Ten popular garden plants and how they got their names.
No tropical garden is complete without Bougainvillea, amongst the handsomest of tropical flowering vines. Named in Honour of Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811) famous explorer and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Bougainvillea climbs by means of rigid curved spines.
Another must have vine is Allamanda, named after an 18th century Swiss botanist, Frederik Allamand who first collected this plant in Surinam. Allamanda Cathartica has trumpet-shaped bright yellow flowers; the species name Cathartica refers to this plant’s cathartic properties.
Oleander is a favourite flowering shrub. Nerium Oleander is native to the Mediterranean Region. Nerium is the classical Greek name and the species name Oleander is derived from Italian Oleandro as having olive-like leaves.
Thunbergia Grandiflora is rampant vine growing up to 20 metres high with blue trumpet shaped flowers. Thunbergia commemorates the Swedish naturalist, Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828).
A shrub grown for it’s multicolored leaves is widely known as Croton, but is not a true Croton, the correct name is Codiaeum, derived from the Malayan Vernacular, Codebo. Croton is a different genus of mostly weedy looking shrubs.
Poinciana Regia originally came from Madagascar. but is named for M. de Poinci ,17th-century Governor of Martinique This spectacular tree is best known in the Islands by the popular name Flamboyant. The correct Latin name for Poinciana is now Delonix, from Greek, for conspicuous.
No garden is complete with out the Frangipani plant. The common name Frangipani comes from a 16th century Nobel Italian family, Frangipani. who attempted to produce a perfume akin to the scent of Plumeria. Plumeria is the Latin for Frangipani. It is named after a French monk, Charles Plumier (1646-1704). Frangipani is the host plant to a sphinx moth. The strikingly coloured black and yellow banded larva feasts on the poisonous latex laden leaves, soon completely defoliating the entire plant. Strangely, the loss of all the leaves appear to assist the plant by reducing transpiration during drought periods.
Pride of Barbados is so named because of its long association with that Island, but the original place of origin is unknown. The Latin name is Caesalpinia Pulcherrima. Caesalpinia is named in Honour of the Italian botanist and philosopher Andrea Cesalpini (1525-1603)
Hibiscus in its many forms generally flowers throughout the year. Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis, as the species name suggests, comes from China.
Last, but not least, is the justly named ‘Firecracker’ Russelia Equisetifolia a native of Mexico, it’s slender tubular red flowers attracting hummingbirds. Russelia is named after a Dr, Alexandra Russell (1715-1768) and the species name means having leaves like a horsetail.
A Bit About The Bush
Caribbean people often refer to the native flora simply as ‘the bush’. If you buy a home in the British Virgin Islands and after spending vast sums on landscaping a handsome island man then shows up, brandishing a cutlass, offering to cut your bush, rest assured, your garden is quite safe. Bush cutting is just a form of local weed control.
Many native plants are still used by locals as medicinal and are collectively known as ‘bush medicine’ the colloquial names of medicinal plants are often aptly named, like, ‘pissy bed’, Senna Bicapsularis said to be used to prevent bed wetting. The ‘pain killer tree’, Morinda Citrifolia is used to reduce swellings and soursop, Annona Muricata, produces a tisane and sedative.
For an inquiring mind the local bush is actually a treasure trove of a magnificent assemblage of diverse native plants including Orchids, Cacti, and Epiphytes, like members of the bromeliad family, that grow supporting themselves on tree trunks or attached to giant Diorite boulders. Plants in the Bromellia family are adapted to survive prolonged periods of drought by retaining rainwater as mini reservoirs in their leaf bases. Some species of tree frogs complete their life cycle breeding in these plant-based water catchments., where some species have evolved to develop directly from spawn into juvenile fully formed froglets, thus missing the tadpole phase of development.
Epiphytic plants growing perched upon Cacti and trees derive no nourishment from them. The host plant merely provides epiphytes with an organic substratum to begin life before eventually colonising the trunk and upper branches, thereby acquiring a well illuminated habitat. At sage mountain, Tortola, Epihytic Anthuriums, Bromeliads, Peperomias and Philodendrons abound. Anthurium Giganteum so named for its giant-sized elephant’s ear like leaves, produces long aerial roots of great strength and elasticity that have the ability to absorb moisture from the air.
Visitors first coming to the Virgin Islands will soon encounter the terms ‘belonger and non-belonger’ this is a form of immigration status to distinguish those people that truly belong to the islands and those that do not.
Many native plants are considered belongers too but are in fact exotics that arrived here long ago. The coastal tree Terminalia Cattapa, native to the Andaman Islands, produces an almond shaped fruit long used to make local almond tart. Even the ubiquitous coconut is a non-belonger having arrived here from the malay archipelago centuries ago. Other non-belongers include many coastal plants that first arrived by having buoyant seed capsules, distributed by ocean currents.
A prominate feature of the Virgin Islands landscape is the preponderance of Cacti well adapted to long periodic droughts to which the islands are accustomed. One tall columnar Cactus reaching 6 meters tall, known as ‘pipe organ’ or ‘dildo cactus’ is Pilocereus Royenii. Several kinds of opuntia (Opuntia is a classical name referring to the ancient town of opus in Greece) are distinguished by having distinctive pad-like branching. Opuntia Rubescens reaches up to 6 meters tall with yellow-orange flowers 2-3 centimetres wide.
Opuntia Repens known as ‘suckers’ is a ubiquitous pest forming dense clumps in coastal woodland and waste places. The pads are armed with needle-like spines, readily detach and adhere to clothing or skin and spread by man and animals. Snow Cactus or Woolly Nipple Cactus, Mammillaria Nivosa was first discovered on Tortola in 1837 and named Mammillaria Tortoliensis. Unfortunately, due to the rules of international plant Nominclature the current name Nivosa must remain. One of the most peculiar cacti which never fails to impress someone seeing it for the first time is Melocatus Intortus known as Barrel Cactus or Turk’s Cap. The main body of this plant is spherical to globose, 15-20 ribbed and armed with 1-5 cm long spines. After many years a curious cyindrical structure known as a Cephallium develops from the top of the plant, reaching up to 60 cm tall. The top of the Cephalium bears reddish-pink flowers pollinated by hummingbirds.
Native Orchids of which 18 species are known in the islands include one of the Vanilla Orchids, Vanilla Barbellata, that is found at Gorda Peak, Virgin Gorda, with whitish stems and twining snakelike over bushes. The name Vanilla means little-sheath or ‘little pod’ from the spanish, vainilla, alluding to the appearance of the shape of the fruit.
Tetramica Canaliculata a low growing, mostly terrestrial, Orchid is found amongst fossil coral beaches where the white fleshy roots trail just under the surface of the coral, protected from the intense heat from the sun. This species evolved to adapt to severe xerophytic conditions of drought and salt laden winds. Other native Orchid genera include Epidendrum, Habinaria and Psychilis. At Sage Mountain Tortola you can find Eulophia Alta. A terrestrial species 1.5 meters tall, in flower.
A Parasitic Vine is all to common and becomes a nuisance if it finds it’s way into your garden, this is Cuscuta Americana commonly known as ‘yellow love’ or ‘dodder’. Seeds germinate in the ground but soon after germination the seedling attaches itself to a suitable host plant by means of suckers known as Haustoria.
Once the young plant becomes parasitic, the roots and lower portion dies away leaving the vine to take all it’s nourishment from the host plant. Cuscuta is yellowish orange in colour and forms a mass of twisted stems resembling a bucket load of spaghetti.
A few plants are poisonous, and these include the Jumbie Bead, Abrus Precatorius, a slender vine with sinister looking bright scarlet and black spotted seeds this plant finds wide use in folk medicine all over the world’ it contains one of the most virulent of all plant poisons.
Catharanthus Roseus ‘periwinkle’ is occasional above sandy shorelines, this plant is cultivated for it’s rose-pink or white flowers. and is widely used in experimental cancer research.
A tree called Andira Inermis with pink or light purple flowers and roundish plum like fruits remaining green on the tree but turning black on falling to the ground and resemble pig droppings, hence the common name Pictod, a corruption of pig turd. The bark has been used in West African folk medicine.
The author of this brief overview is my talented father Mr. John Derek Harvey Smith. His love of botany brought him (and me and my siblings) to the BVI in the early 1970s. If you want to learn more about the plants of the BVI or have a question about a specific species, please let the Red Coral team know and we will ask him for more information. He is sitting in his study in a warm cottage in Lymington in the UK.
