Sierra nakedwood facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Sierra nakedwood |
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|---|---|
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Colubrina
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| Species: |
greggii
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Colubrina greggii is a type of flowering plant often called the Sierra nakedwood or Gregg's colubrina. It belongs to the Rhamnaceae family. This plant is mostly found in eastern Mexico. There's also a separate group of these plants in southern Texas in the United States.
Colubrina greggii is very similar to another plant called C. arborescens, which grows in Southern Florida and the Caribbean. It's so similar that it can be hard to tell them apart just by looking at dried plant samples. The plant is named after an American botanist, Josiah Gregg (1806 – 1850). He was the first to collect a sample of this plant near Monterrey, Nuevo León in 1848.
Contents
What Does It Look Like?
Colubrina greggii can be a shrub (a bushy plant) that is about 2 to 3 meters (6.5 to 10 feet) tall. It can also grow into a small tree, reaching up to 5 meters (16 feet) tall. Its stems have a zigzag shape and can be smooth or slightly hairy.
Leaves and Flowers
The leaves grow one after another along the stem. They are simple, meaning each leaf has one blade. The leaves are shaped like an egg or a spear, with finely toothed edges. They are usually 6 to 18 centimeters (2.4 to 7 inches) long and 3 to 8 centimeters (1.2 to 3.1 inches) wide. The small stalks that connect the leaves to the stem are 4 to 20 millimeters (0.16 to 0.79 inches) long.
The plant's flowers grow in a cluster called a thyrse, which can have 20 to 80 flowers. The flower stalks are 5 to 12 millimeters (0.2 to 0.5 inches) long. The flowers are a greenish-yellow color. They have stamens (the parts that produce pollen) that are opposite the spoon-shaped petals. Colubrina greggii flowers in the spring or summer and continues to flower into the fall.
Fruit
After flowering, the plant produces fruit. The fruit stalks are 5 to 10 millimeters (0.2 to 0.4 inches) long. The fruit itself is a hard, round capsule (a dry fruit that splits open to release seeds). It's about 8 to 10 millimeters (0.3 to 0.4 inches) wide. You can see the remains of the calyx (the outer parts of the flower) forming a ring around the middle of the fruit.
Where Does It Grow?
Colubrina greggii is found in several states in Mexico, including Coahuila, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, Tamaulipas, and Veracruz.
In Texas, this plant only grows in the lower Rio Grande Valley. Here, it is often found near Sabal mexicana palms at elevations from 0 to 10 meters (0 to 33 feet) above sea level.
In Queretaro and Guanajuato, C. greggii grows in different types of forests and shrublands. It can be found in tropical dry forests (both old and new ones), dry, desert-like shrublands, and oak forests. In these areas, it grows at higher elevations, from 300 to 1600 meters (980 to 5,250 feet) above sea level.
Plant Family Connections
Colubrina greggii is part of a group of very similar plants. This group includes C. angustior, which grows in San Luis Potosi, southern Tamaulipas, and northern Veracruz. It also includes C. yucatanensis, found in Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatán, and Guatemala's Petén Department.
For a long time, C. angustior and C. yucatanensis were thought to be just different types of C. greggii. However, in 2013, scientists decided they were different enough to be considered their own separate species.
