Flacourtia

Plant Characteristics

Origin:	✈	?

Cultivation

Exposure:	☼	?"?" is not in the list (sun, part-sun, shade, unknown) of allowed values for the "Exposure" property.
Water:	◍	?"?" is not in the list (wet, moist, moderate, dry, less when dormant) of allowed values for the "Water" property.

Scientific Names

Read about Flacourtia in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Flacourtia (Etienne de Flacourt, 1607-1660, General Director of the French East India Company. Governor of Madagascar and author of a history of Madagascar). Flacourtiaceae. One of the species, a shrub with edible fruits, is cultivated in the tropics and has been introduced in southern California and perhaps elsewhere. Shrubs and small trees, often spine-bearing: lvs. short-stalked, toothed or crenate, simple, alternate: fls. small, dioecious, in small racemes or glomes or panicles (the fertile ones sometimes solitary); sepals 4-5, scale-like, ciliated, overlapping; petals none; stamens many; styles 2 to many; ovary 2-5-celled: fr. a berry, often edible, usually with 1 seed in each cell. —Fifteen to 20 species in Trop. Afr., Asia, and islands. Ramontchi, L’Her. Governor Plum. Batoko Plum in the Zambesi region. Fig. 1509. An excessively variable shrub or small tree, as customarily defined, native in Trop. Afr. and Asia, and planted in the American tropics: glabrous or nearly so, spiny or spineless (spines axillary): lvs. oblong to elliptical and obovate, obtuse or pointed, variously crenate-dentate, short-petioled: sterile fls. in short racemes, the fertile few or solitary or in pairs, all small; styles 5-7, very short, radiate: fr. cherry-like, to 1 in. diam., roundish and pulpy, with 8-10 seeds, purple, red, or blackish, bearing on top the remains of the stigmas; edible, ripening in the farther West Indies early in the year but some specimens sometimes remaining till Sept. There are various forms, as var. inermis and var. macrocarpa. Hooker & Thomson in "Flora of British India" recognize 5 marked varieties, and include within the species F. sapida of Roxburgh. The species is reported as "common throughout India, wild or cult." and as having a distribution from Madagascar to the E. Archipelago. Duthie, in "Flora of the Upper Gangetic Plain," says that the var. sapida (with pubescent branchlets, elliptic or suborbicular lvs. which are glabrous or puberulous only on the veins beneath) produces fr. that is eaten raw or cooked, and twigs and lvs. that are used as fodder. "Ramontchi" is said to be the native name in Madagascar. L H. B. Flag: Iris. Cat-tail Flag: Typha. Corn Flag: Gladiolis. Sweet Flag: Acorus calamus. Yellow Flag: Iris pseudacorus. Flamboyant: Poinciana. Flame-tree: Sterculia acerifolia. Flax: Linum. False Flax: Camelina. New Zealand Flax: Phormium tenax. Toad Flax: Linaria. Fleabane: Erigeron. CH The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

Cultivation

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Propagation

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Pests and diseases

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Gallery

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

External links

• w:Flacourtia. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
• Flacourtia QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)