Crossopetalum gaumeri is a shrub species growing mainly in tropical wet forests of southern Mexico and adjacent Central American countries. It belongs to the family Celastraceae.
Description
Here are key features of Crossopetalum gaumeri helping with the species' identification:
The shrub's stems are 4-cornered, hairless and up to tall. Generally they are green or red.
Pairs of leaves on petioles up to long arise opposite one another with blades up to long and wide. Blade margins bear no lobes or indentations, though they can have tiny, widely spaced teeth.
Inflorescences are cymes with peduncles up to long. Flowers are in clusters up to across.
Flowers on pedicels up to long have four reddish-brown petals up to in diameter and 4 rounded sepals about a third as long as the petals; sepals bear short, soft hairs. As with other Crossopetalum species, in the flower's center a short style emerges from the center of a disk- or ring-like, nectar-producing "nectary" about in diameter.
Fruits are drupe-type, red at maturity, up to long, and about wide, broadest above their middles.
Distribution
In southeastern Mexico, Crossopetalum gaumeri occurs in the Yucatan Peninsula. In Central America it is found in Belize and Guatemala. Reports of a disjunct Mexican population in Veracruz state have been determined to be based on a misidentification.
Habitat
In Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Crossopetalum gaumeri occurs in both dry forest and moist forest, as well as among coastal dunes and disturbed, weedy areas such as roadsides and agricultural fields.
Conservation status
The IUCN Red List in 2019 listed Crossopetalum gaumeri as a species of Least Concern with a stable population.
In traditional medicine
In Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula the Mayan people use Crossopetalum gaumeri for snakebite as well as for treating illnesses suggesting an infection such as diarrhea, vomiting, colic, fever and sore throat. In fact, root extracts in methanol are shown to contain terpenoid-type metabolites with potential antimicrobial uses.
Taxonomy
In 1898 when Ludwig Eduard Theodor Loesener formally described Crossopetalum gaumeri under the basionym of Myginda gaumeri, his type specimen was from Buena Vista Xbac, Yucatán, México, collected by George Franklin Gaumer, his #1049.
Etymology
The genus name Crossopetalum is derived from the Greek krossos, meaning "fringe," and petalon, meaning "petal." This alludes to the fringed margins on petals of the type species.
The species name gaumeri honors George Franklin Gaumer, who collected the type specimen
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