Field of Science

Plant ID - UTF my speciality

The internet has brought a whole new dimension to us plant identifiers. In the old days people with plastic bags of plant parts or telephone calls ("it's got green leaves and red berries; what is it?") all got routed to the Phactor, but they hadn't travelled very far. Now specimens come from all over the world and from lots of strange places, and while this botanist has gotten around pretty well, it's still only a couple of dozen countries. So an old buddy sends along an image and asks what he's taken a picture of in Dominica, an island the Phactor has never visited. Ah, but this one was easy because it's part of the UTF - ubiquitious tropical flora, a group of plants that's been moved around so much most people have no idea where the plant is really from or what it's really called. In some tropical places, people may never even see a native plant. Many members of the UTF pick up new common names in their new locations. The picture is pretty good, although it looked better in the horizontal, but blogger rotated it for me (?), and several obvious features should narrow things down for you right away. Note the big, glossy, opposite leaves and the white flowers with 5 corolla lobes flaring from a narrow tube. You should have thought that's in the Rubiaceae right away. Now the fruit is a bit unusual for this family, but very distinctive for this plant, which is often called noni, or Indian mulberry, or cheese fruit among others. Morinda citrifolia naturalizes near beach areas now in lots of countries although it's a native of SE Asia. As one of the common names suggests, the fruit is not to everyone's liking; think limburger cheese. Since the fruit is composed from many flowers, this is a multiple fruit, like pineapple. The Phactor scores again!

1 comment:

Sarcozona said...

Hooray! I recognized it as Rubiaceae right away! My plant systematics teacher would be proud. And then remind mr of the trouble I have recognizing the local Rubiaceae...