Common Name: STAFF-TREE FAMILY Habit: Shrub (climbing or not), tree, thorny or not, generally glabrous. Leaf: simple, opposite or alternate, deciduous to persistent, subsessile or petioled; veins pinnate. Inflorescence: cluster, cyme, raceme, panicle, or 1-flowered, axillary or terminal, bracted. Flower: generally bisexual, radial, small; hypanthium +- cup-shaped; sepals 4--5; petals (0)4--5, free; stamens 4--5, alternate petals, attached below or to rim of disk; ovary superior or +- embedded in disk, 2--5-chambered, placentas axile or basal, style generally 1, short, stigma +- head-like, 2--5-lobed. Fruit: capsule, winged achene, berry, drupe, or nutlet, often 1-chambered. Seed: generally 1 per chamber, arilled. Genera In Family: 50 genera, 800 species: worldwide, especially southeastern Asia; some ornamental (Celastrus, Euonymus, Maytenus, Paxistima). eFlora Treatment Author: Michael A. Vincent & Barry A. Prigge Scientific Editor: Thomas J. Rosatti.
Habit: Shrub, erect, scabrous. Leaf: alternate, persistent, ascending, leathery, entire; margin generally thicker. Inflorescence: panicle, terminal, many-flowered. Flower: parts in 5s; hypanthium obconic; petals white; disk fused to hypanthium except at top, fleshy, +- white, in age red-purple; ovary superior, narrowly ovoid, stigma lobes 5, slender, spreading. Fruit: nutlet 1, oblong-cylindric, light brown. Seed: 1, straw-colored, difficult to separate from fruit; aril 0. Etymology: (S.G. Morton, American botanist, physician, 1799--1851)
Mortonia utahensis (Trel.) A. Nelson
NATIVE Habit: Plant 3--12 dm, coarsely scabrous. Stem: twigs cream-white, in age gray. Leaf: petiole +- 0--1 mm; blade 6--16 mm, ovate to round, abaxially concave transversely, convex longitudinally, base rounded to tapered, tip rounded to acute, mucronate or not. Inflorescence: 8--65 mm, 6--23 mm wide. Flower: hypanthium 1.5--2 mm; sepals 1--2.3 mm, keeled, tips often acute, keeled; petals 2.2--3 mm, ovate. Fruit: 5--7 mm, glabrous. Ecology: Limestone slopes, canyon bottoms; Elevation: 350--2100 m. Bioregional Distribution: n DMoj; Distribution Outside California: to southwestern Utah. Flowering Time: Mar--May Jepson eFlora Author: Michael A. Vincent & Barry A. Prigge Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange) Listed on CNPS Rare Plant Inventory Previous taxon: Mortonia Next taxon: Paxistima
Botanical illustration including Mortonia utahensis
Citation for this treatment: Michael A. Vincent & Barry A. Prigge 2012, Mortonia utahensis, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=34025, accessed on April 23, 2024.
Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on April 23, 2024.
MAP CONTROLS 1. You can change the display of the base map layer control box in the upper right-hand corner.
2. County and Jepson Region polygons can be turned off and on using the check boxes.
(Note: any qualifiers in the taxon distribution description, such as 'northern', 'southern', 'adjacent' etc., are not reflected in the map above, and in some cases indication of a taxon in a subdivision is based on a single collection or author-verified occurence).
Data provided by the participants of the
Consortium of California Herbaria.
MAP LEGEND View all CCH records All markers link to CCH specimen records. The original determination is shown in the popup window.
Blue markers indicate specimens that map to one of the expected Jepson geographic subdivisions (see left map). Purple markers indicate specimens collected from a garden, greenhouse, or other non-wild location.
Yellow markers indicate records that may provide evidence for eFlora range revision or may have georeferencing or identification issues.
READ ABOUT YELLOW FLAGS
CCH collections by month
Duplicates counted once; synonyms included.
Species do not include records of infraspecific taxa, if there are more than 1 infraspecific taxon in CA.
Blue line denotes eFlora flowering time (fruiting time in some monocot genera).