Capparis cyanophallophora, commonly known as the Jamaican Caper, is small tree in the caper family, Capparaceae

Capparaceae

Capparaceae , commonly known as the Caper family, is a family of plants in order Brassicales. As currently circumscribed, it contains 33 genera and about 700 species...

, that is native to the neotropics.

Description

The brand new leaves at the apical tips of twigs are folded in half showing only the whitish, hairy abaxial (lower or ventral) side of the leaf. The adexical (upper or dorsal) side of the leaf is glossy and darker. Fruits are long and split to release several large, brown seeds.

Habitat and range

The native range of C. cyanophallophora includes Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

, Central America

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

, and South America as far south as northern Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

. It inhabits mangrove forests, hammocks

Hammock (ecology)

Hammocks are dense stands of hardwood trees that grow on natural rises of only a few inches higher than surrounding marshland that is otherwise too wet to support them. Hammocks are distinctive in that they are formed gradually over thousands of years rising in a wet area through the deposits of...

 and shellmounds

Midden

A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...

in coastal Florida and is extremely drought resistant

External links

• Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden