Steriphoma
(from steriphoma, a foundation; in allusion to the large fruit-stalk). SYNS. Raemeria (of Trattinick), Stephania (of Willdenow). ORD. Capparideae. A small genus (three species) of stove, unarmed shrubs, natives of Peru, New Grenada, Venezuela, and the Trinity Islands. Flowers orange, showy; calyx two or four-lobed at apex, irregularly ruptured; torus very short; petals four, sessile; stamens six; racemes terminal; peduncles thick; pedicels thickened at the apex, infracted or recurved, one-flowered. Leaves long-petiolate, one-foliolate; leaflet lanceolate, entire; petiole thickened at the apex. The only species introduced is well worth cultivating on account of the beauty of its flowers. It thrives in a compost of equal parts loam, peat, and sand. Cuttings should be taken from young wood, inserted in a pot of sand, and plunged in heat, under a hand glass.
S. cleomoides (Cleome-like).* fl. with a reddish-brown calyx and yellow petals and stamens. April to July. l. oblong-lanceolate, much acuminated, scarcely longer than the footstalks. h. 6ft. Caraccas, 1823. SYN. S. paradoxum (B. M. 5788; F. d. S. 564-5; L. & P. F. G. i. 73, p. 107.) S. paradoxum (paradoxical). A synonym of S. cleomoides.