Plant of the day is: Myrcianthes fragrans or Simpson's Stopper/Twinberry
I promise this has nothing to do with the fact that Florida is staring at a category 4 hurricane. Pure coincidence. I actually just cleaned and sowed some seeds of these today and decided I'd like to learn a little bit more about them. The fruit is edible actually (not the seeds I was told). To me it reminded me a bit of the taste of gin... not bad, not great, but interesting. Definitely a flavor I'd spend some time with throughout the seasons. Hoping to get one up and growing.
Taxonomy, etc: The Myrcianthes genus is fairly small with only about 37 species found throughout Central and South America. From a quick glance it looks like M. fragrans is the only species native to the United States. A good chunk of the rest of them are in Colombia, Bolivia, and Venezuela. The genus was described in 1856. The genus is the in the Myrtaceae family with Eucalyptus, Melaleuca, and another Caribbean fruit that I have eaten, Syzygium samarangense. A common theme of the family is brightly colored and numerous stamens. While the stamens for M. fragrans aren't particularly colorful, they are numerous and give a decent show. Published by Roger McVaugh in Fieldiana, Bot. in 1963. It was listed as Myrtus fragrans at one point by Swartz BUT do to taxonomical confusion was named by McVaugh possibly all because of a neglected question mark. The technicalities of taxonomy. Read the tale here.
Description: A small tree/shrub reaching 6-10m tall and 3-6m wide. Habit greatly depends on growing location and pruning habit. You can really grow it how you like. It has a flaking outsider bark, reddish brown inner bark. Will develop a buttressed root flare with age. Leaves simple, entire, and opposite with a short petiole. Fairly elliptical leaf. The leaves can often curl a bit at the margins and tips (see below). The leaves smell quite nice when crushed (hence fragrans). Flowers throughout the year but see best flowering in Florida in February through early summer. Flowers are white, also smell lovely, and lead to a very bright red fruit with two seeds in it (can confirm). The fruits are a popular favorite of native birds. The flowers are also frequented by a variety of pollinator plants. It's a pretty awesome Florida native really. You can even turn it into a hedge. It will get the guava fungus
Thanks to the University of Florida IFAS Extenstion for a great reference on this.
Distribution/Range: It is a native of South Florida but has made its way well up the coastline up to Charleston, SC. It is also found in the Caribbean but is rare in Puerto Rico. The Island of Mayaguana in the Southern Bahamas still has forests of them growing on elevated rocky ridges. Apparently if you are in Florida they're fairly common, even used as parking lot island trees.
Culture: Has a high salt tolerance, which is to be expected given its coastal propensity, prefers well drained soils but can handle occasional saturated soils (like ...umm hurricanes??). It is fairly drought tolerant once established. It is a 9b-11 so don't think about trying it outside in the Midwest.
© 2009 - 2016 PlantANT Image from website
No comments:
Post a Comment