Trichilia triacantha is a species of plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

 in the Meliaceae

Meliaceae

The Meliaceae, or the Mahogany family, is a flowering plant family of mostly trees and shrubs in the order Sapindales....

 family. It is endemic to Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

. It is threatened by habitat loss. It is a federally listed endangered species

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

 of the United States.

The bariaco is a shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 or a tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 reaching up to 9 meters tall. It has leaves made up of several leathery, spine-toothed leaflets and the flowers are white. The fruit is a capsule with a red aril

Aril

An aril is any specialized outgrowth from the funiculus that covers or is attached to the seed. It is sometimes applied to any appendage or thickening of the seed coat in flowering plants, such as the edible parts of the mangosteen and pomegranate fruit, the mace of the nutmeg seed, or the...

.

The plant grows in dry forest habitat on limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 substrates, often near intermittent streams.

As of 2007 there were 10 populations of the tree containing a total of 109 individuals. 47 of these were found to be fertile. Six of the ten populations were located in the Guánica National Forest

Guánica State Forest

The Guánica State Forest is a subtropical dry forest located in southwest Puerto Rico. The area was designated as a forest reserve in 1919 and a United Nations Biosphere Reserve in 1981...

. Two of these were composed of single individuals located several kilometers from other members of the species, and so are unlikely to reproduce.

This plant has been overharvested because its wood is useful and attractive.

Source

• World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1998. Trichilia triacantha. 2011 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 17 August 2011.