Plumbago scandens L.

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Plumbaginaceae

• Scientific Name

  Plumbago scandens L.

• Description

  Species Description - Growing in various situations, and locally plentiful, the White Plumbago is well known as an attractive, native, white-flowered herb, throughout tropical America, ranging north into Florida; in Porto Rico it is to be seen on banks, in thickets, and sometimes in waste places, or in cultivated grounds; it is occasionally planted in gardens, but its relatives, Plantago capensis, the Blue Plumbago, or Isabel segunda, native of South Africa, and Plumbago rosea, Red Plumbago, Asiatic, are more showy and are frequently cultivated. The Spanish name Higuillo is sometimes used for our plant, but is also applied to several others. Plumbago (Latin, leadwort), is a genus consisting of about 12 species of perennial herbs, vines and shrubs, natives of both the Old World and the New, taken up by Linnaeus in 1753, with the European Leadwort, Plumbago europaea, as typical; the name was derived from plumbum, lead, apparently from a fancied resemblence in the color of the foliage of this species to that metal. The plants have alternate leaves, and conspicuous flowers in long, slender, bracted clusters (spikes). The calyx is 5-ribbed, usually 5 lobes, and is beset with characteristic glands, which are organs of secretion; the corolla is salverform, composed of 4 or 5 clawed petals, their claws united into a tube; there are 5 stamens, borne at the base of the ovary, their filaments broadened below the middle, their anthers narrow; the ovary contains but 1 ovule, the 5 styles are partly united, the stigmas borne along their inner sides. The fruit is a small capsule. Plumbago scandens is a perennial, somewhat woody herb, its smooth, slender branches often elongated and vine-like (whence the specific name scandens meaning climbing). The leaves are rather broad, short-stalked, thin, smooth, pointed, and from 3 to 10 centimeters long. The spikes of flowers are stalked, from 5 to 12 centimeters long, the flowers often numerous, their bracts about 5 millimeters; the calyx is about 10 millimeters long, loosely covered with long-stalked glands; the slender tube of the corolla is about twice as long as the calyx, the rounded, but minutely tipped lobes from 5 to 7 millimeters long. The fruit is a slender, smooth capsule, about 6 millimeters long, enclosed in the calyx.

• Discussion

  Meladillo White Plumbago Plumbago Family Plumbago scandens Linnaeus, Species Plantarum, edition 2, 215. 1762.