''Varronia curassavica'',

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

''Cordia curassavica'', commonly known as black sage or wild sage, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of flowering plant in the borage family,

Boraginaceae Boraginaceae, the borage or forget-me-not family, includes about 2,000 species of shrubs, trees and herbs in 146, to 156 genera with a worldwide distribution. The APG IV system from 2016 classifies the Boraginaceae as single family of the order ...

. It is sometimes called tropical black sage to distinguish it from another unrelated species named black sage, ''

Salvia mellifera ''Salvia mellifera'' (black sage, also known as seel by the Mahuna) is a small, highly aromatic, evergreen shrub of the genus ''Salvia'' (the sages) native to California, and Baja California, Mexico. It is common in the coastal sage scrub of Sou ...

''. It is native to tropical America but has also been widely introduced to

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

and the tropical

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

region, where it is an

invasive weed An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

is a

latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

ised form of

Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...

, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea region and the locality of the type collection.Flora of Australia Online.

Description

Black sage is a many-branched shrub growing up to 3 m in height and smelling strongly of

sage Sage or SAGE may refer to: Plants * ''Salvia officinalis'', common sage, a small evergreen subshrub used as a culinary herb ** Lamiaceae, a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint or deadnettle or sage family ** ''Salvia'', a large ...

. Its

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are lanceolate to ovate in shape, 40–100 mm long and 15–60 mm wide. The small white flowers grow in clusters at the ends of the branches; they have a funnel-shaped corolla, 4–6 mm long. The small, fleshy red

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

s each contain a single 4–5 mm long seed.

References

Sources

* Boraginaceae Flora of Central America Flora of South America Plants described in 1760 Taxa named by Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin {{Asterid-stub