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Myrsine

L. (1753)

This name is accepted

Kingdom: Viridiplantae Phylum: Magnoliophyta Class/Clade: Eudicot-Asterids Order: Ericales Family: Primulaceae Genus: Myrsine

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Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blade elliptic, oblong, obovate, or oblanceolate. Apex acute to rounded, often emarginate. Surfaces punctate or with secretory canals. Margins entire to serrate or dentate. Pinnately veined. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers few to numerous in axillary, fasciculate, umbellate, or glomerate inflorescences arising on short scaly branches, spurs, or woody knobs often below the leaves, bracteate, but bracteoles absent. Flowers small, bisexual (perfect) or unisexual (and then plants usually dioecious). Calyx 4–5(6)-lobed, usually deeply so, the lobes imbricate or valvate in bud, punctate or with secretory lines, margins usually papillose or ciliate, persistentpunctate or with secretory lines, margins usually papillose or ciliate, persistent. Corolla 4–5(6)-lobed, the lobes nearly distinct or connate up to ½ their length, imbricate in bud, usually punctate or with secretory lines, margins usually ciliate. Stamens inserted on corolla throat and filaments completely adnate to corolla tube, or inserted at base of lobes and filaments connate, forming a short tube that is partly distinct from corolla tube; anthers dithecal, introrse, reduced and sterile in pistillate flowers. Ovary superior, 3–5(6)-carpellate, 1-celled; ovules few in a single row, ovary reduced and sterile or absent in staminate flowers; style very short or absent, terminal; stigma variously capitate-angled, conical, or sausage–shaped.

Fruit: Fruit a subglobose drupe; endocarp crustaceous; coriaceous; or woody; the withered stigma persistent. Seeds 1 per fruit; small; dark colored; subglobose; excavated at base.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range:

Historical Distribution

Images

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Uses and Culture

USES

  • Bark for dye (Hillebrand 1888:280); wood for kapa anvils (kua kuku kapa) and charcoal/ashes for dye (Malo 1951:21); trunks and branches for posts and beams in house construction (Degener 1930:249; Lamb 1981:107); canoe gunwales (Krauss 1993:50). In the Ethnology Collection at Bishop Museum there is a post-contact example of the wood made into a bowl.

  • Red dye (bark) and black dye (stem)

PROPAGATION/CULTIVATION

  • Intermediate. Sew with seed coat in tact. Slow germination and growth. Do not pull off attached seed coat. Leave in seedbed for 3–4 weeks after there are at least 3 leaves. After transplanting seedlings are very sensitive to drying out. Culliney and Koebele report no success in transferring kōlea from pots to open ground (1999:91–93).

Natural History

Island Status

Dispersal Agents


Pollinators

Bibliography

Name Published In: Sp. Pl.: 196 (1753)

Occurrences

SNo. Scientific Name Scientific Name Authorship Locality Habitat Basis of Record Recorded By Record Number Island Source Date
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