Mitracarpum
(from mitra, a mitre, and karpos, a fruit; in allusion to the fruit being cut round about in the middle). ORD. Rubiaceae. A genus comprising about thirty species of erect or prostrate herbs, very often with a perennial root, for the most part inhabiting tropical America, with a few from tropical and Southern Africa. Flowers white, minute, in denseflowered heads; calyx tube turbinate, obovoid, or subglobose; limb four or five-toothed; corolla salver-shaped or funnel-formed; tube often with a band of hairs within, throat naked or villous. Leaves opposite, linear-lanceolate or ovate. M. stylosum, the species introduced to cultivation, is a stove annual. None of the species are of any horticultural merit.