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Re: Montinia caryophyllacea (HELP!)

At 20:43 13/03/97 -0800, you wrote:
>A while back I wrote to the list asking for any information anyone might be
>able to supply about Montinia caryophyllacea, for which I had been given
>seeds.  I sowed 12 of them in a 3" pot of commercial seed compost with a
>light covering of vermiculite, put them under fluorescent lights at 70F,
>and two of them have come up.  So now I have seedlings, but of what?  I
>know nothing at all about this plant.  I'm told it might be from southern
>Africa.  A check of the Kew website tells me that it's in the Montiniaceae
>family -- as if that's much help, never heard of any of the three or four
>genera in the family. It's not in the new RHS Dictionary. Would someone out
>there who has a copy of Hortus Third mind taking a look to see if it's
>listed? I'd just like to know what I'm getting in to here.
>
>Thanks.

Hello everyone,

This is my first posting as I am new to this list, but your Montinia
challenge was too tempting, so I gave it a try.  Since there didn't seem to
be much about Montinia caryophyllacea in the horticulture litterature, I
snooped a little bit in my Biology references.  Here's what I found:

There is some basic (yet scarce) botanical information about the
Montiniaceae family (including Montinia) at the "Family of flowering
plants" Web site (text only):

http://muse.bio.cornell.edu/delta/angio/www/montinia.htm

The Montiniaceae is a small family comprising only 4 species of small trees
and shrubs. Montinia and Grevea are the only two genuses of the family.
They are both native to paleotropical regions (southwest and tropical East
Africa + Madagascar). They are dioecious (i.e. with separate male and
female plants). One of the closest related families appears to be the
Gooseberry family (Grossulariaceae).  Some plant taxonomists include the
Montiniaceae within the Grossulariaceae. However, the Montiniaceae produce
non-fleshy capsules as fruit, while the Gooseberry family produces fleshy
berries.  

I also found a mention of Montinia caryophyllacea in "A checklist of plants
reputed to be toxic", but without any details about which part of the plant
may be of concern. 

( http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~djw/plantnam.txt ). 

Unfortunately, I didn't find any pictures relating to the Montinia plant.
The WWW is ironic, though.  It seems that molecular biologists have paid
more attention to it than horticulturists.  In my search, I found the
complete DNA sequence of Montinia caryophyllacea's chloroplasts! 

(For those who may be curious, the URL is
http://www.dna.affrc.go.jp:10081/nakamura-bin/showcodon.cgi?species=Chloropl
ast+Montinia+caryophyllacea+[gbpln] )

I hope this helps.  Good luck growing your plants!  Maybe you'll be able to
show us a pictures someday.

Denise Tousignant



********************************************************
Denise Tousignant, M.Sc., Conseillere scientifique
Pepiniere forestiere de St-Modeste, 
410 rue Principale, St-Modeste, Quebec GOL 3W0 Canada
tel.: 418-862-5511  FAX: 418-862-0564
********************************************************
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