Raukaua laetevirens
Encyclopedia
Raukaua laetevirens known as traumen and sauco del diablo
(devil's elder) is a species of plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

 native to Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 and adjacent parts of Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 in the Araliaceae
Araliaceae
Araliaceae is a family of flowering plants, also known as the Aralia family or Ivy family. The family includes 254 species of trees, shrubs, lianas and perennial herbaceous plants into 2 subfamilies...

 family. It occurs from Maule
Maule Region
The VII Maule Region is one of Chile's 15 first order administrative divisions. Its capital is Talca. The region takes its name from the Maule River which, running westward from the Andes, bisects the region and spans a basin of about 20,600 km2...

 (35'50'S) to Punta Arenas (53'S). It grows in rainforests and near water courses.

Description

It is an evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...

 tree or that measures up to 6 m tall (20), ash color bark, the leaves are composite, alternate, the petioles are 2-8cm long, thickened at the base, the leaves are digitate, with uneven leaflet
Leaflet
A leaflet in botany is a part of a compound leaf. A leaflet may resemble an entire leaf, but it is not borne on a stem as a leaf is, but rather on a vein of the whole leaf. Compound leaves are common in many plant families...

s, light green glossy in color, leathery, oblong-lanceolate, attenuate at both ends, toothed edges 3-8 long and 1-1,6 wide, the flowers are hermaphrodite
Hermaphrodite
In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.Many taxonomic groups of animals do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both...

, pedicelate, clustered in 2-5 in inflorescences with many raceme
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

s, the flowers are formed by a floral tube 1.5 mm long, the calyx is split in 5 tepal
Tepal
Tepals are elements of the perianth, or outer part of a flower, which include the petals or sepals. The term tepal is more often applied specifically when all segments of the perianth are of similar shape and color, or undifferentiated, which is called perigone...

s and 5 thick whitish-green ovate-lanceolate sepal
Sepal
A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms . Collectively the sepals form the calyx, which is the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. Usually green, sepals have the typical function of protecting the petals when the flower is in bud...

s, with a mucro 2 mm at the acute apex, 5 stamen
Stamen
The stamen is the pollen producing reproductive organ of a flower...

s with whitish anthers, loculate inferous ovary 3-5, 4-5 styles
Gynoecium
Gynoecium is most commonly used as a collective term for all carpels in a flower. A carpel is the ovule and seed producing reproductive organ in flowering plants. Carpels are derived from ovule-bearing leaves which evolved to form a closed structure containing the ovules...

, the fruit is a brown spherical drupe
Drupe
In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...

5-5.5 mm in diameter, crowned by two styles.
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