Exostema
Genus of flowering plants
Exostema is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. It consists of trees and shrubs, endemic to the neotropics, with most of the species occurring in the West Indies.
01Description
02Systematics
The type species for the genus is Exostema caribaeum. It is a tree of Central America and the Caribbean. Its lumber is of limited use.
Exostema was first named by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon as a subgenus of Cinchona. It was first validly published as a genus by Aimé Bonpland in 1807. The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek words, exo, meaning "outside", and stema, "stamen".
As circumscribed in 2010, Exostema was probably polyphyletic. Species have since been moved to other genera.
Species
As of May 2026, Plants of the World Online accepted the following species:
- Exostema acuminatum Urb.
- Exostema caribaeum (Jacq.) Schult.
- Exostema coriaceum (Poir.) Schult.
- Exostema glaberrimum Borhidi & M.Fernández
- Exostema lancifolium Borhidi & Acuña
- Exostema nitens Urb.
- Exostema purpureum Griseb.
- Exostema salicifolium Griseb.
- Exostema spinosum (Le Vavass.) Krug & Urb.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Exostema”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Plantarum indigenarum et exoticarum icones ad vivum coloratae, oder, Sammlung nach der Natur gemalter Abbildungen inn- und ausländlischer Pflanzen, für Liebhaber und Beflissene der Botanik (14043178270).jpg by Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain
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