Duranta erecta L.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘Three species of Duranta are recorded in Willdenow’s edition of the Species Plantarum; but it is even doubtful whether all of them are not mere varieties of the same.  The branches in the same species are described as being sometimes beset with thorns, but often not; the leaves as sometines quite entire, at other times sawed at the edge; and Swartz remarks, that the calycine laciniae of the fruit, Jacquin’s mark of distinction, are found to be both erect and twined on the same branch.  In our plant, which agrees with Jacquin’s figure of Ellisia, no sooner had the flower dropped, than the teeth of the calyx began to twist together.  Two kinds, one with thorns and the other constantly without, are however still cultivated in our collections, and are probably the same species as described by Philip Miller.  The leaves of the smooth are larger and more coarsely serrated and the branches more rounded than in the prickly Duranta.  Native of South-America and the West-Indies, and treated with us as a stove plant.  Miller, by whom it was cultivated before the year 1739, remarks, however, that it does best when exposed to the open air in mild weather, and says he has preserved it through the winter without artificial heat.  Propagated by seeds; or by cuttings, which strike readily.  Communicated by A. B. Lambert, Esq. from his collection at Boyton, where it was raised from seeds received from Mexico.’  [BM t.1759/1815].

‘It forms a pretty shrub of moderate growth, flowering more freely than the others of the genus; with as its season the latter part of the summer.’  [LBC no.280/1818].  Introduced to Britain in 1733.  [JD].

History at Camden Park

Listed in the 1850 and 1857 catalogues [T.398/1850].  Naturalised in the Camden Park gardens to the point of being a weed.

Notes