is in bloom for many months, and without doubt could be forced at any season. With age it becomes a woody shrub, 5 to 12 feet in height. The flowers are succeeded by handsome black berries, which are retained a long while."
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References
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
