Randia laetevirens Standl.

Randia laetevirens Standley, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 23: 1377
1926. A shrub 1-3 meters high, the branches grayish or brownish, the branchlets stout, divaricate, strigillose when young, bearing at the apex 2 stout ascending spines 0.8-1.5 cm. long, the leaves crowded on very short lateral spurs; stipules 3 mm. long or shorter, cuspidate from a deltoid base, strigillose or glabrate outside, glabrous within; petioles 5 mm. long or shorter, often obsolete; leaf-blades mostly obovate-oblong, sometimes obovate, oblong, oblong-oval, elliptic, or rarely suborbicular, 0.8-6 cm. long, 0.5-2.2 cm. wide, acute, acuminate, or attenuate at the base, rarely rounded, acute to rounded at the apex, often mucronulate, coriaceous at maturity, bright-green, glabrous, lustrous above, often whitish-punctulate, the venation prominent or prominulous, the lateral nerves plane or subimpressed beneath, 4—9 on each side, subdivaricate, the margin usually subrevolute; flowers perfect, terminal, sessile, usually clustered, 5-parted; calyx and hypanthium 1.5-3 mm. long, glabrous or obscurely scaberulous, the calyxlobes triangular-subulate, half as long as the tube or almost obsolete; corolla white, acute or acuminate in bud, glabrous outside, the tube 4—6.5 mm. long, cylindric, dilated upward, the throat naked, the lobes 2.5-4.5 mm. long, rounded-ovate, abruptly short-acuminate; anthers subexserted; fruit globose, 8-14 mm. in diameter, smooth or slightly rugose, glabrous, stramineous, the pericarp thick and hard; seeds few (5-7), 6-7 mm. long, dark-brown.
Type locality: Cerro de la Silla, near Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Distribution: In dry thickets, Tamaulipas to Sinaloa, Nayarit, and Veracruz.