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Verbenaceae
Verbena Family
By Cindy
Escoto and George Rogers
A large worldwide family primarily of warm climates characterized by usually
opposite, often serrate-margined leaves, bilaterally symmetrical flowers, 4
stamens in 2 pairs, and superior ovaries. The boundary between the Verbenaceae
and Lamiaceae (Mint Family) is blurred, with a tendency in contemporary taxonomy
to reinterpret the memberships of these and associated families. For discussion
see:
http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/science/lamwhat.html. For most
commonly encountered species, Verbenaceae are distinguished traditionally from
Lamiaceae by the following tendencies: Plants in the Verbenaceae are usually
woody (vs. herbaceous or subshrubby), usually scentless (vs. smelling minty),
and with the top of the fruit flat or nearly so (often with 4 very shallow
divisions resembling four slices of pizza). In traditional Lamiaceae, by
contrast, the ovary and fruit are divided deeply into four fully separate lobes
resembling four eggs sitting on a saucer.
Key to
Verbenaceae Cultivated in South Florida
1. Trees or
shrubs with pea-sized golden fruits (flowers usually purple, or rarely
white)…Golden Dewdrops (Duranta erecta)
1. Fruits
not golden…2
2. Large
shrubs with the calyx (immediately below the petals) resembling the rim of a
hat (flowers usually red or orange)…Chinese Hat (Holmskioldia sanguinea)
2. Calyx
not resembling a hat rim…3
3. Calyx
purple (rarely white); plants large woody vines…Queen’s Wreath (Petrea
volubilis) (For purple calyx see also
Clerodendrum Xspeciosum,
this differing from Petrea by having soft, erect (vs. hard, spreading)
calyx lobes and red (vs. purple) petals)
3. Calyx
not purple, sometimes inconspicuous; plants usually not large woody
vines…4
4. Plants
native trees or shrubs having usually orangish petioles and small white
flowers in
dangling clusters…Fiddlewood (Citharexylum fruticosum)
4. Plants
otherwise…5
5. Plants
with serrate leaves and sessile (stalkless) flowers clustered tightly into
heads…6
5. Plants
with leaves entire to serrate, the flowers in spikes or in branched
inflorescences but not in compact heads…9
6. Native
shrubs with small pale flowers in congested thimble-like heads, the heads
nestled in
an involucre (cluster of bracts)…Button Sage Lantana
(Lantana
involucrata)
6.
Flowering heads not nestled in an involucre…7
7. Trailing
groundcovers having pastel flowers, the stems free of prickles…Trailing
Lantana (L.
montevidensis)
7. Flowers
brightly colored reds, oranges, or yellows (rarely white with a yellow
eye), the
stem often prickly…8
8. Leaf
blade margins with 15-30 teeth/side; flowers partly reddish…Common
Lantana (Lantana
camara or hybrid-see discussion)
8. Leaf
blade margins with 3-10(15) teeth/side, the flowers strictly
yellow…Native Yellow Lantana (Lantana depressa-see discussion) (L.
camara-L.
depressa
hybrid: having 10-25 teeth/side and one or both sides of the leaf
base
truncate (squared off))
9. Flowers
in spikes, each flower with no stalk (pedicel) and inserted directly on a spike,
or the pedicel short and hidden by bracts so that its presence is invisible (the
spikes sometimes clustered)…10
9. Flowers
each with a separate stalk (pedicel), in branched arrangements…13
10. Flowers
yellow or yellow and brown, in dangling spikes (or racemes with the pedicels
very short and hidden by bracts)…11
10. Flowers
other then yellow, usually blue or pink…17
11. Flowers
bicolored brown and yellow, plant a tree…Gmelina arborea (rare)
11. Flowers
yellow, shrub or sometimes trained as a small tree…12
12. Leaf
blades scaly beneath; plants not thorny…Parrot’s Beak (Gmelina
philippensis)
12. Leaf
blades silky beneath; plants thorny…Bulang (Gmelina asiatica)
13. Native
shrubs with small pale blue-violet flowers clustered along the stem; fruits
bright violet-purple, resembling shiny plastic…Beautyberry (Callicarpa
americana)
13. Plants
otherwise…14
14. Plants
lemon-scented, the leaves whorled…Lemon-Verbena (Aloysia triphylla)
14. Plants
not lemon-scented (unscented or having mild minty fragrance)…15
15. Corolla
usually reddish or pink (or rarely blue), 13-18 mm long, plants to 6’ tall or
taller…S. mutabilis
15. Corolla
usually blue or violet, shorter than 13 mm; plants usually under 4’
tall…16
16. Teeth
on leaf blades obtuse (blunt); plants sprawling to upright; floral bracts ovate-lanceolate…S.
jamaicensis
16. Teeth
on leaf blades sharp-tipped (acute, acuminate); plants upright; floral bracts
lanceolate-subulate…S. urticifolia
17. Leaves
trifoliate (often variegated)…Three-Leaf Chaste Tree (Vitex trifolia)
17. Leaves
simple…18
18. Plants
scented; flowers in erect pyramids, lavender-blue; fruits
purple…Tropical-Lilac (Cornutia grandifolia)
18. Plants
otherwise; flowers usually red or white or combinations of the two (or rarely
blue and white, or having red petals with violet calyx); usually with protruding
stamens…19
19. Flowers
blue and white…Butterfly Clerodendrum (Clerodendrum ugandense)
19. Flowers
red, white, pinkish, or combinations of red and white (sometimes with violet
calyx)…20
20. Flowers
largely or completely white; plants shrubby…21
20. Flowers
red or partly so, or pinkish…22
21. Flowers
white or very nearly so; calyx becoming red and swollen; leaves green on both
surfaces…Tube Clerodendrum (Clerodendrum minahassae, uncommon, see also
C. indicum, an invasive exotic species compared with C. minahassae
under the species treatment)
21. Flowers
white toward the outer ends but purplish below (in distinctive rounded pompom
clusters); calyx not becoming red and swollen; leaves purple below…Shooting Star
Clerodendrum (Clerodendrum quadriculare)
22. Plants
erect shrubs…23
22. Plants
twining vines…26
23. Flowers
rose-violet or pink, in flat-topped clusters…C. bungei
23. Flowers
red, in pyramidal clusters…24
24. Leaves
unlobed, densely pubescent on both surfaces; flowers > 1” long…C.
speciosissimum
24. Leaves
often lobed, glabrous, scaly below, or lightly pubescent on both surfaces;
flowers to
¾” long…C. paniculatum
25. Calyx
white…C. thomsoniae
25. Corolla
rose or red…26
26. Corolla
rose-purple…C. Xspeciosum
26. Calyx
scarlet…C. splendens
Other plants in the manual include:
Nashia inaguensis
Clerodendrum wallichii |
