Plumeria rubra

Red Frangipani ( Plumeria rubra)

The Red Frangipani ( Plumeria rubra) is a species of the genus of Frangipani ( Plumeria ) in the family of the dogbane family ( Apocynaceae ).

Description

The red Frangipani grows as a tree up to 25 m high. The trunk is corked, the leaf scars are clearly prominent. The younger shoots are hairy slightly tomentose. The fixed membranous leaves are elliptic- oblong to elliptic - obovate. They grow to 40 cm long and 15 cm wide. Towards the front they are acute or short acuminate, base narrowed. The top is usually glabrous, the base is more or less hairy to hairless. The secondary veins unite to create a border wire. The petioles are 3-6 cm long,

The panicle inflorescences consist of several to many luxurious flowers and are usually terminal. The inflorescence stems are up to 12 cm long, the flower stems are between 0.4 and 2 cm long and are hairy. The cup has a length of about 3 mm and is staffed with ovate - square, stachelspitzigen and hairy calyx lobes. The crown is salverform, white and purple on the bottom, sometimes with a yellow throat. In cultured forms, the color between red and yellow, or even vary in three colors. The corolla tube is 14 to 18 mm long, the Corolla lobe are broadly obovate, 30-45 mm long and 2-3 cm wide.

The follicles are 15-30 cm long and 2-3 cm thick.

Occurrence

The species is native to southern Mexico and Central America, but is often cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions as an ornamental plant, sometimes they run wild there too.

Especially as an ornamental plant is the type in Florida for the butterfly pseudo tetrio significant, whose caterpillars, it serves as food.

Swell

• Henri Alain Liogier: Descriptive Flora of Puerto Rico and adjancent Islands, Spermatophyta, Volume IV: Melastomataceae to Lentibulariaceae. Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1995, ISBN 0-8477-2337-2, pp. 217-218.