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Plant Profile

Puerto Rico Manjack (Cordia rupicola)

This picture shows this flowering & fruiting plant doing both. Photo Credit: Meghan Fellows

Global Rank: G1 - Critically Imperiled
Legal Status: Federally Threatened
Family: Boraginaceae
State: PR
Nature Serve ID: 154272
Lifeform: Shrub
Date Inducted in National Collection: 02/09/1992

Description:

This species is found in Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands. For a number of years it was considered extinct, until one small population was found on Puerto Rico and another was subsequently found on the island of Anegada in the Virgin Islands. Cordia rupicola is generally a small shrub that can reach up to 5 meters in height. The small white flowers produce a one seeded red fruit.

Where is Puerto Rico Manjack (Cordia rupicola) located in the wild?

Habitat:

C. rupicola can be found growing in Penuelas, Puerto Rico. This site is located within the subtropical dry forest zone situated over a limestone substrate. The hills in this area are covered by low growing dense brush with a few scattered trees.

Distribution:

C. rupicola is currently known from locations in Puerto Rico, the island of Anegada, and the British Virgin Islands.

States & Provinces:

Puerto Rico Manjack can be found in Puerto Rico

Which CPC Partners conserve Puerto Rico Manjack (Cordia rupicola)?

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden

Not Sponsored

Conservation Actions

Assigned 06/09/17

CPC's Plant Sponsorship Program provides long term stewardship of rare plants in our National Collection. We are so grateful for all our donors who have made the Plant Sponsorship Program so successful. We are in the process of acknowledging all our wonderful plant sponsorship donors on our website. This is a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

Conservation Actions

Tina Stanley

05/11/2023

According to a March 2023 extract of the Florida Plant Rescue Database, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden holds 1 accessions of Cordia rupicola totalling approximately 26 seeds representing 1 maternal lines.

Nature Serve Biotics

05/02/2017

Generally thought to be endemic to Puerto Rico, but a single collection was made on the west end of the island of Anegada (British Virgin Islands) in 1987. Otherwise limited to dry hillsides and thickets at lower elevations in southwestern Puerto Rico. Only 15 plants were located in a 1995 survey in Puerto Rico; these were in a residential development. Threats there include clearing for house construction and power line rights-or-way. Three additional plants are known from relatively unthreatened managed forest land. Surveys completed on Anegada estimate several thousand individuals on the island. Because of its extremely limited distribution, all these sites are vulnerable to any natural or human-caused disturbance, such as fire or hurricanes.

01/01/2010

The single known site in Puerto Rico is located on privately held land that is part of a residential development.

01/01/2010

A survey conducted in 1991 failed to detect this species at its known locations in Guanica and Guayanilla, Puerto Rico. In 1995, 15 plants were found at Penuelas, a site east of Guayanilla, Puerto Rico. There is also one reproducing population known on the Island of Anegada.

01/01/2010

Studies of the species distribution, abundance and reproductive biology by the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus are ongoing.

01/01/2010

As of January, 2001, this species was not on Puerto Rico's protection list. The primary management need is to list this species and protect remaining populations.