Turraea
(named in honour of George Turra, 1607-1688, Professor of Botany at Padua, and author of several botanical works). ORD. Meliaceae. A genus comprising about sixteen species of stove or greenhouse trees or shrubs, inhabiting tropical and South Africa, tropical Asia, and Australia. Flowers white, elongated; calyx four or five-toothed or parted; petals four or five, elongated, free, twisted; staminal tube cylindrical, four or five-toothed; anthers four or five, included or exserted; disk absent; peduncles axillary, few-flowered, many-bracted. Leaves alternate, petiolate, entire or obtusely lobed. The best-known species are here described. A compost of loam and peat is most suitable for their culture. Propagation may be effected by cuttings of ripened wood, with the leaves intact, inserted in sand, under a glass, in heat.
T. heterophylla (variable-leaved). fl. clustered at the ends of the branches; petals ten to fourteen lines long, shorter than the style; peduncles silky-tomentose, three to eight lines long. May. l. short-stalked, ovate, acute or obtusely pointed, 2in. to 3 1/2in. long, undivided or sub-trilobed, the young ones pubescent beneath. Upper Guinea, 1843. Stove shrub. (B. R. xxx. 4, under name of T. lobata.) T. obtusifolia (obtuse-leaved).* fl. on solitary, axillary peduncles six to ten lines long; petals glabrous, ligulate, 1in. to 1 1/2in. long. May. l. obovate, 1in. to 1 3/4in. long, narrowed into short petioles, entire or obtusely three-lobed, with revolute margins, glabrous on both sides, paler beneath. Branches glabrous. h. 4ft. to 6ft. South Africa, 1872. Greenhouse shrub. (B. M. 6267.) T. rigida (rigid). fl. in sessile fascicles from nodes of branches or old wood; corolla 3/4in. to 1in. long, tubular, at first silky on the outside. April. l. alternate, short-stalked, entire, firm, obtuse or acute, 4in. to 6in. long, penninerved. Mauritias, 1816. A glabrous, stove bush or tree.