Randia longiloba

Randia longiloba is recognized by these distinctive features:^[2][3][4]

• It's a shrub or small tree reaching 10 meters high (~33 feet), armed at branch tips with paired spines up to 10 mm long (~⅓ inch). Stipules up to 2 mm long (+1⁄16 inch) clustering at petiole bases are triangular, sharp-pointed, and may or may not persist with age.

• Leaves with short petioles are up to 10 cm long (4 inches) and about half as wide. They cluster at tips of stems and side spurs and are generally elliptic in shape. Blade margins bear no teeth, lobes or indentations, and have up to 10 secondary veins.

• Plants are dioecious, with a few very aromatic flowers arranged in clusters. Atop inferior ovaries, the bottom parts of the white corollas form tubes atop which 5 petals or lobes spread broadly. Male flowers are considerably smaller than female ones.

• Fruits are berry-type, spherical or nearly so, smooth and hairless, and up to 5cm in diameter (~2 inches). Seeds are up to 6 mm long (~¼ inch).

Randia longiloba is endemic just to the southeastern Mexican states of Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo and Yucatan.^[5][6]

In Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Randia longiloba occurs in low- and medium-height dry forest and moist forests, including those with columnar cacti.^[7] Also they occur in acahuales,^[3] which basically constitute the revegetation stage of traditional slash-and-burn agriculture, with the possibility of using the cut woody plants, not just burn them.^[8]

The fruit of Randia longiloba provides food for birds and squirrels.^[9]