ABSTRACT
Arrive early in the morning and you will smell the fragrant vanilla odor and see the white flowers on prince wood (Florida, Bahamas, Puerto Rico). Scientifically these trees are Exostema caribaeum, and they were first introduced to Europeans in 1760. That year Nicolaus Jacquin published his book Enumeratio Systematica Plantarum (Systematic Enumeration of Plants) where he called the tree Cinchona caribaea (the Carib’s quinine). His reason for thinking it was a quinine was supported by two lines of evidence-the plants resemble Cinchona, and local people throughout the Caribbean call them quinine in their languages, and use them to treat malaria. It was not until 1819 when the Swiss Johann J.Roemer (1763-1819) and the Austrian Josef A.Schultes (1773-1831) revised the eighth edition of Linnaeus’s Systema Vegetabilium that it was realized the species belonged to another genus in the family Rubiaceae. They moved the species to a genus created by Aimé J.A. Bonpland (1755-1858), the exploring companion of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). In 1807, Bonpland created Exostema. In case you have seen more than one spelling or author citation of that genus be aware that its synonyms are Exostemma Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle and Exostemon George Edward Post and Carl E. Otto Kuntze (Lorence 1999).
